the Starting Line: Developing a Structure for Teacher Ratings of Students' Skills at Kindergarten Entry (Report‪)‬

Introduction If you have benefited from free access to ECRP, please consider making a financial contribution to ECRP so that the journal can continue to be available free to everyone. Although annual testing requirements mandated in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) begin in third grade, educators in the United States are placing a renewed emphasis on education in the primary grades because it serves as the foundation for all future learning. Measurement of young children's educational development is a critical piece of any comprehensive assessment system, yet it differs a great deal from the measurement protocols used with older children. Scott-Little, Kagan, and Clifford (2003) suggest that young children learn in a manner that is more episodic than older students and that multiple means of assessment are necessary to gain a full understanding of their knowledge. For young children, a single assessment administered at one point in time cannot accurately reflect their development. Moreover, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education (NAECS/SDE) have established boundaries on appropriate uses of assessments in early childhood. These guidelines state that the appropriate use of assessments in early childhood is to guide teaching and learning, to identify children who may require focused interventions, and to improve educational programs and development interventions (NAEYC & NAECS/SDE, 2009). From a measurement perspective, it is clear that that these divergent objectives require unique assessment tools, and standardized measures for this population are not readily available.