Everything You Shouldn't Need to Know in Kindergarten.

• Author: McMahon, Kelly
• Position: Essay

I used to be excited at the first day of kindergarten. When I was five, I couldn't wait to learn about letters, sounds, and counting. Once I got there, I loved coloring inside the lines and cutting along the solid black line. I remember looking forward to rest time, recess, snack, playtime, and show and tell.

My wonderful memories of kindergarten influenced my decision to return to kindergarten, only this time as the teacher.

Again, I was excited. This time, I couldn't wait to meet the new kids, and to open the windows of knowledge and creativity for them.

Unfortunately, I found that kindergarten had drastically changed for the worse. Kindergarten post-No Child Left Behind is being turned into a maze of tests. As a result, many young children instantly dislike school. Worse, they are made to feel like failures from the start.

I have spent the last seven years teaching five-year-old kindergarten for Milwaukee public schools. During this time, I have seen a huge increase in the amount of testing and data collection.

The students in my classroom during the 2008-9 school year completed the following list of assessments:

--Milwaukee Public Schools Five-Year-Old Kindergarten Assessment (completed three times a year)

--On The Mark Reading Verification Assessment (completed three times a year)

--A monthly writing prompt focused on different strands of the Six Traits of Writing

--Twenty-eight assessments measuring key early reading and spelling skills

--Chapter pre- and post-test for all nine math chapters completed

--Three additional assessments for each math chapter completed to monitor progress

--A monthly math prompt

--Four Classroom Assessments Based on Standards (CABS) per social studies chapter (twenty total assessments)

--Four CABS per science chapter (twenty total assessments)

--Four CABS per health chapter (twenty total assessments)

D espite President Obama's b criticism of standardized testing during his Presidential campaign, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's Race to the Top policies have further pushed many schools, particularly those in urban areas like mine, to the point of data-drenched obsession.

In the process, we have precious little time to spark a curiosity about the natural world in our kids, or to engage their artistic bents, or to inspire a love of learning, or to impart crucial life skills, such as being able to get along well with others.

Everything, even in kindergarten, now takes a back seat to the child's reading or...