South Brunswick
Public Schools, South Brunswick, New Jersey
The South Brunswick Public Schools in South Brunswick, New Jersey, have developed their own portfolio assessment for kindergarten through second grade, collaborating with researchers from Educational Testing Service. The effort to improve their assessment program began with the recognition that standardized test results did not adequately and accurately reflect what children were actually doing. During a lengthy period of planned improvement of the early childhood program, the teachers and administrators had adopted a developmentally appropriate curriculum that emphasized emergent literacy and whole language, mathematical process approaches, and thematic and project planning. They realized that standardized tests focusing on static, decontextualized skills were not an appropriate match for the curriculum.
The portfolio has undergone many changes, as teachers tried various plans for content and as they learned more about what would work and what was most informative and valuable. The portfolio contents are standardized in terms of core or required materials, with wide latitude for teachers to add materials and student work samples.
Teachers are retrained annually in scoring procedures, a policy that has led to a high rate of reliability in teacher scoring. In recent years, the portfolios have proven so valid and reliable that the district has discontinued the use of standardized achievement tests for all children at the end of second grade.
The assessment processes and examples of portfolio contents are described in Literacy Portfolios in the Early Childhood Classroom (Polakowski, 1993).
