| In 1990 the President and 50 governors established 8 National Education Goals. The first goal stated "by the year 2000 all children in America will start school ready to learn". In 2002, George W. Bush initiated "No Child Left Behind" education legislation which provides schools a nationwide curriculum, methodology and law which penalize educational institutions which do not meet test score standards. This socio-political framework has shaped the national research agenda, educational policy and practice, and public expectations regarding "normative" benchmarks of school readiness for young children across America, regardless of the differing circumstance in which children and families live. The purpose of the study was to (1) explore how meanings of school readiness and success are produced in an urban school for early-childhood educators/school staff, (2) to examine the specific beliefs and values of early childhood educators/school staff about "readiness" when entering prekindergarten, kindergarten and first-grade and (3) to explore how local meanings of readiness and success impact the instructional practices and classroom activities. Teachers and school officials participated in interviews, formally and informally structured to document how beliefs about readiness and success for young children are produced, as well as what those beliefs are. Participant observations of classroom practices and sites of decision-making for young children and fieldnotes were documented to capture how beliefs about readiness and success for young children shapes school practices, activities and decision making. Results suggest that the concept of readiness is nested within a complex system focusing on children and school-wide beliefs and practices. Readiness, in that form, clearly continues to exist as a conceptual framework. However, new factors, related to federal legislation and its anticipated funding impact on schools has emerged as a more central player in driving early childhood school practices. Administrative demands of complying with federal funding demands has become more important to school administrators (as a matter of survival) than ideas about development, teacher morale and/or the cultural relations of schools and communities. To some extent the concept of readiness has blended into the concept of "ready or not, here I come, and you'd better be accountable."... |
