ABSTRACT
This chapter challenges all deficit discourses, including school readiness, and work toward equity in early childhood programs nation-wide. It examines Grayson's school district and utilizes it as an example of the American society as a whole and the structural inequities and inequalities that affect the schooling process and deficit identification of the individual low-income Black child. As noted earlier, there are five different elementary schools, yet the two schools physically closest to the nearby urban metropolis have the highest populations of low-income non-White children. Thus, Grayson experiences both inequities and inequalities within the greater district and within society at large. According to the Office of Civil Rights, a Black child in a public pre-school is 3.6 times more likely to be suspended from school than a White preschooler. Academic placement refers to the high referrals of Black children to special education environments.
