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“Issues and Action in Education”
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Despite a massive budget deficit and lack of
evidence of effectiveness or support in the general population, liberals
in both the House and Senate are attempting to implement a statewide
Early Childhood quality rating system (QRS). This is not about school
readiness or academics. It’s about indoctrinating our most vulnerable
citizens with the ideology of the left. While a rating system that would
help parents understand health, safety, costs, hours, or provider
philosophy would be useful to parents, the government wants control
curriculum, as well.
Instead, SF 72, HF 40 and HF 246 require programs to monitor
preschoolers’ academic progress with an assessment tool. The most
likely tool will be the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment, also
called the Work Sampling System.
This assessment is very vague and subjective. It is based on the
controversial Minnesota Early Childhood Indicators of Progress, and
it is falsely used to say that 50% of Minnesota children are not
ready for kindergarten. The end product will be that every
childcare program in the state will be required to teach a
government curriculum that is subjective and non-academic and that
promotes fuzzy mental health outcomes. The legislation would expand
this controversial QRS that was developed as a pilot program by the
Minnesota Early Learning Foundation (MELF).
MELF is the un-elected non-governmental organization that was given
$6 million of our tax dollars in the last biennium to set
important early childhood policy with no public oversight
whatsoever.
SF 72, sponsored by Senator Tarryl Clark (D-St. Cloud) will be heard
in the Senate Education Committee at 8:30 AM on Thursday, January
29th. The House companion bill, HF 40, sponsored by Rep. Sondra
Peterson (D-New Hope), as well as an expanded version of the QRS, HF
246, sponsored by Rep. Nora Slawik (D-Maplewood) will be heard in
the House Early Childhood Finance Committee on the 29th at 4:30 PM.Here is a summary of the many problems
with these really bad bills:
1. Uses subjective, unreliable,
invalid assessments based on vague, non-academic outcomes – Here
are some examples of
items on the assessment
(p. 16 of this Pdf) that are direct
quotes from the
Minnesota Early Childhood Indicators of Progress
(see pages
58-60 of this Pdf document):
- “Shows beginning understanding
of numbers and quantity”- “Shows an appreciation for books
and reading- “Shows eagerness and curiosity
as a learner.”- “Shows empathy and caring for
others.”
How does one accurately, objectively
or fairly assess any of these things in a three or four year old
child? One of the lead trainers from the Dept. of Education that
teaches teachers and providers to use this assessment even said in
committee testimony:
- “So, with work sampling or with
other kinds of observational assessments, you might wonder about
the quality of the observation that the teacher did. And we
might wonder about the conclusions that the teacher inferred
from the observations. Are they accurate? Is that child really
demonstrating a proficient or is it really in process? We
wonder about those kinds of things with performance based
assessments.”What does a rating of “Proficient,”
“In Process,” or “Not Yet” really mean in regard to these and
the other equally vague items on this assessment? Even the
Department of Education that developed the outcomes and
assessment admits in their 2006 assessment report:
grow along a continuum with great variability, the goal of
these studies is to assess children s proficiency within and
across these developmental domains and not establish whether
or not children are ready for school with the use of a
composite ready or not ready score. Young children develop
rapidly and at varying rates across the domains, and an
early, definitive determination of readiness can have
unintended negative consequences”2. Need to measure long-term academic
performance, not “kindergarten readiness” – Ultimately it is not
important whether a child is deemed “ready for kindergarten” by some
unreliable, subjective, invalid assessment, but rather whether a
child does well in school. There are
no studies
showing long-term academic benefit to early childhood
programs beyond the third or fourth grade. There is evidence that
many other factors improve academic achievement without preschool,
such as intact families, parental involvement, and direct
instruction of academic fundamentals. There are also numerous
studies to show academic
and emotional harm from preschool education. It is unnecessary
to impose a massive, bureaucratic preschool education system on
every childcare program in Minnesota3. Complete government takeover of
private and religious childcare – Eighty percent of childcare in
Minnesota is private. By imposing this QRS system, the state will
force these independent programs to teach and assess the young
children in their care according to a bureaucratically determined,
one-size-fits-all set of controversial outcomes instead of allowing
them to play and develop at their own pace. This is analogous to
requiring all private K-12 schools to adopt the Profile of Learning
or the current state academic standards.4. No data to justify high cost and
intrusiveness – The MELF pilot QRS was only passed two years ago.
Given time for development and implementation in the pilot areas, it
has likely been in effect for significantly less time than that.
Even if the assessments and outcomes were valid, where is the
evidence that having a QRS in place has improved the academic
performance of any of the children enrolled in the childcare
programs covered by this pilot project before expanding it to the
entire state?5. Parents are not asking for this
kind of rating system – The highest priorities listed by parents in
several Department of Human Services studies on childcare quality
are caregiver experience and training, safety, caregiver-family
communication, cultural responsiveness, and comfort with the
caregiver and program philosophy. No study cited mentioned
curriculum/academics as the top concern of parents in finding a
quality childcare program.
Ed
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