[summer]

FYI -- Florida officials intend to use the screening results beyond the classroom, too. They hope to determine which child-care programs are doing a good job of preparing children for school. That includes not-for-profit and faith-based programs, private day-care centers and pre-kindergarten classes in public schools.

[Truth Addict]

This is an interesting development that I was unaware of (my wife tells me she knows all about it). If they intend to use this testing to track the effectiveness of various pre-k programs, I wonder how they will know which class (or lack therof) the child came from. Is it now required to give such information upon kindergarten registration, or will it be a new requirement?

My wife's (church based) pre-school is already required to make these assessments for all the children that receive state funding, which I presume is to check on the child's progress as well as evaluating the school. She tells me that the test is called "Ages and Stages", and is the same test that will be administered in the public kindergartens starting in August.

I notice that Lori Horvitz is still using biased language to describe pre-k programs:

not-for-profit and faith-based programs, private day-care centers and pre-kindergarten classes in public schools.

Notice that the only choice that is described as a pre-k class is the public program; non-profit schools are "programs", and private schools are "day-care centers". My wife has written Lori about this biased reporting, and never received any response.

She may have a chance to comment on this herself in a little while. She has her own screen name now (PS_Motherhen), but hasn't used it yet.