Kentucky's Early Childhood Continuous Assessment and Accountability System

Abstract

K entucky has developed an assessment and accountability system that provides outcome data for a set of state early childhood standards for children birth to 5 years of age that are aligned with early childhood outcomes designated by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). Within this flexible and comprehensive state assessment system, early intervention and care providers, district preschool personnel, and childcare program staff select a criterion-referenced, curriculum-based assessment (CBA) tool to monitor children's progress. The system is designed so that data from these CBA tools can be used for three purposes: (a) to demonstrate child progress and inform instruction at the individualized intervention or classroom level; (b) to promote program improvement and plan program, district, and state supports through the aggregation of assessment data at the program, district, and state level; and (c) to report on child progress to evaluate the success of federal, state, or district programs and initiatives.

Exploring Assessment and Accountability for Children's Learning: A Case Study of a Hong Kong Preschool

“…In the field of early childhood education, researchers have put much effort into developing an assessment and accountability system that provides outcome data to (a) demonstrate children's learning process and progress; (b) improve learning and teaching strategies; (c) review the overall curriculum development of the institution; and (d) evaluate the success of federal, state, or district programs (Rous, McCormick, Gooden, & Townley, 2007). According to K. Jones (2006b), assessment should be designed to meet contextual needs, and it should be embedded in local curricula instead of adjusting curricula to meet the external requirements of state tests.…”

Comparing Apples and Oranges

“…The BDI-2 was selected as an example of a norm-referenced assessment instrument. The BDI-2 is used widely for eligibility determination by many states and programs (Brown et al, 2010; Macy et al, 2005; NECTAC, 2009a, 2009b) and has been used to validate three state assessment systems (Elbaum, Gattomorta, & Penfield, 2010; Greenwood, Walker, Hornbeck, Hebbeler, & Spiker, 2007; Rous, McCormick, Gooden, & Townley, 2007). Furthermore, the BDI (in its first and second version) has been used as the criterion measure in prior validation studies of criterion-referenced, curriculum-based assessments.…”