The District is planning to begin testing its kindergarten students, labeling them “below basic” through “advanced” within the first six weeks of the start of school, in an effort to provide more tailored instruction to young learners in their very first days of school.

Officials in the Office of the State Superintendent for Education are hoping that these “readiness assessments” will be tested voluntarily in some schools this fall and rolled out to all kindergarten classrooms in D.C. Public Schools and charter schools by the fall of 2013.