Complex Set of Pieces Needed To Fill In School-Readiness Puzzle

By Deborah L. Cohen

The success of the six national education goals, many educators and policy analysts maintain, hinges to a great degree on the first: ensuring that, by the year 2000, all children enter school ready to learn.

If children enter school already at risk, they argue, it will be that much harder to raise high-school graduation rates, boost students' competency in key subjects, advance the position of U.S. students to first in the world in science and mathematics, ensure that all adults are literate, and rid schools of drugs and violence.

"If we met Goal 1, we would probably come closer to meeting the other goals," said Sue Bredekamp, the director of professional development for the National Association for the...