This paper presents an expanded definition of school readiness that includes the skills children possess as they begin formal school as well as the ways that family backgrounds, preschool experiences, and primary-grade classrooms interact with children to point them toward school success or failure. The paper notes five dimensions of school…

This paper describes the current debate over developmentally appropriate teaching practice. The paper presents the perspective of multicultural educators, who argue that developmentally appropriate practice is biased toward white, middle-class values, and the perspective of special educators, who argue that modification of developmentally…