High-quality learning experiences before kindergarten can provide a strong foundation for children’s success in early elementary school and beyond. Such early learning experiences have only become more important for all children as average math and reading skills measured in fourth grade have declined over time, a decline that started even before the COVID-19 pandemic and has only worsened following it. To support children’s learning, educators, families, and policymakers need high-quality, reliable information about their needs, abilities, and progress, starting in pre-K and continuing into the early grades. Yet that information is often not available. Part of the challenge is related to limitations of existing measures of early learning: current child assessments and observational tools are often costly, burdensome to administer, and based on a narrow definition of success that focuses primarily on children’s basic skills. Because they are costly and burdensome teachers are not using these tools consistently, and when they are used, their focus on basic skills means they fail to produce meaningful data about children’s more complex, higher-order skills, which limits their opportunities to support children’s learning.

To meet the need for better tools, MDRC is leading a multipronged effort—the Measures for Early Success Initiative—to reimagine child assessments, creating tools that accurately represent children’s abilities, are easier to administer, and produce information more useful to pre-K educators. The initiative aims to spur innovation by working with assessment-development teams who are creating technology-enabled assessment tools, following a managed research and development process to align assessments’ features with the needs of the people using the tools. The Measures for Early Success Initiative has focused on developing assessments for pre-K classrooms.

Keeping children’s educational experiences consistent as they move from kindergarten through second grade (including the content they encounter and the expectations educators have of them) can help to sustain the positive effects of preschool. With that understanding in mind, MDRC has engaged in an additional series of activities focused on assessments for kindergarten through second grade, with the support of the Walton Foundation. To better understand the existing landscape of K-2 assessments, MDRC held a series of conversations with parents and caregivers, educators, and state leaders, centered on their experiences with these assessments and their perspectives on them and their potential. This brief organizes insights from these engagements into three overarching themes, each accompanied by suggestions for assessment-design features intended to improve assessments from pre-K through second grade that could help address the needs and aspirations shared by stakeholders.