Oldest kids in class do better, even through college - NPR

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If schools don't want parents to redshirt, they need to tone down the early elementary years. Otherwise, we will continue to have kids who turn 7 in kindergarten.

"Schools" are doing this because the privatization movement (supported by both parties) has convinced the general public that the raving inequalities in our schools aren't due to poverty (which they are), but due to poor teaching. Until the public wisens up and starts working to reduce inequalities--which begin long before the first day of preschool--nothing's going to get better. Go read a Diane Ravitch book if you're honestly interested in learning more.

Diane Ravitch...what is this, 1987?

Definitely an example of a stupid American proud to wallow in ignorance. She's the forefront of the anti-privatization movement in the US, and her text Reign of Error continues to be the top text in federal education legislation on Amazon, 3 years and 414 reviews later with a 4.7 average.

That book is the gold standard for destroying every BS argument for charter schools and privatization ever created. The PP is definitely a fool, and doubtless someone who sees herself as "educated" on the issues despite eating all the anti-public school garbage she's been fed over the last decades.

+1. Very few people in this country understand the blacklisting public schools have gotten in the name of privatization, when the core problem has always been, and will always be, poverty. No matter how much we test kids, cut recess, or fire teachers, the rich kids will always do better than the poor ones. But it's easier to pretend poverty doesn't exist than work to make an equal society, especially in a society as individualistic as ours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If schools don't want parents to redshirt, they need to tone down the early elementary years. Otherwise, we will continue to have kids who turn 7 in kindergarten.

"Schools" are doing this because the privatization movement (supported by both parties) has convinced the general public that the raving inequalities in our schools aren't due to poverty (which they are), but due to poor teaching. Until the public wisens up and starts working to reduce inequalities--which begin long before the first day of preschool--nothing's going to get better. Go read a Diane Ravitch book if you're honestly interested in learning more.

Diane Ravitch...what is this, 1987?

Definitely an example of a stupid American proud to wallow in ignorance. She's the forefront of the anti-privatization movement in the US, and her text Reign of Error continues to be the top text in federal education legislation on Amazon, 3 years and 414 reviews later with a 4.7 average.

That book is the gold standard for destroying every BS argument for charter schools and privatization ever created. The PP is definitely a fool, and doubtless someone who sees herself as "educated" on the issues despite eating all the anti-public school garbage she's been fed over the last decades.

+1. Very few people in this country understand the blacklisting public schools have gotten in the name of privatization, when the core problem has always been, and will always be, poverty. No matter how much we test kids, cut recess, or fire teachers, the rich kids will always do better than the poor ones. But it's easier to pretend poverty doesn't exist than work to make an equal society, especially in a society as individualistic as ours.

NP here but I agree that the issue is our country expects public schools to solve all the problems of poverty.

[Anonymous]

We've moved away from DC but I still keep up with the forum. It's not unusual where I am to redshirt kids, especially boys but a few girls too.

My DS has a girl in his class who not only has an August birthday (on the older side) but is also highly gifted and mature. It's very obvious that she is in the wrong grade.

We have another friend who redshirted her son (for a May birthday)-- he's does not stand out as immature. Also, his dad was a college football player and this kid is already much bigger than my taller than average son who is one grade up.

I know in some cases there are reasons--but the cases I'm aware of are "gaming the system" for grades, leadership, and athletics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This always makes me secretly glad for my middle of the pack January month kid.

Yeah, uh, that kid will be one of the oldest.

No, I think middle??

Yes I have an summer young one who I sent on time and I hated hearing that red shirted kids would be over a year older. With my Jan bday kid I have less of a reaction hearing about redshirted kids bc it's only 6 months older.

Re: sports, it's interesting. I read the chapter about this in one of Malcolm Gladwell's books. But at the same time, I see that the kids who are REALLY good are better than kids multiple years older than them.

Oldest. Sorry.

A January birthday with a 9/30 or 9/1 cutoff as we have in VA and MD would be middle of the pack. Younger than all the Oct, Nov, Dec kids and the Sept kids if you have a 9/1 cutoff, AND also younger than the summer birthday kids who started late. The kid would turn 6 midway through K and would turn 18 midway through senior year of high school. That's pretty normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know a few kids who repeated a preK or K year -- but I'm always surprised by red-shirting. Are families paying for an entire year more of daycare? I can't imagine any of the public school families I know having the resources to throw 15-20K at this.

It's not an extra 20k for an extra year of PK. Our (very good) PK is $1200/month. Public K is not "free" - you have to figure in after care and vacations (at least 5k for the school year). So for a 10-month school year, the extra cost of staying in PK is more like 6-7K. That's not an amount I would be
overjoyed to pay, but it's doable for a lot of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a few kids who repeated a preK or K year -- but I'm always surprised by red-shirting. Are families paying for an entire year more of daycare? I can't imagine any of the public school families I know having the resources to throw 15-20K at this.

It's not an extra 20k for an extra year of PK. Our (very good) PK is $1200/month. Public K is not "free" - you have to figure in after care and vacations (at least 5k for the school year). So for a 10-month school year, the extra cost of staying in PK is more like 6-7K. That's not an amount I would be
overjoyed to pay, but it's doable for a lot of people.

I'm a bleeding heart liberal but I hope we are not using public tax dollars to pay for an extra year of public preschool for redshirted kids without documented learning disabilities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This always makes me secretly glad for my middle of the pack January month kid.

Yeah, uh, that kid will be one of the oldest.

No, I think middle??

Yes I have an summer young one who I sent on time and I hated hearing that red shirted kids would be over a year older. With my Jan bday kid I have less of a reaction hearing about redshirted kids bc it's only 6 months older.

Re: sports, it's interesting. I read the chapter about this in one of Malcolm Gladwell's books. But at the same time, I see that the kids who are REALLY good are better than kids multiple years older than them.

Oldest. Sorry.

A January birthday with a 9/30 or 9/1 cutoff as we have in VA and MD would be middle of the pack. Younger than all the Oct, Nov, Dec kids and the Sept kids if you have a 9/1 cutoff, AND also younger than the summer birthday kids who started late. The kid would turn 6 midway through K and would turn 18 midway through senior year of high school. That's pretty normal.

NP, you would think, but my January kid was the 2nd youngest in NOVA elementary class last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This always makes me secretly glad for my middle of the pack January month kid.

Yeah, uh, that kid will be one of the oldest.

No, I think middle??

Yes I have an summer young one who I sent on time and I hated hearing that red shirted kids would be over a year older. With my Jan bday kid I have less of a reaction hearing about redshirted kids bc it's only 6 months older.

Re: sports, it's interesting. I read the chapter about this in one of Malcolm Gladwell's books. But at the same time, I see that the kids who are REALLY good are better than kids multiple years older than them.

Oldest. Sorry.

A January birthday with a 9/30 or 9/1 cutoff as we have in VA and MD would be middle of the pack. Younger than all the Oct, Nov, Dec kids and the Sept kids if you have a 9/1 cutoff, AND also younger than the summer birthday kids who started late. The kid would turn 6 midway through K and would turn 18 midway through senior year of high school. That's pretty normal.

NP, you would think, but my January kid was the 2nd youngest in NOVA elementary class last year.

Insane!

[Anonymous]

Anecdotally, of course, but my parents put me in K at 4 years and 4 months, sort of the opposite of redshirting. (They got a private school to do it, kept me in K and 1 and then MoCo public schools allowed me to transfer in seamlessly.) I can see both advantages and disadvantages for myself... disadvantages mostly in sports... but academically, I then went into gifted programs, where there were also a lot of kids who had skipped grades and were closer to my age.

I feel like there are studies on both sides of this in the past few years-- all showing "small but significant" advantages. Really seems like it's down to the individuals and he school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This always makes me secretly glad for my middle of the pack January month kid.

Yeah, uh, that kid will be one of the oldest.

No, I think middle??

Yes I have an summer young one who I sent on time and I hated hearing that red shirted kids would be over a year older. With my Jan bday kid I have less of a reaction hearing about redshirted kids bc it's only 6 months older.

Re: sports, it's interesting. I read the chapter about this in one of Malcolm Gladwell's books. But at the same time, I see that the kids who are REALLY good are better than kids multiple years older than them.

Oldest. Sorry.

A January birthday with a 9/30 or 9/1 cutoff as we have in VA and MD would be middle of the pack. Younger than all the Oct, Nov, Dec kids and the Sept kids if you have a 9/1 cutoff, AND also younger than the summer birthday kids who started late. The kid would turn 6 midway through K and would turn 18 midway through senior year of high school. That's pretty normal.

NP, you would think, but my January kid was the 2nd youngest in NOVA elementary class last year.

Yup. My DC has an early March birthday and should be almost literally in the middle. In fact, it looks like she will be well among the youngest.

[Anonymous]

The backside of the redshirting trend in a few years will be the rise of the 20-year-old HS senior.

The parents I know who redshirted haven't even thought about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The backside of the redshirting trend in a few years will be the rise of the 20-year-old HS senior.

The parents I know who redshirted haven't even thought about this.

I don't understand how that could happen? If I started my August birthday boy in K late, he would be 18 all of his senior year of high school and would turn 19 right before freshman year of college. Even if he was born in say, February, he would turn 19 midway through senior year and 20 midway through freshman year of college. The kid would have to be held back 2 years to turn 20 in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The backside of the redshirting trend in a few years will be the rise of the 20-year-old HS senior.

The parents I know who redshirted haven't even thought about this.

We redshirted my late Aug son. He turned 6 a few days kindergarten started. He will be 17 when he starts his senior year and turn 18 a few days later. He will be 18 for the next 365 days which will include HS graduation. He won't be 19 during high school. Or 20. Math isn't your strong suit, eh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The backside of the redshirting trend in a few years will be the rise of the 20-year-old HS senior.

The parents I know who redshirted haven't even thought about this.

Because this doesn't happen. At worst, kids who were redshirted and spring bdays and earlier will be 19 towards the end of the school year. You should recheck your math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The backside of the redshirting trend in a few years will be the rise of the 20-year-old HS senior.

The parents I know who redshirted haven't even thought about this.

I don't understand how that could happen? If I started my August birthday boy in K late, he would be 18 all of his senior year of high school and would turn 19 right before freshman year of college. Even if he was born in say, February, he would turn 19 midway through senior year and 20 midway through freshman year of college. The kid would have to be held back 2 years to turn 20 in high school.

Agree that a 20 year old HS senior is not likely, unless a kid was red-shirted and then held back a year.

I work with college students and a year of extra maturity on the back end is not a bad thing, imo. Not advocating for red shirting, just saying I'm not sure why having a 19 year old senior in high school would be such a terrible thing.