Full-Day Kindergarten

Dr. Teresa Thayer Snyder

(Jan. 26, 2012) At the January 23, 2012 meeting of the Board of Education, a vote to approve conversion to full day kindergarten was approved by the Board of Education. The district is projecting 70 kindergarten students for the fall, and the state has earmarked $188,000 in aid for conversion to a full-day program. If there are more or fewer students, the conversion aid is adjusted accordingly. I recommended that we access this aid and move forward. Subsequent to my recommendation, the Board requested and helped author a survey of the community on this issue. The survey results included 541 responses, with more than 77 percent supporting the move to full-day kindergarten.

Today, I want to address one issue that was brought up by some parents who expressed concern that if they had known that we might change to full day they would have made different plans for their pre-school children this year to ease the transition. I found that reason very compelling, so I thought I would address it from a personal and historical point of view.

Many of you may know I have four children. I was able to take time off from my career to stay home with them, a time in my life I will always cherish. In the case of my three older children, they went to three-day pre-kindergarten and then to half-day kindergarten, as was more typical in that era. My youngest son, however, stayed home with me until he was five. I returned to work, teaching at a private school where he was enrolled in full-day kindergarten. Although I was concerned about the transition as he had never gone to pre-school at all, my guy thrived. I hope by sharing this, it helps some parents. Of my four children, he is the only one who recalls what a wonderful time he had in kindergarten, remembers all of his teachers’ names, remembers the playground, the lunch room, the books and stories. He still communicates with many of the kids and some of the teachers he went to school with 24 years ago. School was a challenge for him from the academic point of view as he is dyslexic, but he cherished his classroom experience. When he was recently completing his master’s degree in education, he frequently alluded to his kindergarten experience as enriching, encouraging, nurturing and fun. He once wrote of his love for writing which, though difficult for him, was a passion lit up by his teacher. I still have a piece of his writing which by many standards would be so primitive—it is laden with strings of letters with some approximate spelling, but which contains the dictation his teacher took when she asked him to read it: “This is the story of a king and a queen and a girl named Felicia who lived in a haunted castle by the edge of the creepy forest ( ‘cweepy foris’!)…” I remember his teacher telling me he was lacking conventions, but he surely had voice.

I am a big believer in time and space—so many children are living in such a rushed world, with so many transitions. I earnestly believe that full-day kindergarten will afford children time and space to develop the skills they need and to discover their own voice, in the company of teachers dedicated to the best tenets of early childhood education. That said, for those parents who feel strongly that their kindergarten child does not need or cannot handle a full-day program, parents can exercise their parental rights to pick their child up at noon. Kindergarten, unlike upper grades, is not mandatory and a parent who chooses to pick a child up will be accorded the same accommodations that parents currently experience when they pick up a child for an appointment.

Happy Holidays!

Dr. Teresa Thayer Snyder

(December 2011)

As 2011 draws to a close and we prepare for our holiday recess, I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone in the community the very best. Whether you celebrate one of the winter holidays or you do not, I wish you a time of happy reflection and good memories of the year.

I was thinking about little children and their “magical thinking” surrounding this time of year and I remembered a story my mom used to tell about our family Thanksgiving visit to New York City when I was four years old. I had been to visit the Macy’s Santa Claus and then, while we were riding on the bus through Manhattan, there was a Santa on every corner collecting change for some charity. Everyone on the bus became aware that this little girl was staring out the window and seeing Santa on every corner. My mom said people tried to distract me, people "tisked, tisked" that this poor little kid was confused by so many Santa’s until out of my own magical thinking I declared very loudly: “Boy, Santa sure does run fast—he beats the bus to the corner every single time!”

That story—which I hated when I was growing up—sums up why I love working with children. They have a fresh way of looking at the world and they look for logical explanations for illogical events. As you enjoy the upcoming break, it is my wish that all of you and your families have some time for magical thinking and revitalizing rest. See you at the dawn of 2012!

When social media is anything but...

Dr. Teresa Thayer Snyder

(November 2011)

I know that you have heard this before, but I am telling you, the time is now to get a handle on your child’s use of social media.

Over the past several weeks, I have had the unpleasant experience of having to investigate incidents of bullying and other bad behaviors. Inevitably, social media has actually become anti-social media on several occasions. It is a means of blasting another kid, bad-mouthing parents, teachers and school in general. It is not the familiar complaints that we have all remarked upon in our own development; it is hostile and it targets people.

If you're not sure if your child has a Twitter account—there is a really good chance he or she does—please check.  What you will read on Twitter will curl your hair—or in my case make it turn white! You do not even need an account of your own to check the interactions of your child and those with whom she or he is tweeting. It is not hard—mind you this 61-year-old grandmother who is marginally comfortable with technology can tell you where the next party is going to be held and who is planning on attending because it is all over the Tweets.

It is not just Twitter. It is also other venues, including Facebook. Many Voorheesville students have wide-open Facebook pages for all to see. Their profiles are not set up with the caveat that “so and so only shares information with some people”—but wide-open for anyone out there to troll their "wall" and photos. Think of the risk a vulnerable young person is at from people who actually do troll and groom for pernicious purposes. We are talking about young children—pre-high school aged. Some of the photos that are posted are very concerning; some of the verbal posts are downright mean; some of the back and forth is potentially dangerous. I am not posting this as an anti-social media message—indeed I am actually using the technology to offer this caution. I am posting this to urge parents to actively engage with your children regarding the vulnerability they are subject to when they so casually “post" about their lives.

Generalizations related to NAEP data disturbing

(November 2011) As much as I always relish pouring over data and looking at releases of new statistical data sets, I am frequently appalled at the gross generalizations that commonly occur, especially regarding educational outcomes. The media coverage on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results is particularly disturbing. It is not appropriate to assert that New York fourth-graders lag behind the rest of the nation, as was recently published in local media outlets. New York fourth-graders did not collectively participate in this assessment. The participants were a small representative sample that closely matches the demographic profile of New York students. In 22 years in school administration, I have only been approached once for participation. In that case, one grade at one of eight elementary schools in the district where I then worked was targeted for a NAEP assessment in Reading. When I pointed out to the administrators of the NAEP that the date they had selected to test these nine-year-olds happened to fall on the day after the three-day New York State English Language Arts exam, and that I was concerned about test fatigue affecting outcomes, I was informed they would be there anyhow.

What folks don’t know about NAEP is that schools do not have much to do with the assessment. Our students, if they are selected, take the assessment which is administered by representatives of the federal government. The tests are taken away and placed into the mix with all the other sample members. The school never sees the results, the students never learn how they did. Now, in the recent reporting of the NAEP results, 422,000 fourth-graders and 343,000 eighth-graders were assessed across the country. While that is a large sample size, it does not describe the sample size for each individual state. How many students from New York State were assessed? The negative tone of the reporting suggests that New York State falls behind the rest of the country, but remember the sample size matches the demographic profile for the state. In New York, we have a more diverse population, with higher than national average free and reduced lunch, so our sample size would reflect that demographic. In the year studied with this NAEP, New York had about 201,000 fourth-graders and about 205,000 eighth-graders. Only a small percentage of these students would have been participants in the NAEP. With that said, what should be noted in the review is that the gap between the poor and the not poor has actually declined. That is news worth celebrating, because, remember, the sample would reflect the demographics. Given the fact that, in this dire economy, we seem determined to make more and more children poor, it is good news that they are achieving better and better.

Among ethnic groups there has been further good news, which is rarely noted in the media reports. Since 1973, white fourth grade students have increased their scores by 25 points, black students by 34 points, and Hispanic students by 32 points. Compared to 1973, scores for eighth-graders in 2008 were 16 points higher for white students, 34 points higher for black students, and 29 points higher for Hispanic students. In reading, the average reading score for fourth grade white students was 14 points higher in 2008 than in 1971, while the score for black students was 34 points higher than their score in 1971. Hispanic students in 2008 showed a 25-point gain compared to 1975.

Another way to look at the NAEP is as it was designed—a longitudinal study of academic outcomes in the country. If you look back over time at the NAEP, you will find that today’s children are at least as bright, maybe a little brighter, than their parents who were at least as bright, maybe a little brighter, than their parents. The fact is the NAEP is trending upward, although very slowly—by design. If you have huge spikes in a tightly designed instrument such as the NAEP, you would have statisticians scratching their heads and analyzing flaws in the instrument. Not only is there an upward trend, there is an inclusive trend. In 2008, the average math score for all nine-year-olds on the NAEP was 24 points higher than in 1973, and that is with the inclusion of students with disabilities who were previously excluded from the test. In reading, nine-year-olds scored 12 points higher than nine-year- olds in 1971, again with students with disabilities and English language learners included in the assessments. For grade eight students, students who took the math assessment scored 15 points higher than in 1973 and in reading they scored five points higher than their predecessors in 1971, again with the addition of students who in previous generations would have been excluded from the test.

When interpreting NAEP results, it is wise to heed their very own caution:

Cautions in Interpretations

Users of this website are cautioned against interpreting NAEP results as implying causal relationships. Inferences related to student group performance or to the effectiveness of particular classroom practices, for example, should take into consideration the many socioeconomic and educational factors that may also impact performance. nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ltt/interpreting_results.asp (last update April 2011)

When confronting data sets, it is imperative that the interpreters be free of bias and let the data speak, understanding that no one assessment, no matter how celebrated, no matter how tightly designed is a perfect indicator of student learning.