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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No matter how many times this comes up, I don't understand why people get so worked up about parents having still-limited-but-reasonable choices about when their child is ready for school.  [/quote]

Because it's bullshit. A child being left back in K? Really? There's no reason for it.[/quote]

But there are reasons for it - which is why reasonable people sometimes do it.  I can't speak for the parents trying to get a leg up for their kids - but there are parents who made the choice because their child was actually developmentally delayed or some such reason.[/quote]

17:14 here, I actually fully support red-shirting in cases where there is a true need such as a developmental delay. What I don't like is when parents decide not to send their kids because they'd rather have their kids be on the more mature side, don't want their child to be the youngest, etc. When all of those people red-shirt as well, it raises the overall maturity of the class, and the expectations go up accordingly. And then the children these policies were really intended to address, the children who need that extra year to be able to achieve roughly in line with the rest of the class, are hurt even more by all of those parents who just want to "give their child the gift of time."[/quote]

[b]Agree.  The problem isn't the children who are held back for legitimate reasons.[/b] Its that a significant and growing number of people are holding back their special snowflake in order to help them be academically superior to their peers or physically superior.  Both with the intention of them being better able to perform at the high school and college level. Literally, they openly want their children to be more advanced from their peers... and if they are simply an average 4 or 5 year old then the faulty logic is that holding them back will somehow make them more advanced.

So your 6 year old is now potentially going to kindergarten with children up to 2 years younger.  Of course they will be more advanced at this point- they have had 2 additional years to grow and develop.  And, given that the low income students (who likely have had less experience, less schooling, less of everything prior to starting school) are more likely to be the younger students, the real difference is far greater than simply 2 years of experience.

And because of that difference, and more advanced development, you wonder why your child is the only one in the class who can read.  And now your child is bored.  And the teachers need to differentiate the learning.  And the standards are too low.  And the system is flawed.  And your special snowflake needs more, more, more from a system that is failing him.

[/quote]

As a parent of a child held back for legitimate reasons - it is sometimes hard for me to read all the negativity out there about redshirting.  I guess I should just ignore it because we don't fit the stereotype of parents trying to gain some sort of advantage for our child.  In fact the child we held back is barely on grade level even now.  I wish people would think before they snark about this. [/quote]

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