...3,370 kindergartners Vermont public schools. Previous group care experience, identified learning-related disabilities, and community-level measure of poverty were used as independent measures in analyses of children's readiness scores in four conceptual domains. Statistically significant relationships were found between prior group care experience and readiness in each of the domains, and between disability status and readiness in each of the domains. In addition, there were significant negative correlations between community-level poverty and community-level readiness in three of the domains. Results are discussed in terms of their value in establishing credibility for a school readiness measure that can serve to inform a community's efforts to address improvements in the early care and education of children.

Introduction

Assessing young children's readiness to enter school "ready to learn" has become a priority for nearly every state and for many local education jurisdictions. However, the specific forms these assessments take vary widely, from brief "screening" tests to comprehensive, in-depth child studies (Mehaffie & McCall, 2002; Meisels & Atkins-Burnett, 2000). Likewise, the results of assessments may be used to identify individual children as "ready" or "not ready" and thus eligible for particular supports or services; or they may serve as indicators, at an aggregate level, of the success of collaborative community efforts to ensure that all children receive high-quality early care and education (Murphey & Burns, 2002).

In any case, a challenge for those developing and using "readiness" assessments is to demonstrate that such measures are in fact valid indices--that they measure what they purport to measure. Content validity is perhaps of prime importance here, and any "readiness" measure should pass the critical review of early childhood professionals, kindergarten teachers, and parents. In addition, the measure should address the five readiness domains around which there is now broad consensus (National Education Goals Panel, 1992). Establishing other forms of validity can be more problematic. In particular, predictive validity is inappropriate in this context because of the rapid and uneven development typical of young children.

Discriminant validity, however, is a reasonable aim for school readiness instruments. Discriminant validity refers to a measure's ability to distinguish among groups that theory claims ought to be so distinguished. Thus, discriminant validity of a readiness-for-school measure would be supported if the measure distinguished between groups hypothesized to be more or less "ready" than others.

Although the construct of "school readiness" is still fairly new in the literature, there is considerable empirical research to suggest the individual characteristics and the family and community resources and experiences for young children with which it should...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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