Educational Testing
Service (ETS) has released a report that examines PreK classroom observation
policies across the country.
The report,
State-Funded PreK Policies on External Classroom Observations: Issues
and Status, was written by Debra J. Ackerman of ETS's Early
Childhood Research & Assessment Center. It is the second in a series of
early childhood education policy reports that explore issues related to the use
of assessment data in programs serving preschool-age children.
"Since
early education programs are increasingly being promoted as an integral part of
state and federal efforts to ensure that all children enter school ready to
learn, it is important to make sure that the efforts to monitor them provide
the appropriate and necessary information," says Michael T. Nettles, Senior Vice
President of ETS's Policy Evaluation and Research Center.
"Ackerman's report addresses this issue by focusing on the policies of documenting
student learning experiences through classroom observation data."
As Ackerman
explains in the report, the trend of measuring teacher quality for high-stakes
purposes is growing.
"It is only
a matter of time before PreK observation score data begins to be used in a
greater number of consequential early childhood education decisions that will
affect PreK students, teachers and programs," says Ackerman. "That is
why it is vital for stakeholders and policymakers to know that they can rely on
the quality of the data that is collected."
To help explain
the importance of this issue, the report focuses on the three key factors that
contribute to the validity and reliability levels of classroom observation
score data. These factors include:
Ackerman's
report also provides a detailed analysis and description of classroom
observation policies for 27 state-funded PreK programs from the 2012–2013
school year. The data for the descriptions were gathered from a survey Ackerman
sent to the administrators of 53 PreK programs that were identified in the
National Institute for Early Education Research's 2011 Preschool
Yearbook. The research questions that the survey aimed to address
were:
"Collecting
valid monitoring data will likely remain a high priority for both state and
federal government officials as access to early education programs continue to
expand over the next few years," adds Ackerman. "We therefore must
find ways to meet and overcome some of the unique challenges that exist for
generating reliable classroom observation score data as part of the monitoring
processes."
Ackerman further
explains that given the less-than-robust early childhood literature base that
exists regarding potential validity and reliability issues related to policies
on classroom observation protocols, observer capacity and frequency of
observation data collection, the time may be right for early education
stakeholders to include such topics in their best-practice agendas.
"Ackerman's
report should prove to be very valuable to users of early childhood classroom
observation data, especially those whose decisions have critical consequences
about the future of early childhood education programs and can affect the quality
of education provided to children," Nettles concludes.
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