Beware "First Grade Readiness"

This post may strike some readers as a minor, picayune point, but to others it may go to the core of their trouble with Waldorf school ideologues.

Many Waldorf schools leave it to kindergarten teachers to determine which children are "ready" for first grade. Parents are told, following assessment, whether or not, in the eyes of these teachers, their child is ready for first grade.

Often, assessments don't take place until late spring, leaving parents anxious and wondering--if my child isn't "ready," will I still have time to get him into another local private school's first grade? Parents may use this waffling to look around. And get excited--or see their children get excited--about the green grass on the other side of the fence.

You see, for parents, the issue is often NOT whether or not the child is "first-grade ready," but whether or not the Waldorf school will promote him. A child judged not to be first-grade ready, in my experience, is more likely to leave the school for first grade somewhere else--another Waldorf school, the local public school. It's relatively rare that parents are so committed to the school or to Waldorf education at all costs that they'll bow to the teachers' judgment in this case.

I'm not saying the teachers are wrong, I'm just saying that the language and process they use can unnecessarily alienate parents. A goal for a school could be to have any family that leaves--after being denied admission or after being counselled out for any reason--to wish fervently that they could have obtained the pearl they sought. Somehow, Harvard manages to do this and Waldorf schools don't.

And isn't such a process like leaving high school admissions to the 8th grade teacher? Or college admissions to high school teachers? Yes, teachers should take into account the recommendations of previous teachers--8th grade, kindergarten--but determination should rest with the school or class or grade the child is entering, in almost every case. "First-grade readiness" should more accurately, less politically, less ideologically, more politely, be called "elementary school admissions."

Most children are simply ready for first grade, anyway, based on "normal" development and birthday. Yet, often, a whole class of parents is held hostage to assessments made late in the kindergarten year. Wouldn't it make more sense to alert the few parents of children for whom there's an issue--a true developmental delay, a real concern over birthdate--and let the others breathe easy? Shouldn't these parents know long before the spring of kindergarten rolls around that there may be some developmental or educational issue that they and their teachers may wish to address?

When children are assessed in the spring of their kindergarten year for admission to elementary school the following fall--half a year away--they still have almost ten per cent of a life to lead! Lots can change...

Another point: Often, children apply directly to first grade, having attended another (non-Waldorf) early childhood program. Are these children shipped to the kindergarten to be assessed? No! They're interviewed by the first grade teacher or her proxy! Why the special treatment? (Really, why the normal treatment?)

I understand that I'm writing about unusual circumstances. But, as a former school administrator, I know that it only takes one angry parent every other year or so to make a school's life really difficult. And don't forget that the early childhood program is the base on which the whole school is built. Small kindergarten? Don't expect a large first grade. Shrinking kindergarten? Your operating budget for the foreseeable future is in jeopardy.

Also, the solution--changing the way we talk about things and not using the phrase "first-grade ready;" talking directly to parents as partners in education; and acknowledging that, after all advice and recommendations, it's up to the elementary school to select the students it can teach--is so easy.