Education: Hopping Like a Bunny

In Park Forest, a suburb south of Chicago which is growing so rapidly that even local mothers call it “Fertile Acres,” not even the oldtimers (residents of four years or more) could remember so bitter a fuss. It began simply as an earnest effort to cope with the town’s overcrowded schools. But by last week Park Forest was hard aboil with scalding controversy of an entirely different sort. The cause, as the suburb’s Reporter put it, was that “the fury of a woman scorned can’t hold a candle to the heat generated by a parent whose child has been refused admission to kindergarten.”

For six years, Park Forest’s kindergarten admissions policy was conventional: any child who became five before Sept. i automatically got in. Those who reached that age before Dec. 31 had to take a standard test; last year about 10% of those tested were flunked. But then Park Forest got a new superintendent for its School District 163. A conscientious educator, Superintendent Gerald Smith concluded that the tests had become too easy; so routine, in fact, that parents knew exactly how to cram their children for them. Convinced that kindergarten is harmful for children who are not ready (“Their attention span is much too short. They cry and wet their pants”), Smith and his seven-member school board decided to get tough.

No Guarantee. In June, Smith mailed out kindergarten-registration blanks to parents whose children will become five between September and December. This, it was explained, was part of an effort to “maintain the highest possible academic standards.” Though a bit miffed to find that the examination fee was $7, parents nevertheless cheerfully registered 203 kids.

When mothers and moppets began to show up last July to submit to Smith’s new tests, two specially hired woman psychologists were on hand to watch for such things as “readiness to leave parent,” “participation in game situation,” and the like. They were interested also in muscular coordination (“Unduly slow movements?”), behavior patterns (“Cheerful?” “Sullen?”), and test behavior (“Restless?” “Fidgets?”). There was talk, too, of “group activity.” Explained one psychologist : “We played a finger game called ‘Eensy Teensy Spider.’ We watched their responses when we said, ‘You are now walking like a duck or hopping like a bunny.’ “

A Little Bit Tense. The experts totted up the results. When the returns hit Park Forest mailboxes, the town exploded: 135 children had been flunked. Angry parents stormed the superintendent’s office and school-board meetings. What, they wanted to know, had walking like a duck or hopping like a bunny to do with a child’s maturity? One mother protested that her son had been rejected simply because he “was a little bit tense.”

One sample attempt at explanation by telephone, as overheard last week: “Your daughter seemed kind of shy. She didn’t have any spontaneous conversation with the other children. It’s just that she seemed to need a little encouragement. [Exclamation from other end.] Well, we sang Farmer in the Dell [noise from other end] . . . Well, perhaps it was just the result of her being tired . . . That’s all I can tell you now. She apparently does seem a little backward in a testing situation. [Loud click from other end.]” Lawyer Francis Drumm, whose son Tommy was rejected, insisted that the whole scheme was illegal, took the matter to court and carried the day for Tommy.

As matters went from bad to worse, the educators began to retreat. Last week the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Vernon L. Nickell declared that the tests were indeed “not in conformity with the school code . . . Entrance to kindergarten must not be based on the maturity of the child, but on the particular age requirement.” Harassed Superintendent Smith canceled the remaining tests and prepared to open wide his kindergarten gates this month. “We’ll probably have to triple-shift,” said he.