Testing 4-year-olds isn't the answer

07-11-2011

By David Sirota/Salon

When I heard the news last week that the Department of Education is aiming to subject 4-year-olds to high-stakes testing, all I could do was shake my head in disbelief and despondently mutter a slightly altered riff off "The Big Lebowski's" Walter Sobchak. Four-year-olds, dude. You don't have to be as dyspeptic as Walter to know this is madness. According to Stanford University's Linda Darling-Hammond, who headed President Obama's education transition team, though we already "test students in the United States more than any other nation," our students "perform well below those of other industrialized countries in math and science." Yet the Obama administration, backed by corporate foundations, is nonetheless intensifying testing at all levels, as if doing the same thing and expecting different results is innovative "reform" rather than what it's always been: insanity. (more...)

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Testing 4-year-olds isn't the answer

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