There was an article in yesterday’s Times about a proposed testing program for kids in kindergarten. Kindergarten. The most telling lines:

Mr. Liebman also pointed out that kindergartners and first and second graders are already evaluated by their teachers. Most schools use a system called the Early Childhood Literacy Assessment System, which takes teachers a long time to administer because they must meet with every child individually.

The new testing methods combine results to create a single score for English and a single score for math for each child, he said, making comparisons across classrooms and over time easier.

Purposeful misunderstanding, I think. If you think that a standardized test is the same thing as a lengthy assessment conducted by a teacher on a one-to-one basis, then you have a total misunderstanding of early literacy.