There are three issues or dilemmas that school-based administrators can consider in making their school ready. First, there is a wide variation in the levels of readiness to learn among children beginning school.
Children develop rapidly in their first few years of life.
They do so at different rates and in different ways. Children come from different backgrounds, some of which are unable to provide adequate support and stimulation. For some families, this is because of poverty, for others because of a lack of time, work stress, or isolation. Families newly arrived from another country may experience all of these problems and also be faced with the need to adapt to a new culture. Second, there are contradictory and competing pressures on the school to raise academic standards in earlier grades, to cutback on preschool and early kindergarten programs and to emphasize competition, science and technology in the curriculum.