Views on Early Childhood Assessments

Humans can be intelligent in several ways, so they should not be judged only by an IQ test or even a standardized test (Berger, 2012).  A school systems focus should be to teach the whole child which means that children should be given numerous opportunities to learn and they can be assessed by observation.  Standardized tests put a lot of stress on students, teachers, and even parents because the test is commonly used as a yardstick for achievement.  If a student does not perform well on an achievement test they are often labeled and considered a low performer in everything.  A teacher is often admonished if her students do not perform well on standardized tests.  Parents often ridicule their children if they get information that their child did not perform well on these tests and they often feel that it is a reflection on their parenting skills.  So who wins in this formula?  The companies that produce the standardize test so it becomes a money making venture. Learning needs to be project based and students should not be subjected to the horrors of standardized testing (Tung, 2012).

The country I selected to research is Finland because they have a very progressive and successful approach to education. Some years ago Finland was ranked at the lower rung for education in the world, but now they are ranked sixth, second, and third in math, science, and reading compared to the U.S. coming in at 30^th, 23^rd, and 17^th place in the world (Tung, 2012).  The Finnish school system decided to cut the class time in half, increase the physical education time to 50 minutes, and they drastically reduce the homework time for their students (Tung, 2012).  They also decided to cut out administering standardize testing all together (Tung, 2012).  The schools are funded nationally and all children are entitled to lunch at no cost (Tung, 2012).  The schools that have the least educated parents and a high influx of immigrants receive the most funding because the needs are greater (Tung, 2012).  In contrast, in the United States the schools that have the most uneducated parents located in impoverished neighborhoods receive the least amount of funds.  The US needs to adopt some of the successful techniques of the Finnish schools if success is truly the goal of the country.

 

 

 

References

Berger, K. S. (2012). The developing person through childhood (6th ed.). New

          York, NY: Worth Publishers.

Tung, S. (2012, January 20). How the finnish school system outshines u.s. education. Stanford

report. Retrieved from http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/january/finnish-schools-reform-012012.html