SALT LAKE CITY — Utah kindergarteners might see a new entrance assessment to help teachers understand their academic readiness before starting school.

Utah does not have a consistent way of measuring the academic abilities of new kindergarteners, but members of the Utah State Board of Education are considering adopting a standardized entrance test for kindergarteners across the state. The test would replace exams that schools currently administer individually.

The assessment would also coincide with proposed legislation to extend full-day kindergarten to more low-income students and those who perform poorly on entrance exams.

Commercially developed test favored

The Standards and Assessment Committee on Thursday considered several possibilities for adopting a uniform kindergarten entrance assessment. The committee voted in favor of using DIBELS, a reading test already used in many Utah schools, unless another commercially developed test is found to be more promising.

Education leaders hope to ultimately adopt an assessment that allows teachers to measure student performance throughout the year, rather than giving a single test at the beginning of the year.

Using a commercial product would also save time that would otherwise be spent on designing a new assessment, according to Rich Nye, associate superintendent at the Utah State Office of Education.

"The nice thing here is as we're looking at these commercially based products, a lot of what the (schools) like is the formative nature of the assessment," Nye said. "The primary purpose of (the test is) driving instruction and providing some meaningful information to determine what students need. A lot of these off-the-shelf products do that."

While contracting with an independent assessment provider was estimated to be the most expensive option, costing roughly $1.6 million each year, lawmakers plan to appropriate the funding if proposals to expand full-day kindergarten pass the Legislature.

Locally created assessment

Another option included creating an all-new assessment locally, which would give Utah education leaders more control over the test's content, but would take extra time and resources to complete.

Board members also considered adopting an assessment already used by a school district, or using a mix of commercially and locally developed assessments.

Board member Spencer Stokes said the board should consult teachers and administrators to find out what has worked and see where improvements could be made as other potential assessments are considered.

The Utah State Office of Education "should put together a construct of what they think. I think they should then bring in the (schools) that are doing this and have a conversation about it and see what they're doing that's working," Stokes said. "And then based on that criteria that's been put together, they should examine whether there's a commercial product that meets the needs of what the (schools) would like to do."

The decision is still subject to final approval by the full State School Board on Friday.

Full-day kindergarten bills

Lawmakers are currently considering two bills dealing with full-day kindergarten. One would provide money for schools to administer optional full-day kindergarten to students who perform poorly on the entrance exam to be adopted by the State School Board. The program would also be offered to students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, as well as other "at-risk" populations.

That bill would cost $10 million in new money, in addition to the $7.5 million already appropriated for full-day kindergarten programs.

The other proposal would allow schools to charge a fee for families wishing to enroll in an optional full-day kindergarten program. That money would be used to pay teachers for the extra instruction time.

Both bills were unanimously endorsed by the Education Interim Committee last month.

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