Early Childhood Assessment Why, What, and How (2008) / Chapter Skim
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10 Thinking Systematically
10 Thinking Systematically
Pages 301-340
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From page 301... ...
Only when the entire system is considered can reasonable decisions about assessment be made. This chapter argues that early childhood assessment needs to be viewed not as an isolated process, but as integrated in a system that includes a clearly articulated higher level goal, such as optimal growth, development, and learning for all children; that defines strategies for achieving the goal, such as adequate funding, excellent teaching practices, and well-designed educational environments; that recognizes the other elements of infrastructure 301
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From page 302... ...
We use recent National Research Council reports, state experiences with the No Child Left Behind Act, and the recent work of the Pew Foundation–sponsored National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force -- a national effort focused on accountability in early childhood -- as a basis for articulating the components needed in order for early childhood assessment to be part of a fully integrated system. We also provide some examples of progress toward this goal at the state level.
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From page 303... ...
Implementation of a similar feedback loop at the level of the program takes child performance as the input for identifying classrooms in which teachers need additional This section and the following one on infrastructure draw heavily on the content of the National Research Council's 2006 report, Systems for State Science Assessment. Although assessment is here defined as a subsystem of a larger system, through out this chapter we refer to the "assessment system" for the sake of simplicity, except when the distinction is important.
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From page 304... ...
triangle" commonly cited in the educational assessment community. Each of these subsystems is also affected by other forces, for example, laws intended to influence what children are expected to learn, professional development practices, and teacher preparation policies influenced by professional organizations and accrediting agencies.
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From page 305... ...
2. Assessments: Multiple approaches to documenting child performance and reviewing program quality that are of high quality and connect to one another in well-defined ways, from which strategic selection can be made depend ing on specific purposes.
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From page 306... ...
4. Professional development: Ongoing opportunities pro vided to those at all levels (practitioners, assessment administrators, program directors, policy makers)
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From page 307... ...
In most educational settings, these are referred to as "standards," but in early childhood education sometimes other terms, such as "guidelines" or "foundations," have been used. Whatever they are named, these standards direct the design of curriculum, the choice of teaching practices, and the priorities of teachers in setting instructional goals, planning activities and experiences, and organizing the environment.
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From page 308... ...
• Academic achievement standards must be aligned with the state's academic content standards. For each content area, a state's academic achievement standards must include at least two levels of achievement (proficient and advanced)
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From page 309... ...
A useful example of the ideas of learning progressions and learning performances in the preschool years is California's Desired Results Developmental Profiles-Revised (DRDP-R)
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From page 310... ...
leads or participates in planning cooperative play with other children. This measure in the learning progression is brought to life by examples of learning performances that could illustrate the different levels.
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From page 311... ...
More examples of learning performances are shown in Figure 10-2, which is a copy of the scoring guide for the measure "building cooperative play with other children." Learning progressions should be developed around the organizing principles of child development, such as self-regulation. Such organizing principles -- which are sometimes referred to as the "big ideas" of a curriculum -- are the coherent foundation for the concepts, theories, principles, and explanatory schemes for child development (National Research Council, 2006)
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Measure 6 Building cooperative play with other children SOC 4 (of 6) PS DRDP-R Manual © 2007 California Department of Education FIGURE 10-2 An excerpt from the Desired Results Developmental Profile-Revised.
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From page 313... ...
Assessments of all kinds make available information vital in allowing the early childhood education system to make decisions about choosing content and learning experiences, to hold preschool programs accountable for meeting development and learning goals, and monitor program effectiveness. Assessment is also a way for teachers, school administrators, program directors, and state and national education policy and decision makers to operationalize the goals for children's development and learning articulated in the standards.
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From page 314... ...
Thus, very early in the process of system design, questions need to be asked about how various types of information will be accessed and reported to different stakeholders and how that reporting process can support valid interpretations. Individual standards or clusters of standards can define the scope of reporting, as can learning progressions if they have been developed and made clear to the relevant audiences.
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From page 315... ...
In some states in Australia, where learning continua serve as the basis for assessment at all levels of the system, progress maps are used to describe child achievement. Figure 10-3 is a progress map from a Government of Western Australia website (http://www.curriculum.wa.edu.au/ ProgressMaps/english.htm)
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From page 316... ...
Interpretive material is accompanying text that explains, in a way that is appropriate to the technical knowledge of the intended audience, the relevance and importance of the results. According to Systems for State Science Assessment, interpretative material should • specify the purposes of the assessment.
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From page 317... ...
Professional Development Professional development recognizes that all adults need ongoing opportunities to improve their skills and competencies as they carry out their roles and responsibilities. Recognizing the particular challenges facing the early childhood workforce, educators have designed many different kinds of professional development opportunities, most of them focused on the higher level goals of improving instruction and curriculum.
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From page 318... ...
More broadly, each audience and consumer group can benefit from some form of support to enhance their assessment literacy as they strive to comprehend and interpret the implications of child assessments, program assessments, and other forms of data. Moreover, an assessment system should provide for ongoing professional development opportunities to equip managers and practitioners to improve the quality of their services, implement
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From page 319... ...
Participation in program quality reviews is one means to accomplish this for early childhood centers and providers. In addition, articulated linkages between quality levels, program standards, and development and learning standards are necessary.
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From page 320... ...
This is particularly important in a time when early learning and program quality standards require attention to growing populations of children with disabilities as well as of children and families from language and cultural minorities. Ensuring the appropriate assessment of quality of learning environments, instructional practices, and learning opportunities for the full range of children being served is crucial, and as these populations grow and shift in character (e.g., increased numbers of children identified as on the autism spectrum, new waves of immigration from parts of the world that did not historically send emigrants to North America)
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From page 321... ...
Some programs also manage to find the resources to provide professional development around assessment and to design or implement effective and inclusive early education opportunities. However, these resources of time, money, and effort are distributed unevenly and not integrated in a systems approach (Bruner et al., 2004)
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From page 322... ...
Resources are required to ensure consistency in defining and measuring program quality -- the opportunities for development and learning, including child care licensing, state pre-K program standards, Head Start program performance standards, and federal legislative mandates and regulations (Mitchell, 2005)
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Discussing each aspect of the evaluation and monitoring system is beyond the scope here -- see Systems for State Science Assessment (National Research Council, 2006) for a more comprehensive account.
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From page 324... ...
Table 10-1 displays nine different forms of child and program assessments, including four forms of assessment used to document the quality of early childhood programs, four forms of assessments of young children, and one form of assessment that gathers information on both program quality and children's learning. Each form carries its own distinctive purposes, its procedure for reporting to different audiences, and its specific ways of using assessment data.
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From page 325... ...
THINKING SYSTEMATICALLY 325 TABLE 10-1 Current Forms of Early Childhood Assessments Form Population Assessed Uses of Data Program Assessments Quality rating Providers seeking Consumer information on systems recognition for varied quality status levels of quality Higher reimbursement rates for higher quality Program improvement Program Providers seeking Consumer information on accreditation recognition as above a quality status threshold of quality Program improvement Program monitoring Providers receiving Program improvement state/federal program Funding decisions funding Program licensing All providers serving Determine compliance young children with health and safety standards Child Assessments Kindergarten All children at • Report to public readiness kindergarten entry • Planning early assessment childhood investments State/federal pre-K Children enrolled in a Reporting to funding child assessments state or federal program sources Assessment for All children Planning curriculum instruction Informing parents Developmental All children Referral to assess for screening eligibility for special education Child + Program Assessments Program evaluations Representative samples • Report to legislatures of children and local and the public on programs program quality, outcomes, impacts • Informs program improvement and appropriations decisions SOURCE: National Early Childhood Accountability Task Force (2007)
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From page 326... ...
Concomitantly, state and federal program offices are managing separate and varied approaches to standards and assessments for the growing populations of children they serve. Table 10-2 highlights different standards and assessments established by four major funding sources for early childhood services: child care, Head Start, state pre-K, and early childhood special education.
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From page 327... ...
Each connected set of standards and assessments generates different information on the characteristics and performance of publicly funded early childhood services. Many local provider agencies receive funding from multiple state and federal sources and therefore are required to manage their programs to meet several different forms of standards for program quality; implement reporting or assessment procedures to respond to the demands of each funding source; and orient their curricula, teaching, and learning strategies to several overlapping frameworks of learning goals for children.
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From page 328... ...
Federal and state program offices as well as local provider agencies are thus currently engaged for the first time in explaining and interpreting child outcome standards and the potential uses and misuses of newly expanded child assessment data sets. These federal, state, and local managers have extensive experience and greater shared understanding of how program quality standards are applied in the context of various forms of licensing and monitoring reviews and enforcement decisions.
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From page 329... ...
Desired Results for Children and Families (DRCF) is a system by which educators can document the progress made by children and families in achieving desired results and by which managers can retrieve information to help practitioners improve child care and development services (California Department of Education, 2003)
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From page 330... ...
• Create a base of information on the relationships between processes and results that can be used to target technical assistance to improve practice in all child development programs. At the state level, educators use the desired results system to identify successes and areas for improvement so that CDE can provide support and technical assistance to increase program quality.
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From page 331... ...
1. Desired results: The six desired results, to which all CDE funded child care and development programs are expected to contribute, are that children are personally and socially competent, are effective learners, show physical and motor competence, are safe and healthy, and have families that support their learning and development, and achieve their goals.
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. Professional Development The training and implementation phase of desired results for center-based programs and family child care home networks is being carried out in a series of regional training sessions for local program administrators.
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From page 333... ...
The system operates with the advice of the Results Matter Child Measurement Task Force. Child Assessment Child assessment tools were selected based on whether they employ ongoing observation of children engaged in real activities, with people they know, in natural settings; reflect evidence-based practices; engage families and primary care providers as active participants; integrate information gathered across settings; are individualized to address each child's unique ways of learning; inform decisions about day-to-day learning opportunities for children; and reflect the belief that development and learning are rooted in culture supported by the family.
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From page 334... ...
In addition, programs are strongly encouraged to participate in the accreditation process of the National Association for the Education of Young Children and receive technical and financial assistance to do so. Professional Development Programs receive continuous support to ensure that their participation in Results Matter does generate the highest quality data and knowledge about how to use it to improve program quality and child and family outcomes.
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From page 335... ...
. In the initial years of the preschool program, the state provided professional development for teachers in the observation and documentation of young children's learning and in administering and scoring the ELAS assessments.
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The results of these measures are used for teacher professional development. ECERS-R scores are also reported at the district level and used to monitor classroom quality across the 31 districts.
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and is the typical pattern seen when comparing results on state tests to those on National Assessment of Educational Progress (Linn, 2003)
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5. A clear plan for following up to improve program quality.
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. An example of an instrument designed according to these principles is the Desired Results Developmental Profile-Revised, a part of which is illustrated in Figure 10-2.
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From page 340... ...
340 EARLY CHILDHOOD ASSESSMENT equivalent opportunity to achieve the defined goals, and the allocation of resources should reflect those goals. We emphasize that a system of assessment is only as good as the effectiveness -- and coherence -- of all of its components.
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