The Kindergarten Entry Assessment pilot conducted in half of North Carolina’s elementary schools in the 2014-15 school year apparently cost $511,360.

This $511,360 figure comes from the Department of Public Instruction response to a Freedom of Information Act request I original sent to Wake County Schools earlier this year.

It is unclear if the $511,360 is money from the Race To The Top – Early Learning Challenge grant or if the funds came from the Department of Public Instruction budget.

The pilot included 193 Kindergarten teachers and was executed across 51 school districts. In the current school year, the KEA has apparently been rolled out to all elementary schools in North Carolina.

You can view the break out of the costs at the bottom of this article.

Note the large amount of ‘technology’ related line items.  The KEA depends on the use of technology and devices to ‘capture’ observations on these kindergarteners.  The KEA is, of course, Common Core aligned.

Bob Luebke at Civitas has an excellent article about the KEA, the data collection inherent in it and the privacy concerns it raises. ALL parents should read it.

The KEA has an array of ‘constructs’ to assess your 5 or 6-year-old on. Only a few are being used right now, but the rest of them deal with highly subjective items like ’emotional literacy’.

Officials at the Department of Public Instruction gave conflicting answers on whether the data being collected stayed at the school or if it was being passed along into the Statewide Longitudinal Database System (SLDS).  Remember, the data in the SLDS and the P-20w database will follow kids through college and into the workforce.

Parents should ask themselves, do I really want this information, much of it subjective, following my child through to college?

Parents CAN opt out of this photo/video data collection, however the vast majority have not been informed by their schools about said opt out.

RELATED READING/MATERIALS:

• KEA Document Archive
• KEA: Big Government Comes to Kindergarten
• A Bureaucrat Testifies to Where Student/Teacher Data is Sent & For What Purpose. Confirmed: It’s Cradle to Grave.
• Parents CAN Opt Child Out of Photo & Video Data Collection – IF ONLY THEY KNEW
• New Assessments for Kindergarteners – Bigger Concern Is Data Collection
• P20-W initiative will track students throughout academic careers
• The Assessment Of Your Kindergartener
• See What $69,157,850 In Education Contracts Buys For NC