MEMO
TO: IOWA EMPOWERMENT BOARD
FROM: PENNY MILBURN, CONSULTANT
DATE: JANUARY 10, 2003
SUBJECT: CHLDREN READY TO SUCCEED IN SCHOOL
During the 2002-2003 school year the Iowa Department of
Education conducted the third annual Kindergarten Teacher Perception Survey to
address the empowerment indicator measuring the result “Children ready to
succeed in school”. The survey process and design were conducted in the same
manner as the previous year.
Survey
Process
Surveys were sent to accredited public and nonpublic
schools. Community Empowerment
Coordinators assisted in the process, helping to increase both the return rate
and accuracy of the data. The data was aggregated at the state level and
disagregated by community empowerment areas.
Survey
Results
The return rate for accredited public districts was 81%
while accredited nonpublic buildings was 67%. This was an improvement of
approximately 15% from last year’s return rate. The usable (accurate) data
represents 66% of all school buildings as compared to 52% last year.
About 64% of Iowa’s kindergarten students both public
and nonpublic are represented in these data. This compares to 47% of Iowa
kindergarten students last year. Surveys with categories and representative
behaviors that totaled within a range of 97% to 103% were accepted. State
results as well as results for each community empowerment area are posted on
the Empowerment web site.
Without predictability evidence of the instrument used,
cautious conclusions must be drawn. It may be helpful to consider lower bound
estimates or areas that appear to fall in the lower ranges of the total range.
For example, it appears that teachers perceive about 35% of kindergarten
children consistently exhibit the communication skills a teacher would expect
while 50% of the children consistently exhibit the social/emotional skills.
Another low area was cognitive skills. Teachers perceive that only 44%of the
children exhibit the cognitive skills they would expect.
Another way to consider the results is similar to the
manner in which the health care field reports data. Looking across the
communication category, about 1 out of 10 children rarely exhibit the
representative behaviors, 2 out of 10 sometimes exhibit these behaviors, less
than 3 out of 10 frequently exhibit these behaviors and 3 out of 10
consistently exhibit these representative behaviors. These results are similar
to those from the 2001-2002 survey.
In general, the percentage of students ranked in the
consistently observable category in communication, cognitive, and self
management skills are rated lower by teachers than are motor and social
emotional skills. Overall, it would appear that about 7 of 10 children exhibit
the needed skills to be successful in school as compared to about 8 of 10 last
year.
State
Level Conclusions
When taken alone, the survey still does not address the
validity, reliability or technical adequacy necessary to draw any definite
conclusions. However, when coupled with the results of the Midwest Child Care
Research Study a clearer picture begins to emerge.
The Midwest Child Care Study indicates activities,
language and reasoning were rated only mediocre in preschool child care
centers. In addition, learning activities were rated just above poor in Iowa’s
infant and toddler centers. The cognitive and communication skills of Iowa’s
kindergartners as measured by the Kindergarten Teacher Perception are low. The
areas of weakness in the Midwest study relate to the low scores in
communication and cognitive skills on the survey. Iowa’s lack of high quality
environments as confirmed by this data appears to negatively affect child
outcomes.
In order positively affect outcomes for children and to
increase their performance, Iowa must increase families’ capacity to provide
quality early learning environments and increase the quality of child care and
early learning environments. The results of the Midwest Child Care Study and
the Iowa Kindergarten Teacher Perception Survey support the following state
level strategies
1)
Development of a comprehensive assessment system
2)
Development of voluntary early learning guidelines
3)
Continuation of
systematic professional development