Do you consider redshirting cheating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do consider it gaming the system. Parents redshirt their children to give them an advantage. It also rewards school systems for having unrealistic expectations, reinforcing the cycle of redshirting and inappropriate expectations.

Also, from my DS's experience (September birthday sent on time) and his cousin's experience (September birthday redshirted), in the first couple years, the children either get a false sense of poor behavior or a false sense of mastery. Neither are ideal, but in older elementary school, DS's cousin is really struggling with not finding school easy anymore.

This would be my fear with my Sept. bday child--that if everything is easy because she's so much older, that she won't get practice with challenging herself.

Many or maybe most kindergarten students from affluent families find school very easy and are not challenged, whether or not they were held back.

Come back and talk to me when they are in middle and high school.

A young-for-his-grade boy is highly likely to struggle,

which creates a host of other issues in addition to the academic ones.

It's interesting how you said the bold instead "A young-for-their-grade child is likely to struggle". In other words, September-born girls are fine starting on time, but September-born boys aren't. You seem to be saying that girls are smarter than boys, which now that I think about it, makes perfect sense. I can't think of a single male as smart as Alberta Einstein, Isabel Newton, Amadea Mozart, Charlotte Darwin, Stephanie Hawking, Marcia Zuckerberg, or Bilia Gates.

NP, Little boys have more trouble sitting still and paying attention to their teacher than little girls in early elementary, on average, it is not an issue of intelligence. As a mom of a boy and a girl, I think pp is entirely correct.

Some little boys and girls have trouble sitting. Not all do. That is a huge stretch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The deadline is arbitrary. Every state/district has their own. If you lived in MD your kid would be the oldest by default... I encourage you to look at the MCPS form to enroll a child to K early (September and early Oct. birthdays). They want kids to be writing sentences! Can your 4 year old write a sentence? In my mind they expect that these young for their grade kids should should be advanced, (not that the potential redshirt kids are behind or delayed as many on this board see as needed for redshirting).

IMO, it’s not cheating. Kindergarten is now 1st grade (and has been for at least 10 years). That means kids are the ones who are cheated out of a true Kindergarten experience.

K is not the new 1st grade. Parents and preschools don't want to prepare kids for school so the rationalize it as you are. We have an September kid who went to private for a few years. K-3 in public is a joke. There is no reason except severe SN a child should be held back. Even SN kids can benefit from the structure and academics. Mine was delayed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is education a competition? I would be less concerned that a redshirted child might edge out my child in acceptance at college, 13 years later, than an immature child might disrupt my child's education now.

Any cutoff date is by definition arbitrary. Regardless of the date that might be set, there will always be kids who qualify for Kindergarten who need an extra year and kids who aren't old enough to start, but are ready for it.

My child had severe speech problems requiring therapy. We redshirted DC. Do you consider this cheating? Does it make a difference that the school was in the process of moving the cutoff because they felt it should be set earlier in the year? In other words, the year DC should have entered kindergarten she was redshirted, but if DC was entering K now, the cutoff would dictate waiting another year because the school system decided kids in general should be older before starting K.

I think rather than worrying about "cheating", you should do what's best for your child, which as other posters have discussed, is not necessarily redshirting. If you feel your child isn't ready for Kindergarten, then by all means hold him back. On the other hand, if he is ready, then go ahead and start him. Holding a child who is otherwise ready is not doing them any favors. Only people who know your child can advise you. There are many factors to consider, but age should be the least of these.

Yes, the entitlement. Studies are showing pretty clearly that redshirting ends up being a disadvantage, so who is to determine whats actually "best"?

No they don't. Honestly I do not understand where all this misinformation about "studies" comes from. It's like you people desperately wish such studies existed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you "win" if you cheat by red shirting?

I don't really get the question.

Everyone thinks your kids dumb and you’re subsidizing their lack of intelligence right from the start (let’s face it paying for another year of childcare vs free school is subsidizing their deficiencies). Other than that and the risk you’re not great at reading actual child development and your older kid is bored, gets in trouble and is labeled a dumb troublemaker.

That’s it.

I hope you don't have children.

[Anonymous]

If you delay enrollment just because you want your kid to have an advantage over others, then yes its cheating. The dumbest reasons people have listed for redshirting is because their child is small and socially awkward. If your child needs the extra year for whatever medical reason, then no its not cheating. DS has a mid-September bday and attends FCPS, which has a enrollment Sept 30 cut-off. I sent him on time for FCPS despite what his Maryland preschool teacher said. (We moved the summer before he started school.) He needed the structure of formal education and to be encouraged to meet new challenges, and not be treated like a preschooler that needs to nap. He's in first grade, enjoys school, and hasn't had any issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is education a competition? I would be less concerned that a redshirted child might edge out my child in acceptance at college, 13 years later, than an immature child might disrupt my child's education now.

Any cutoff date is by definition arbitrary. Regardless of the date that might be set, there will always be kids who qualify for Kindergarten who need an extra year and kids who aren't old enough to start, but are ready for it.

My child had severe speech problems requiring therapy. We redshirted DC. Do you consider this cheating? Does it make a difference that the school was in the process of moving the cutoff because they felt it should be set earlier in the year? In other words, the year DC should have entered kindergarten she was redshirted, but if DC was entering K now, the cutoff would dictate waiting another year because the school system decided kids in general should be older before starting K.

I think rather than worrying about "cheating", you should do what's best for your child, which as other posters have discussed, is not necessarily redshirting. If you feel your child isn't ready for Kindergarten, then by all means hold him back. On the other hand, if he is ready, then go ahead and start him. Holding a child who is otherwise ready is not doing them any favors. Only people who know your child can advise you. There are many factors to consider, but age should be the least of these.

Yes, the entitlement. Studies are showing pretty clearly that redshirting ends up being a disadvantage, so who is to determine whats actually "best"?

This has not actually been shown, but let's see the cite to the study you are misrepresenting.

NP here. Here's an analysis from edweekly that talks about the difficulties of studying the impacts of redshirting and recommends that parents only redshirt their children if: there is extreme developmental delay, outside of the normal range, to such an extent that another year’s development will potentially put the child in range of his classmates. Another is when a child is experiencing trauma, such as having a terminally ill parent or sibling.

http://educationnext.org/is-your-child-ready-kindergarten-redshirting-may-do-more-harm-than-good/

In his analysis, Gladwell overstates the benefits of redshirting to some degree. In fact, a balanced look at the research suggests that while children derive a short-term gain from being redshirted, that advantage dissipates quickly over time.

It is difficult to study the impacts of redshirting because students who are redshirted differ across a host of dimensions from those who start on time. As noted, children of more-educated parents are more likely to be redshirted; separating out the effects of the delayed school entry from those of other characteristics, such as family background, presents a challenge.

No one has conducted a true randomized trial related to redshirting. Instead, researchers have sought out opportunities to isolate the effects on student outcomes of the two variables that by definition change when a student is redshirted: age itself and the student’s age relative to those of classroom peers. Once these effects are known, one can simulate the impact of being redshirted by statistically aging a kindergarten entrant by one year, and predicting the impacts of absolute age and of relative age on his outcomes.

The research literature includes many serious attempts to estimate the impact of being one of the oldest students in a class or grade, using variation in students’ age or relative age that is driven by external factors. For example, a study by Todd Elder and Darren Lubotsky leverages cross-state differences in birthday cutoff dates for kindergarten entry. In some states, a child must turn five by December 1 to be eligible for kindergarten in a given year; in others, the cutoff date is September 1. In states with earlier cutoff dates, eligible children who enter on time (and not a year late or early) are, on average, older than their counterparts in states with later cutoffs. These differences in state policy allow researchers to estimate the impact of the child’s age at kindergarten entry.

Another study, co-authored by Elizabeth Cascio and Diane Schanzenbach, uses data from the well-known Project STAR experiment in which students were randomly assigned to classrooms prior to kindergarten entry. Project STAR was initially designed to study the effects of reductions in class size. The random assignment of students to classrooms, however, meant that pairs of children with the same birthday fell into different positions in their classroom age distribution by the luck of the draw.

Both studies find that the benefit of being older at the start of kindergarten declines sharply as children move through the school grades. In the early grades, an older child will tend to perform better on standardized tests than his younger peers simply by virtue of being older. This makes perfect sense—a redshirted kindergartner has been alive up to 20 percent longer than his on-time counterpart, which means his brain has had more time to develop and he has had that many more bedtime stories, puzzles, and family outings from which to build his general knowledge. This initial advantage in academic achievement dissipates sharply over time, however, and appears to vanish by high school when, as a 9th grader, the redshirted student is at most 7 percent older than his peers.

One benefit that redshirting might indeed confer has to do with grade retention and special education placement. Statistically, older children are less likely to be retained in a grade or to be diagnosed with learning disabilities such as ADHD. This may be because schools make judgments about retention and referrals based on a student’s relative achievement within a grade, and by virtue of their age, older students are less likely to have very low achievement. Most parents who are considering redshirting, however, have children who are not likely to perform at levels that would put them at risk for grade retention; thus, we would argue that the slightly decreased probability of retention afforded by redshirting should in most cases be given relatively little weight.

Both of us have stories of children who were redshirted and would likely have had a better school experience if they had enrolled on time. Larson tells the story of Joshua, a preschooler with a spring birthday who was on the low end of the normal developmental range in terms of work habits: he had trouble sitting still during circle time, for instance, and finishing multi-step projects. His parents decided to hold him back and give him an extra year of preschool. By fall, though, he had matured tremendously and clearly would have been flourishing in the kindergarten classroom. The following year, when he entered kindergarten at age six, Joshua was well ahead of his classmates and was often bored in class. Over subsequent years, he became demotivated and even developed behavioral problems. He was physically and emotionally more mature than his younger classmates and had trouble making friends.

You realize this is an opinion piece by authors who are not proponents of redshirting, not a research study, and does not actually find that kids are disadvantaged by redshirting.

You realize that the authors quoted a number of studies in this opinion piece that find minimal benefits for red shirting. But if you want your kid to be 2 heads taller than the other kids in the class, go ahead!

Oh sweetie, you have issues if this is what makes you angry and hostile. Do what you want for your own kid and don’t worry about other people’s kids.

I will add that if redshirting was actually detrimentally, it would not be widely encouraged by the best private schools. If the effect on college matriculation was negative, this would not be the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The deadline is arbitrary. Every state/district has their own. If you lived in MD your kid would be the oldest by default... I encourage you to look at the MCPS form to enroll a child to K early (September and early Oct. birthdays). They want kids to be writing sentences! Can your 4 year old write a sentence? In my mind they expect that these young for their grade kids should should be advanced, (not that the potential redshirt kids are behind or delayed as many on this board see as needed for redshirting).

IMO, it’s not cheating. Kindergarten is now 1st grade (and has been for at least 10 years). That means kids are the ones who are cheated out of a true Kindergarten experience.

K is not the new 1st grade. Parents and preschools don't want to prepare kids for school so the rationalize it as you are. We have an September kid who went to private for a few years. K-3 in public is a joke. There is no reason except severe SN a child should be held back. Even SN kids can benefit from the structure and academics. Mine was delayed.

Yesterday, my kindergartener came home with a math worksheet that had the following problems on it: 18-7= ?; 23-12= ?, 16-5 = ?

My kindergarten experience consisted of drinking punch, rest, practicing counting and playing house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do consider it gaming the system. Parents redshirt their children to give them an advantage. It also rewards school systems for having unrealistic expectations, reinforcing the cycle of redshirting and inappropriate expectations.

Also, from my DS's experience (September birthday sent on time) and his cousin's experience (September birthday redshirted), in the first couple years, the children either get a false sense of poor behavior or a false sense of mastery. Neither are ideal, but in older elementary school, DS's cousin is really struggling with not finding school easy anymore.

this

Without a professionally identified issue then I agree with the whole first paragraph.

I do also.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's cheating. I think some kids genuinely need an extra year to be ready, and if you can afford to give it to them, why not.

The only real reason I can see not to do this is if you think they might be interested in travel sports - some go by birth date and not grade and the kids in your son's situation would be at a disadvantage - they'd be competing with kids a year ahead of them in school who have likely had an extra season playing the sport, since most rec teams take kids from the same grade, not the same birth year.

[Anonymous]

Most kids who are redshirted are on the cusp. I did not redshirt my Spring son--but had he had an August/September birthday, I likely would have. He would not have been ready to go to K a few months earlier when he was turning 5.

I taught K and 1. There is nothing wrong with doing what works best for your child. Some kids are ready and some are not--and, no, it has nothing to do with how smart they are. It is a maturity issue.

I would not want to suggest that all August/Sept kids be redshirted--some are ready. But, some would do better if they waited a year--and, it has nothing to do with how intelligent they are. I have seen gifted kids who would have been better off waiting a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most kids who are redshirted are on the cusp. I did not redshirt my Spring son--but had he had an August/September birthday, I likely would have. He would not have been ready to go to K a few months earlier when he was turning 5.

I taught K and 1. There is nothing wrong with doing what works best for your child. Some kids are ready and some are not--and, no, it has nothing to do with how smart they are. It is a maturity issue.

I would not want to suggest that all August/Sept kids be redshirted--some are ready. But, some would do better if they waited a year--and, it has nothing to do with how intelligent they are. I have seen gifted kids who would have been better off waiting a year.

My young-for-grade DS is gifted and didn't have a great K or 1st year. However, as he's gotten older, his behavior has improved as the academics (and the school's gifted program) have been more engaging -- which is why we didn't want him to wait one more year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yesterday, my kindergartener came home with a math worksheet that had the following problems on it: 18-7= ?; 23-12= ?, 16-5 = ?

My kindergarten experience consisted of drinking punch, rest, practicing counting and playing house.

My specialty is not early childhood development, but I wouldn't expect the typical 5-6-year-old to have difficulty with the idea that if you have 16 acorns, and someone takes away 5 acorns, how many acorns will you have left?

[Anonymous]

My young-for-grade DS is gifted and didn't have a great K or 1st year. However, as he's gotten older, his behavior has improved as the academics (and the school's gifted program) have been more engaging -- which is why we didn't want him to wait one more year.

Not having a great year can happen for all sorts of kids--gifted, young, old, slow, etc. Hope he continues to improve. Glad you made the right decision for him--I know some who made that decision against the recs of the preschool. Years later, it turns out they were right. Gifted kid who would have benefited from another year. Maturity issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The deadline is arbitrary. Every state/district has their own. If you lived in MD your kid would be the oldest by default... I encourage you to look at the MCPS form to enroll a child to K early (September and early Oct. birthdays). They want kids to be writing sentences! Can your 4 year old write a sentence? In my mind they expect that these young for their grade kids should should be advanced, (not that the potential redshirt kids are behind or delayed as many on this board see as needed for redshirting).

IMO, it’s not cheating. Kindergarten is now 1st grade (and has been for at least 10 years). That means kids are the ones who are cheated out of a true Kindergarten experience.

What is a True Kindergarten Experience?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yesterday, my kindergartener came home with a math worksheet that had the following problems on it: 18-7= ?; 23-12= ?, 16-5 = ?

My kindergarten experience consisted of drinking punch, rest, practicing counting and playing house.

My specialty is not early childhood development, but I wouldn't expect the typical 5-6-year-old to have difficulty with the idea that if you have 16 acorns, and someone takes away 5 acorns, how many acorns will you have left?

+1, you break it down. At that age we used the favorite toys that we had many of like skylanders and hot wheels. Easy way to show them and they can figure it out. Mine was not drinking punch, rest and playing. Many kids go into school reading, knowing their numbers and understanding the basic concept of addition and subtraction. It sucks for those kids to have a dumbed down curriculum waiting for kids who were not taught at home or preschool. We weren't even allowed punch at that age. My elementary school kids have never had punch. So, they could read and do basic numbers but fail K. as they will not be drinking punch.