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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For those of you who don’t know, redshirting is the practice of delaying a fall-born child’s Kindergarten entrance until they’re almost 6 instead of almost 5. This is something I’m thinking about doing with my son, who will be 4 in November and will be eligible for Kindergarten in the fall of 2022. There are many studies that show that kids who are redshirted do better in school as well as later in life, and honestly, you don’t have to be a scientist to see why this makes sense. Kids who start older are going to be more mature and ready to handle the challenges of school. This means they’ll get better grades, get into better colleges, and get better jobs.

You’d think that based on this information, any parent with a fall-born child who could afford an extra year of daycare would redshirt without hesitation. But this is not the case. When I think of all people I know who have fall birthdays and are from affluent families, the vast majority started Kindergarten at 4. As tempted as I am to redshirt my son, I can’t help but feel that there must be a reason why so few parents do it.

If you have a fall-born child who you could afford to redshirt but didn’t, why not? And if you could do it over again, would you redshirt?[/quote]

How much research have you done on this OP? This study is by two pretty prominent academics and it doesn't make redshirting seem like a slam dunk

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://users.nber.org/~dynarski/Deming_Dynarski_Childhood.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjIt8vouoHxAhVGXM0KHa0nARsQFjAJegQIExAC&usg=AOvVaw2EigEp_u9yAPRXPlGnfLY0[/quote]

All this research says is that there may not be lasting effects of later school start. The claims about lower lifetime earnings have to hold a constant retirement age, but nobody is forced out of the workforce at 65, you can work another year or longer, if you want.

Older kids (18-19) are more likely to not complete high school, but this is for lower income students. Redshirters are predominantly higher income and less likely to drop out.

The conclusion focuses just on the equity aspect of redshirting. It does point out that the reason kindergarteners may be getting older is because of testing:
"At least some of the recent changes in legal age at school entry seem to have been driven by concerns about performance on standardized tests. The sponsor of a North Carolina bill to increase the school entry age noted (as quoted in Weil, 2007): “Our kids are younger when they’re taking the SAT, and they’re applying to the same colleges as the kids from Florida and Georgia.” When California raised its entry age, the legislation cited the fact that the state’s children were younger than those in other states in the same grade (cited in Stipek, 2002) and so were at a disadvantage in testing. Thus, states may be engaging in a “kindergarten arms race...”

So schools have an incentive to keep it going, despite equity concerns. Schools are more worried about their accountability.

Oddly I saw nothing in here about the lower self esteem redshirted children might have because their parents thought they were too dumb to keep up which is often cited as a concern.  :roll: [/quote]

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