Common Assessment Sample Questions in the Kindergarten Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K:2011) by the Department of Education

 

Oh dear.  This poor boy will receive poor marks for his emotional state on his first day of kindergarten since he misses his mom.  The teacher must make a note of this on his ECLS-K:2011 survey.   

We recently wrote about the kindergarten study (class of 2010-11) to be done by the Federal Government that will ultimately start tracking the class in 5th grade.  

What does the study entail?  From the Institute of Education Sciences:

Information for Children, Parents, and Schools Participating in the ECLS-K:2011

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011) is an exciting new study sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education and conducted by Westat. The ECLS-K:2011 will provide comprehensive and reliable data about children's early learning and development, transition into kindergarten, and progress through school. The data collected over the years will allow researchers, policymakers, and educators to study how student, home, classroom, school, and community factors at various points in the child's life relate to cognitive, social, and emotional development, as well as physical growth.

For more information about the ECLS-K:2011 designed especially for study participants, including a study timeline, selected findings from the ECLS program, and a link to send us your questions about the study, please visit Westat's "myeclsk2011" website.

From Westat's site:

Welcome to the ECLS-K:2011!

The ECLS-K:2011 is the third in a series of early childhood longitudinal studies sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics. Like its predecessors, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort of 2001 (ECLS-B), the ECLS-K:2011 will provide comprehensive and reliable data about

• children's early learning and development,
• their transition into kindergarten, and
• their progress through school.

The data collected over the years will allow researchers, policymakers, and educators to study how student, home, classroom, school, and community factors in children’s lives relate to cognitive, social, and emotional development and physical health at various points.

The Questions We Will Answer Together

Thanks to you and your school, the ECLS-K:2011 will allow researchers and policy makers to answer such questions as:

• What do children know and what skills do they possess when they start school?
• How well do children do in their first encounter with formal schooling?
• How healthy are kindergartners? What percentage are considered overweight or underweight? How many have difficulty hearing?
• How do kindergartners behave? Do they pay attention to teachers, cooperate with other children, and display an eagerness to learn?
• How do children’s knowledge, skills, and behavior change over time? How do their school experiences change over time?
• How well do children’s kindergarten programs prepare them for the opportunities and challenges in later grades?

This explains how and what kindergarten  research questions will be gathered from parents, administrators, teachers and early childhood caregivers:

Example Research Questions

The ECLS-K:2011 has been designed to study the following sets of research questions, which are organized by the different study data collection instruments. While the questions below focus on the early years of the study, the ECLS-K:2011 is designed to follow the kindergarten cohort of 2010-11 through the 2015-16 school year (when most of the children will be in fifth grade). Additional study research questions will be added to this list as the study progresses.
Direct and Indirect Child Assessments

• What are children’s competencies in the cognitive, socioemotional, language, and executive function domains? How does children’s development of and growth in these competencies vary by child and family social, demographic, and contextual characteristics?
• What literacy, language, mathematics, science, and executive function skills do children exhibit as kindergartners, and how do these skills vary by demographic characteristics such as race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and family structure? How do these skills differ between children repeating kindergarten and those who are in kindergarten for the first time?
• To what extent and how do children’s executive functioning abilities (e.g., self-monitoring, impulse control, adaptability) change over time?
• How prevalent is obesity among young children? How do the rates of obesity vary for children with different characteristics and backgrounds? How do the rates of obesity change over the elementary years?

Parent Interview

• What is the status of children’s development (as defined by cognitive, social, and emotional development; behavior; and physical status measures) at entry to kindergarten and beyond? How does children’s development vary by child and family social, demographic, and contextual characteristics at the time of kindergarten entry? How do children’s experiences with transitioning to kindergarten (e.g., children’s adjustment to kindergarten) relate to children’s developmental status at entry to kindergarten? How do variations in children’s developmental status (as defined by ECLS-K:2011 cognitive, socioemotional, and physical measures) at kindergarten entry relate to later success in school?
• What are the associations between family sociodemographic and contextual characteristics and later success in school within and across developmental domains and across sex and racial/ethnic subgroups?
• How do family processes and parenting practices (e.g., home environment, family activities, and cognitive stimulation) relate to children’s school readiness, developmental status, and social and emotional adjustment? Are critical family processes and parenting practices associated with later success in school?
• What are parents’ definitions of school readiness—i.e., what beliefs and standards do they have for children’s behavior and academic performance at entry into kindergarten? How do definitions of readiness differ by parental socioeconomic status (SES) and race/ethnicity? What are parents’ assessments of individual children’s readiness for and adjustment to school?
• To what extent does parental involvement in children’s education relate to school performance over the course of the early grades? Do parental involvement levels differ by family social, demographic, and contextual characteristics? What forms of parent involvement are most highly correlated with children’s outcomes? What factors might influence the extent of parental involvement?
• What are children’s patterns of participation in early care and education? How do early care and education arrangements differ by family sociodemographic factors, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity? To what extent are these arrangements related to children’s progress through school? How does participation in early care and education in the year before kindergarten relate to participation in before- and/or after-school care during kindergarten (e.g., in what ways are these arrangements similar or different)? Does Head Start attendance relate to any differences in children’s readiness and progress in school relative to other early care and education experiences?

School Administrator Questionnaire

• To what extent does the length of the school year relate to children’s academic progress, especially cognitive gains, during the elementary years?
• How do differences in schools’ basic demographic characteristics, enrollment, resources, policies, and organizational characteristics relate to children’s academic and social development in the elementary school years?
• Do school practices to involve parents result in higher levels of parent involvement?
• Does the school or administrative climate, teachers’ opportunities for staff development, or school goals for teachers’ progress in the classroom relate to children’s academic development?
• What kinds of services or programs do schools provide to families, children, or community members? How do these relate to children’s academic and socioemotional development?
• How do schools respond to the needs of parents with little or no English proficiency?
• How do neighborhood or community differences relate to children’s cognitive and social development?
• What challenges associated with student behavior, attendance, teacher mobility, and school safety do schools face, and how do these relate to other school characteristics and children’s cognitive and social development?
• How do differences in principals’ background characteristics relate to other school characteristics and practices?

Teacher Questionnaires

• How do instructional practices, content coverage, classroom resources, and methods of providing feedback differ across classrooms or schools? Do those differences correlate with children’s academic and social development over the elementary grades?
• To what extent and how are children’s opportunities to learn in the elementary grades associated with family social background characteristics? To what extent and how are children’s opportunities to learn in the elementary school grades associated with later school success?
• How does diversity in the classroom regarding age, race/ethnicity, sex, and number of kindergarten repeaters relate to other classroom characteristics? How might these class-level characteristics interact with children’s own characteristics for the development of academic and social skills?
• How do teachers and schools handle the diversity of children’s skills? How are children with special needs (e.g., English Language Learners, gifted and talented students, students with Individualized Education Programs for children with disabilities) taught? How might instructional differences for these students relate to academic and social outcomes?
• Do teachers’ characteristics, including sociodemographic characteristics, views on school readiness, sense of efficacy, job satisfaction, perceptions of school climate, educational background, certifications, and teaching experience correlate with children’s outcomes either in isolation or interacting with children’s sociodemographic backgrounds?
• Do teachers’ practices to involve parents relate to higher levels of parent involvement?
• How do teacher's relationships with individual students differ? What might the consequences of those differences be for children's academic and social development during the elementary years?
• What academic and socioemotional skills and behaviors (including activity level) do teachers report children having as they enter and go through school? Do these vary by family social background characteristics? How do these skills and behaviors change over time?

Special Education Teacher Questionnaires

• How do teachers and schools handle the diversity of children’s skills? How are children identified for receipt of special education services? How are children with special needs taught? What are the types of service delivery models in place for special education? How do program variations relate to differences in children’s academic or social development?
• What is the prevalence of different types of disabilities among children in elementary school? What types of services, instructional strategies, and assistive devices are provided to children with different types of disabilities?
• Do children receive special education services before kindergarten?
• What transition activities take place from prekindergarten to kindergarten for children with special needs?
• What is the association between inclusion in the regular classroom and children’s progress through the early grades?

Before- and After-school Early Care and Education Provider Questionnaires

• What are the patterns of participation in before- and after-school care and education programs? Do children with different family sociodemographic factors, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity participate in different types of care and education programs? How are these arrangements related to children’s academic achievement and progress?
• To what extent do variations in before- and after-school care and education programs—including organization, sponsorship, and quality—relate to the achievement of children with varying backgrounds and needs during the kindergarten year and beyond?
• Does participation in before- and after-school care and education relate to academic and social outcomes experienced by children?
• To what extent are the characteristics, experience levels, educational backgrounds, and professional development of teachers/care providers related to children’s outcomes?

What will the kindergarten questions look like?   Westat provides example sample test questions:

Sample Test Questions

The assessment items children are asked to complete are age appropriate and fun. Here are some examples.

Example 1: Mathematics

SAY: Jacob has six teddy bears. Each teddy bear has two eyes. How many eyes are there in all?
POINT TO CORRESPONDING AREAS ON THE STIMULUS PAGE AS NUMBERS ARE BEING READ.
TAKE OUT PAPER AND PENCIL OR POINT TO THE PAPER AND PENCIL THE CHILD ALREADY HAS AND
SAY: You can use these to figure it out.
RECORD CHILD'S RESPONSE.
SCORE 1 = CORRECT (12)
SCORE 2 = INCORRECT

Example 2: Reading

MATERIALS NEEDED: EASEL.
POINT TO DOG.
SAY: What is this?
ENTER CHILD'S RESPONSE.

Example 3: Science

What most likely happens first to a tennis ball when it is hit hard by a tennis racket? (POINT TO AND READ EACH RESPONSE CATEGORY.)
RECORD CHILD'S RESPONSE
A. The ball slows down.
B. The ball changes direction.
C. The ball sticks to the racket.
D. The ball goes through the racket.

  

Are these questions really age appropriate for kindergartners?  Does a kindergartner have the ability to determine the answer to "6 x 2"?  Have all kindergartners seen a tennis racket or even played tennis?  Can the game of tennis be "fun" instead of being scientifically scrutinized by a 5 year old?  Would an  answer other than just pointing to "dog" be acceptable?  This exercise reminds me of a 3 year old who failed a Parents as Teachers question because she didn't answer it exactly how the teacher requested.  Instead of pointing to "yellow boots" she answered in "it's the girl with the boots".  She failed that question because she didn't follow the prompt correctly.   The mother withdrew her child from Parents as Teachers and did not use this group for her subsequent children.  She realized quickly her child's individuality and skills were not recognized and her time with these educators were of little benefit (and possible detriment) to her child.

This link provides information on the survey and note that active parent permission is not required.   These children will be surveyed again in 4th grade and subsequent tracking will begin in 5th grade.  More information will be gleaned from common academic assessments...which would be academic assessments via Common Core.  A valid national assessment couldn't exist without commonly coded data sets. 

Would you agree to have your child part of this survey and data gathering in future years?  Do you believe the USDOEd should have the right to this information?  More importantly, can you find anywhere in the notices and survey information who specifically has access to this data and how it is going to be used?  Who are the researchers and policymakers who will have data access?

 

Tracking Students: Remember Parkway School District and the Polar Go Fit Bracelets?

We wrote a story last year about Parkway Schools wanting to use student tracking devices to measure sleep patterns and academic achievement via Polar Go Fit bracelets.

We highlighted a video from the school board where a district employee explains the tracking and the information to be gathered from the data obtained while the students wore them home.  The video has now been pulled from the internet and "made private by the owner".

This video is from a school board meeting.  Would someone from the Parkway School District contact the superintendent/board members and ask why a video from a public meeting has been pulled from the district website?  Aren't the owners of this video the taxpayers?

Here's the link showing the video has been pulled:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120118111401/http://www.pkwy.k12.mo.us/boe/archive/boe120711.cfm

Here's the rough transcript I typed from the speaker's presentation:

Notes from the video:

Video of the School Board Meeting December 7, 2011 http://www.pkwy.k12.mo.us/boe/archive/boe120711.cfm
48:45 starts the discussion of the bracelet. Rough transcript of the conversation. Parenthesis denotes questions from the Board.
**********************************************
So kids can "self-monitor" moderate to vigorous exercise. Teachers took a class this summer and the teachers wore them through the fall.

Henry, Ross Elementary, Shenandoah Elementary Schools.

Kids see it as a cool gadget.

Goals. Health, fit, active kids ready to learn.
Kids were "jealous" so bracelets will be shared.
Used as much as they can during PE classes.

Ideally, let the kids wear the monitor an entire week 24/7 and look at sleep patterns as well as physical activity patterns. Interested in seeing the results of that and identity correlation between sleep patterns and academic achievement. **MEW comment: Is this the governmental "nudge" touted by Cass Sunstein and our Commissioner of Education Chris Nicastro?**

Start with one grade level and then add grades one at a time.

In physical education for the longest time we've just been looking at fitness data.

We don't want to just assess fitness we want to assess behavioral change w/regard to physical activity patterns with our students and then we know we've done our job and this tool here will help us do that.

(How do you follow this?)

Each day there is a graph and they try to fill up the tube with moderate to strenuous activity. Keeps 7 days worth of data. Teachers download the information in a graph to the parents.

Idea: get them into the hands of the elementary students at the beginning of the new year.

(How do you plan to use the data and how will you run the data)
We are uploading data--body strength, muscle strength--into PARS. Correlate fitness levels to MAP scores, SAT score. Hope to do the same with physical activity.

Will do individually. Sure we will have school data, entire 5th grade, we'll have the ability to track individual students.

(Question about GPS, school cameras, tracking kids. Laughter)

No, they won't be able to track our students.
Ends at 58:14

Check out this link of the checks written in the district in February 2012: 

 http://www.boarddocs.com/mo/pkysd/Board.nsf/Public

It shows $37,584.00 was paid in 2012 to Polar Electro for tracking bracelets that Parkway pulled after parental concern.   $209.80 was paid to the company in 2011.

The Ultimate "From The Beginning" From The Government

The government has an insatiable desire to collect data on children. That is a given. The starting age they are proposing keeps getting younger and younger. Illinois would like to begin at 24 hours old. Not to be outdone, Cincinnati has come up with a plan to begin tracking your child as soon as conception can be confirmed.

The Mayor's Challenge is a competition to inspire American cities to generate innovative ideas that solve major challenges and improve city life.This fan favorite (as voted by Huffington Post and Bloomberg Philanthropes) provides the answer to the higher than average infant mortality rate in many urban centers.

"From the first steps a pregnant mother takes into a healthcare facility, we want her to be on a path that will lead directly to her seeing the first steps her baby takes. From the moment a woman finds out that she's pregnant, we will enroll her in a secure database that follows her through the pregnancy and measures the interventions she receives."

All this will be done, of course, to ensure that her child doesn't die prematurely. They also will have a record for the school of everything that happened to that child in utero which may explain why he is having trouble learning.

The really great news is that, when fully implemented, Cincinnati will create a blueprint to share with cities across the country so everyone can start tracking babies. As the government begins to do with data what many people fear they will do with data, it's not like moms will stop going in for prenatal care or anything, like those with depression might stop seeking psychological services for fear of losing their ability to purchase a firearm. This is going to be awesome.

Resist Invasion of Privacy at Schools. Hillary Clinton Will be Proud.

Scientific experiment = Creative Dissent.  Become a STEM ready student and constitutional scholar.

Ed Morrissey at HotAir writes about the "Nanny of the Month" and the winner is Northside School District’s requirement for students to wear RFID tags to attend class.  Morrissey links Reason's TV information on the tracking chip program which is not designed so much for educational and alleged safety purposes as it is for government funding:

This month’s lineup of of busybodies includes the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, where administrators may ban booze in dorms–even for students of legal drinking age (guess those college kids would just stay dry!). Then there’s Chi-Town, where officials are using GPS devices to track food trucks to make sure they don’t wander within 200 feet of any fixed businesses that sell food, including convenience stores. Violators could face fines of $2,000. Compare that to the $100 fine you’d face for parking in front of a fire hydrant and you get an idea for just how seriously city officials take the threat of competition. (Good thing the Institute for Justice is on the case.)

 But this time the nanny of the month comes to us from deep in the heart of Texas, where administrators at San Antonio’s Northside school district are tracking kids with radio frequency identification chips. Dozens of electronic readers have been installed in the school’s ceiling panels to keep tabs on the kiddos while they’re at school. The official number-one reason for going RFID is to “increase student safety and security,” but–since district funding goes up when attendance goes up–it’s clearly all about the Benjamins.

 With school-based tracking going back to at least 2004, the Lone Star State has been something of an RFID trailblazer. In fact, Northside is considering expanding the program to cover all of the district’s 97,000 students.

We've written several posts about government agencies tracking children from birth and the reasons why:

• Money
• The establishment of a data system for a managed workforce

However, the most insidious result of these tracking chips and longitudinal data system informatmion is the loss of freedom and practice/ownership/inherent belief of personal responsibility.  The government is now in control of your child's future and you have given it away to a centralized bureaucracy under the guise of advertising campaigns telling you your student will not be successful without the government's knowledge/tracking of personal data.

The comments from the HotAir readers recognize the long term detrimental effects of these political/private relationships and the power afforded to the state and taken away from individuals:

If I had kids I would not want them being conditioned to believe that it is acceptable for the authorities to track their every movement.

 and

administrators at San Antonio’s Northside school district are tracking kids with radio frequency identification chips. Dozens of electronic readers have been installed in the school’s ceiling panels to keep tabs on the kiddos while they’re at school. The official number-one reason for going RFID is to “increase student safety and security,

It is a trade of liberty, for security….and they shall have neither.
This is a ruse, it’s conditioning. Once these kids are trained to give up a little bit, they’ll give a little more. Oh yes, it’s passive monitoring I’m sure.

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made,above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

One reader has a solution  for dissent from these governmental mandates:

Ok. Schools say you have to wear those badges. But I don’t think the regulation says anything about the badges being EFFECTIVE.

Hey, kids! Here’s a hint. Google the phrase “Faraday cage”. For about a buck’s worth of copper screen, you can create an envelope around the badge that will destroy the effectiveness of the tracking device. Resist!

Hillary Clinton should approve of creative dissent and applaud this rejection/circumvention of tracking as she was quoted in 2003: 

"I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic.  We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration."

Try the Faraday cage science experiment.  Doesn't the government tell us it wants STEM ready students?  Explain to your school administration it's your scientific creativity at work to protect your individual liberties.

 

 

Your Future is Not in Your Hands.

Educational tidbit for the Day: The government is here to plan your life via data tracking.  You are incapable of making your own decisions.

Below is a short video explaining how the Oklahoma P20 Statewide Longitudinal Data System will operate and how it will place students in jobs based on data gathered on them from birth. 

This data is not so much for education as it is to provide workforce data and how that student's data will (or will not) fit employers' specifications.  The video holds true about data information for any state that has adopted common core standards.  Remember, the common core standards initiative is the vehicle that drives the longitudinal data system.  Without the adoption of the standards, the data system could not collect the amount of student data needed to supply various federal agencies and private researchers for workforce purposes.

From the youtube description: 

 P20 describes a Statewide Longitudinal Data System(SLDS)--a framework into which descriptors describing American students from P (PreK) to 20 years of age can be loaded. This provides " a unified longitudinal student data system (SLDS) to provide interoperability and efficient and effective storage, use and sharing of data among the State Department of Education, Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education, Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, legislature, other policy makers and executive agencies, and the general public." This all comes, of course, with many concerns about government control, privacy, and "Big Brother" watching us.

Will the ACLU File Suit to Stop Privacy Gathering on Citizens' Physical Traits? Now the Government is Tracking Tattoos.

Will tattoo information appear on student data sets?  If a student has the wrong tattoo on his/her body, it may not bode well if FBI information is shared with the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services.  From next.gov:

The FBI is consulting local police and vendors about technology currently in use that can spot crooks and terrorists by interpreting the symbolism of their tattoos, according to government documents. The inquiry follows work already underway at the bureau and Homeland Security Department to add iris and facial recognition services to their respective fingerprint databases.

If tattoo data sets are added with other data to be gathered on public school students such as eye color, voting status, blood type and wage earnings, the government will have a plan on where your human capital will fit into the workforce or if he/she can be labelled a possible terrorist.  Where's the ACLU when you need them?

Privacy implications are only briefly addressed, in the context of policies regarding “what special guidelines will be followed when dealing with tattoos in ‘sensitive’ locations?” and other images that perhaps should not be in public records.

The bureau also wants to learn about vetting pictures, sharing access to the database; and ways for multiple agencies to coordinate on data gathering.  (MEW note: this is similar to DOEd plans to share educational information with various federal agencies and private researchers)

The basic concern of reliability isn't considered:

The request does not discuss the reliability of such systems. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame recently found that iris patterns alter with age and the accuracy of sensors used to capture iris images degrades over time, raising doubts about the use of that single physical trait to confirm identities.

If iris patterns alter with age, wouldn't student data entered based on student maturity and interests (as well as flawed assessments) be skewed as well?   The regulation to allow FERPA to gather invasive personal information from public education students and shared with other federal agencies has not been scrutinized for reliability either.  

Is this data the government so desperately wants for citizen tracking worth the price of liberty for the sake of the government's control of human capital?

Maybe the following information will be entered on your human capital's data set if he/she gets a tattoo and whether he/she is government compliant and a good "fit" for the workforce.  From timesofnews.com and the story of Chinese professional tennis player Li Na:

In China she is seen as a rebellious figure because of her tattoo, and for refusing to accept government help as she established her career.