LAUSR

As the title of this special issue suggests, our aim in issuing its call was to expand the literature base for kindergarten entry assessment (KEA) policies, practices, and on-the-ground implementation issues, as well as the extent to which these measures are valid and reliable for their stated purposes. In turn, we hoped to provide policy makers, school and program administrators, assessment developers, and teachers with an expanded understanding of the issues to consider when selecting or developing a KEA, when scaling up the administration of a KEA across a state, and when using KEA data for an array of purposes. These interrelated topics are salient given the widespread use of KEAs across the U.S. over the past eight years (Daily & Maxwell, 2018). We therefore are delighted to present a Special Issue comprised of an array of KEA-relevant articles. Given Early Education and Development’s focus on research, practice, and policy, we are particularly pleased that the eight articles presented here provide insight into specific KEAs, as well as practical implications for U.S. stakeholders to consider when using these measures. To provide a policy context for the overall focus of this Special Issue, we begin with an article by Weisenfeld et al. (2020). Their study analyzed federal and state efforts in the implementation of KEAs between 2011 and 2018. Analysis of these data suggest the important role federal funding and guidelines played during this time frame to support the development of, and reliance on, comprehensive measures that focus on all five domains of child development. The issue’s next two articles look across measures that can be used at kindergarten entry. The first of these articles is by Houri and Miller (2020). They provide an overview of 11 rating scales that can be used as screeners of students’ social-emotional and behavioral skills at kindergarten entry. Their study also evaluated bias identification methods to determine the extent to which scales may be used with diverse populations. This article is followed by Ackerman’s (2020) comparative case study of six KEAs, all of which were based on Teaching Strategies GOLD. Of specific interest in this study were the domains and items contained in these “GOLD-based” KEAs, as well as for which items English language learner kindergartners were permitted to use their home language to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. The Special Issue’s next three articles provide an in-depth look at the careful work that assessment developers can engage in when aiming to create KEAs that are psychometrically sound and intended for use on a large-scale basis. Specifically, the article by Montroy et al. (2020) details the five phases that were undertaken to develop, calibrate, and launch the Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment, which serves as a screening tool for a broad range of school readiness domains. The authors also illuminate the role that teacher input and state education agency priorities and policies played in developing the test blueprint. In the next article, Kriener-Althen et al. (2020) use data from California to illustrate how thresholds of social-emotional readiness were established for the Desired Results Developmental Profile. Their article also highlights the research steps involved in determining these thresholds. The third article within this theme is by Joseph et al. (2020) and focuses on the inter-rater reliability of Washington State’s kindergarten entry assessment. In this study, the researchers were particularly interested in the extent to which inaccurate ratings might lead to misidentification of school readiness and whether teacher characteristics were correlated with