Stephen Krashen: Race to the Top for Tots: Don't measure the temperature of the fire - put it out!
Guest post by Stephen Krashen
The federal government plans to establish detailed standards and assessments to see if children of poverty are ready for kindergarten and are healthy (The "Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge," termed the "Race to the Top for Tots," by the New Brunswick Patch.) The standards and tests include "all (sic!!) of the Essential Domains of School Readiness" (Selection Criteria, section B (3)). This means setting detailed standards and testing children in mathematics and literacy, and as well "a progression of standards for ensuring children's health and safety, ensuring that health and behavioral screening and follow up are done, and promoting children's physical, social, and emotional development across the levels of its Program Standards" (section B (1)).
The plan seems to make sense: Let's first get an accurate picture of how the 20% of children in poverty in the US are doing in cognitive, emotional and physical development, and then plan to do something about it. But it isn't a good idea at all. In fact, it is a bad idea.
We already know that millions of children from high-poverty families suffer from the effects of poverty: We already