Will New Testing Change at Elite Kindergartens Make EL Mainstream?

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
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First, a link to the article discussing the new test at a handful of elite private kindergartens.

Are You Smart Enough To Get Into Private Kindergarten

Like the SAT for older students, a progressively larger percentage of parents were spending a lot on test preparation, which in some respects nullifies the test. To counter this, the SAT announced earlier this year that they were altering their test (and then providing free prep through Khan Academy). Similarly, elite kindergartens in New York are altering their tests and admission requirements.

According to the article, they will now focus more on literacy and numeracy (academics). However, in the sample test provided at the end of the article, the first 4 questions are Raven’s Progressive Matrices (hard core IQ test) and the 5th question is a reading comprehension question. The child, presumably, has to read through the prompt and then use a picture to answer the question.

Companies like Testing Mom (quite popular around here at BK) typically haven’t advocated EL the way we understand it (teaching your baby to read and do math), but perhaps with this new test, she’ll have to start advocating early literacy.

I can see where this could spark a wave of EL tiger parents. ie, If you want your kid to get into the most elite kindergartens, they’ll have to read and do math before applying. Once parents figure this out, I wouldn’t discount their incentive to start an EL program.

What do you think?

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Scares the crap out of me. :ohmy: Can you even imagine the pressure an EL tiger parent would put on a tiny baby? I truly hope the joyous spirit in which we teach is emphasized when EL goes mainstream. The time will come. It is getting nearer. We just need to make sure we do it right.

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Wait… you mean you’d worry that we’d see far more Youngest Pilots in the World?

lol

I’m fairly confident at this point that EL will not gain significant traction anytime soon (though I’d guess it has surged over the last decade or so due to YBCR ads) simply because:

  1. People are lazy
  2. Parents are ignorant
  3. The experts are currently working to keep parents ignorant
  4. The elite schools in question are very few and very expensive (the social climber type of tiger parent cannot afford these schools either way)