Too young to test: why we need a better means of evaluating our nation's youngest children.(Early childhood: testing)

LAST FALL AND AGAIN IN THE SPRING, THE GOVernment administered a standardized literacy and math test to all children in the Head Start program. It's being given again this year. Four-year-olds are asked to count objects, name alphabet letters and simple geometrical shapes, understand directions, characterize facial expressions, and identify animals, body parts, and other objects in pictures.

It is hard to discern why the Bush administration insisted on the test over the objections of most leading early childhood experts and even members of its own Head Start advisory panel. ...

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