ABSTRACT
U.S. schools are generally agreed to have reached a crisis point, leading educators, parents, and the national administration alike to express concern regarding the declining quality of schools and the concomitant decline in literacy. At the state and national levels, this concern has manifested itself in the proliferation of goals and reforms, notably the Bush administration’s release of America 2000: An Education Strategy (U.S. Department of Education, 1991). The six goals contained in the America 2000 plan begin with “by the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn.” The other stated goals include graduation from high school, competency in basic subject matter, greater achievement in math and science, literacy for all adults, and ridding the schools of drugs and violence (U.S. Department of Education, 1991). These goals, however admirable, will not be realized without a deeper social understanding of what factors underlie the poor achievement of public school students, and especially what young children require to attain school readiness and to emerge from childhood as productive, literate adults.
