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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]5 year olds (and 4.9 year olds) are mature enough to start kindergarten, it is only when 6 year olds join KG, water gets muddied! I support the hard cut-off rule. 
I think the baseline for maturity is getting skewed big time by older children in kindergarten. Parents who want to cheat will find a way to cheat and it is getting out of hand.[/quote]

Only poor ones though. Private schools do not think “4.9” year olds are mature enough for kindergarten. Amazing what poverty does to make children ready to learn right?!?[/quote]

4.9 year olds are absolutely in private schools. But they have extended PK and transitional K classrooms for younger kids. The idea the 4 and 5 year olds aren't old enough for classrooms is just incorrect, and private schools agree. At the most elite privates, children have generally been in some kind of organized classroom for 2-4 years by the time they enter K.

The preference for redshirting in private schools is driven by a desire to have kids all at a minimum academic level prior to starting K, to make it easier for teachers at each level and to enable more accelerated curriculum. If all children have basic reading skills at the beginning of K, it enables you to do all kinds of additional academic enrichment not only in K but at every level,because stronger reading skills enable kids to accelerated in math, science, and social studies as well. To get kids to this level, they generally have to go to school. It's called pre-K or transitional K, but often the curriculum is no different from a K classroom in a public school.

Meanwhile, redshirting in publics does not have this benefit, because it's disjointed and you will still have kids starting K without basic reading and other academic skills. When redshirting is done by parent choice instead of school initiative, it's totally divorced from the school's goals and curriculum. Plus publics have to take all comers, so they will be accommodating kids at all academic levels no matter what. Redshirting serves no real purpose in public and redshirted kids may receive no additional support during their redshirted year to get them up to a certain academic level. And even if they do, they will have peers who aren't at that level so it won't matter. Teachers will still have to differentiate and classrooms will focus on the on-grade coursework and bringing kids who are before grade level up to grade level.

So no, redshirting in private schools is not about a superior understanding of how 6 year olds are better suited to K. It has to do with establishing an academic minimum to facilitate more homogenous classes and ease of teaching.

- private school teacher [/quote]

These privates sound bad.  Most of these kids are not reading as the preschools are not academic.  My kids were reading at three.  Waiting till six makes no sense.  I’m not making it easier for the teacher, I’m giving my kids and education.  [/quote]

And then your kids will go to school and sit through it all over again for the kids whose parents didn’t educate them. It’s not a race.[/quote]

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