Early Learning: This Is Not a Test
by Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers,
and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Professor Emerita of Early Childhood Education, Lesley University
and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Professor Emerita of Early Childhood Education, Lesley University
Early childhood education is “in” these days—from the bipartisan billintroduced in Congress this week modeled on President Obama’s proposal to expand high-quality early learning experiences, to Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s proposal to provide universal prekindergarten to every 4-year-old in New York City, to the Oklahoma model that provides access to high-quality preschool to all 4-year-olds in the state and extra support for younger children from low-income families. Democrats and Republicans, from retired generals to Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Too Small to Failinitiative, are touting the benefits.
It’s right and overdue to make early childhood education a priority in this country. The United States ranked 24th among 45 nations surveyed for availability and quality of early childhood education. But as we move toward the goal of universal access to pre-K, we have to do it right. Standards for early education, including the Common Core State Standards, must reflect the decades of research in cognitive and developmental psychology and neuroscience that tells ushow young children learn . Young kids learn actively, through hands-on experiences in the real world. They develop skills over time through a process of building ideas. But this process is not always linear and is not quantifiable; expecting young children to know specific facts or skills at specified ages is not compatible with how they learn. It emphasizes right and wrong answers instead of the developmental progressions that typify their learning.
Young children need opportunities to engage in active, age-appropriate, play-based learning. They need to figure out how things work, explore, question and have fun.
Such experiences have been shown to have significant educational and social benefits for children. And studies show that early childhood education provides a high rate of return for society’s investment. But officials now risk snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by extending standards and the fixation on standardized testing to very young learnersin the name of implementing the Common Core State Standards.
This fixation has caused incalculable harm by emphasizing testing above teaching and learning. And it has led many