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
