Contents
Acknowledgments xi
1. Why Examine the Changed Kindergarten? 1
Origins of My Interest in the Changed Kindergarten 2
Why This Book? 3
How No Child Left Behind Has Failed 4
The Purpose of This Book 5
My Own Sense of Reality 9
Outlining the Rest of the Book 11
2. How Kindergarten Transitioned From a Garden to a Race 13
Froebel’s Kindergarten 13
The Expansion of Kindergarten in the United States 14
Kindergarten Post-WWII 16
A National Focus on the Academic Performance of Children 17
The Early Childhood Community Responds to the Push for Increased Academics 18
A New Focus on Kindergarten Readiness 18
Improving America’s Schools Act 19
No Child Left Behind 20
Accountability Shovedown Moves Into Prekindergarten Classrooms 21
Readying Children for Kindergarten 22
The Achievement Gap 22
The Construct of School Readiness 23
The Impact of Policy on Kindergarten Teachers’ Curricular Decisionmaking 25
Not Just Standards-Based Accountability Reform 27
3. Experiencing the Kinder-Race 28
The Significance of the Kindergarten Year for Student Learning 29
The Day-to-Day in Kindergarten 30
Making Sense of Kindergarten 30
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy 31
Kindergarten in Texas 32
What Do Kindergartners “Do” on a Daily Basis? 36
What Happens in Literacy and Mathematics During a Typical Day? 37
Summing Up a Day in the Kinder-Race 54
4. Figuring the Kinder-Race Within the Worlds of Schooling 57
Why Texas and West Virginia? 58
The Figured World of the Kindergarten Classroom 58
How the Kindergartners Figured Their Own World 59
How Kindergartners Would Like to Reroute the Kinder-Race 62
How the Adults Within the Worlds of Elementary School Figured the Kinder-Race 64
How Family Members Figured Kindergarten 66
How Families Hoped to Reroute the Kinder-Race 70
How Kindergarten Teachers Figured Kindergarten 73
Teachers Rerouting the Kinder-Race 79
School Principals 83
Principals Rerouting the Kinder-Race 87
The Figuring of Kindergarten by Those Whose Orbits Revolve Around the School 90
5. The Tension Between Fostering Democratic Students Versus Individualized Performers 92
Countering Neoliberalism 92
Texas and West Virginia Stakeholders 93
Texas Stakeholders 94
West Virginia Stakeholders 108
National Stakeholders 119
National Stakeholders Rerouting the Kinder-Race 123
Struggling to Reroute a Race That Prioritizes Economics Over Democratic Learning 130
6. Kindergarten Is the Expansion of Learning 131
Rerouting the Kinder-Race 131
The Strict Father and Nurturant Parent Metaphors 133
Defining the Kinder-Race Using Lakoff 134
Rerouting the Kinder-Race: Kindergarten Is the Expansion of Learning 135
How to Engage in the Expansion of Learning 137
Supporting and Engaging Stakeholders in Expanding the Learning of Kindergartners 144
Moving Into the Political 150
Resources to Help Create Schools to Expand Learning for All Children 155
Moving Forward in Expanding the Learning of All Children 156
Appendix: Research Design 159
Notes 165
References 168
Index 191
About the Author 204
