Fall 2000 North Carolina School Readiness Assessment Description

Background

The Ready for School Goal Team established a definition of school readiness and a plan for assessing school readiness statewide. They defined school readiness as the condition of children as they enter school and the capacity of schools to educate all kindergartners effectively. The Goal Team recommended an ongoing statewide assessment to describe both pieces of school readiness—children and schools. This assessment is designed to provide a "snapshot" of school readiness statewide and help us monitor trends in children and schools over time. The Goal Team recommended that the assessment plan be pilot tested in the fall of 2000 with a statewide representative sample of children and schools. The Goal Team also recommended that future samples of children and schools be large enough to describe school readiness in each of North Carolina's 100 counties.

Purpose of the North Carolina School Readiness Assessment

The North Carolina School Readiness Assessment provides a general description of the condition of children as they enter school and the capacity of schools to educate kindergartners. This "snapshot" helps the early childhood community, in the broadest sense, understand its effectiveness. The assessment also helps the State Board of Education identify strengths and needs in schools' abilities to educate kindergartners effectively.

Dr. Kelly Maxwell from the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute led the Fall 2000 North Carolina School Readiness Assessment. The purposes of the project were to (a) pilot test the assessment procedures with a statewide representative sample of children and schools, and (b) develop a plan for conducting the school readiness assessment in each of North Carolina's 100 counties.

Participants

School readiness information was gathered from elementary school principals, kindergarten teachers, parents, and children just entering kindergarten. The sample of participants was representative of the state and included 1034 kindergarten children from 189 public elementary schools.

Measures

A variety of measures were used to assess both pieces of the school readiness puzzle—children and schools. A number of commercially available and project developed instruments were used. A description of the complete North Carolina School Readiness Assessment Battery is available as a PDF file that can be viewed and printed with Adobe Acrobat Reader. This software is available free from Adobe. If you do not have Adobe's Acrobat Reader software, please click on the Get Acrobat Reader icon.

Findings

The Fall 2000 North Carolina School Readiness Assessment provides state-level school readiness information. It does not provide any county-level data about school readiness. An overall summary report of the Fall 2000 school readiness findings entitled North Carolina's Kindergartners & Schools was released in April 2001. A technical report provides additional information about procedures and results. These reports are available as PDF files on the Reports page of this web site.