ACT, the same group that does the college entrance exam and of which I wrote about their multi-grade job assessments that begin in 8th grade apparently will be developing assessments for Kindergarteners.  Via Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — A new digital tool to test academic and behavioral skills will target students starting in kindergarten.

ACT, the organization that developed the ACT college-entrance exam, will start testing the tool in the fall. It will be available to schools starting in 2014.The tool tracks students’ career interests, academic performance and progress toward goals. It’s designed to follow students from kindergarten through high school.

Jon Erickson, president of ACT’s education division, said the goal is to identify and address gaps in skills needed for college and the workforce. The assessment combines traditional testing with teacher-led projects to generate an instant, digital score.

It’s a multimillion dollar project, ACT officials said, but will be affordable and easily accessible.

Schools won’t be compelled to use the new tool, but Erickson said he anticipates that entire states or groups of states will choose to utilize it. The tool can be customized to include state-specific benchmarks and other performance measures.

In the testing and educrat world, where data is God, it seems perfectly normal to start testing, poking and prodding a child of 5.  Most 30-year-olds don’t know what they want to do for a career, here we are testing 5 year olds like they hold the key to cracking future job selection. Pidgeon-holing our kids. That’s what we’re ultimately doing here.

Here are a few reminders related to this turn of events with ACT.

Reminder: Common Core Architect David Coleman (SAT/College Board President now) and ACT are directly competing. They don’t care if that testing kids below a certain age is reliable or appropriate. They just want the next bit of information to help them make the big dollars. Your child is not a child to them, they are a data set.

Reminder: Your Kindergartener in NC is ALREADY  being assessed. Starting in 2016-2017 school year, full implementation of the Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA).  Read my write-up on the KEA. I have found no documentation on opting out of this assessment. Parents need to ask about this!

Reminder: Rep. Cotham’s Amendment to SB 812 – replace Common Core would allow for any private testing groups like ACT to stay in the mix. NC should be using open source, public forms like the Iowa test, not private testing companies with deep ties to the Common Core.  The Senate has not concurred on 812 as passed by the House and conference committtee has been ordered to hammer out the details.