Some private kindergartens dropping $510 entry test because 4/5 yr olds being prepped

[Liberal_in_LA]

Private School Screening Test Loses Some Clout

For legions of 4- and 5-year-olds and their parents, the test known as the E.R.B. is the entree into the world of private schooling, its pressure and price a taste of the expensive years to come.

But parents who grumble about a test that they fear could determine their children’s educational future now have company: some of the private schools themselves.

At least two schools in Manhattan have dropped the exam as a requirement for admission starting this fall, bucking a trend of more widespread use of such tests. More broadly, a powerful coalition of New York schools is contending that pretest preparation, which many believe skews the results, has become so widespread as to cast doubt on the value of the test.

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The test, which costs parents $510, is not going away; in fact, at least three schools have added it in recent years as a requirement for kindergarten or even pre-kindergarten admission. But at least two have taken the practically unheard-of step of dropping the test: the Mandell School and the Calhoun School, both on the Upper West Side.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/nyregion/07erb.html?src=me&ref=homepage


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