Over 11,000 Texas Kindergarteners Not Promoted

I must admit, this story surprised me. It had never even occurred to me that a child would not be passed on to the first grade from kindergarten. Of course when I started school, there was no such thing as kindergarten [and no, dinosaurs did not roam the earth at that time -- that came later].

According to an article in the San Antonio Express-News, Texas schools held back 11,684 from graduating kindergarten last year. That is 3.7% of all Texas kindergarteners. The reason they were held back is because they did not do well on a standardized test [the Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI)].

Once again I am surprised. When did we start giving kindergarten kids a standardized test? I thought kindergarten was to acclimate a child to going to school and getting him/her used to being in a classroom with a teacher and other students. That way, they would be ready to learn when they entered the first grade. Anything else they learned was simply a bonus that would help them later.

It's bad enough that students in the upper grades are just being taught to test well on the TAKS test, instead of being truly educated in a way that teaches them to think rationally. Now many schools and teachers want to begin "teaching the test" in kindergarten. This is just wrong.

Some of our state "experts" in education believe a test in kindergarten is a predictor of later success in reading . I disagree. I don't believe a standardized test in kindergarten is an indicator of anything. For Pete's sake, these are 5-YEAR-OLDS! If anything, our classrooms at that age need to be less standardized. Children are different, and learn in different ways and at different times.

We need to discontinue the practice of "failing" kindergarten students. To tell a child at the age of 5 that he/she is not as smart or accomplished as their classmates, is to set a child up to be a failure. Is this really what we want to do?

I am beginning to understand why our schools are failing.