Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting perpetuates the society-backed artificial dominance of men over women, by getting it started early on in a classroom full of 6 year old boys and 5 year old girls, who are academically mostly equals. It is unacceptable.

Plenty of people redshirt girls. Plus do tell how a September birthday boy is so dominant over an October birthday girl. Would love to hear it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting perpetuates the society-backed artificial dominance of men over women, by getting it started early on in a classroom full of 6 year old boys and 5 year old girls, who are academically mostly equals. It is unacceptable.

Um, aren't girls killing it academically over boys now? Not sure your point?

Interesting theory tho. There are articles about girls (not) speaking up in class as much in later grades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people I take issue with are those who redshirt in order to give their kid the "advantage" of being the oldest/biggest/most mature/etc kid in class. Those are the people in a race to the bottom, in my opinion.

That's different from the argument that all kids should start K at, say, 6, instead of 5. Assuming you're working within an annual grade framework, you're still always going to have an oldest kid and a youngest kid in class, and all of the challenges associated with having kids nearly a full year apart operating under the same curriculum. But at least you could argue here that even the youngest kid was "ready" to start K at the start of the school year.

One is wanting to redshirt because you want your kid to rule over all of the others; the other is in favor of redshirting everyone for the sake of community.

Thank you! Someone with a brain... finally!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting perpetuates the society-backed artificial dominance of men over women, by getting it started early on in a classroom full of 6 year old boys and 5 year old girls, who are academically mostly equals. It is unacceptable.

Um, aren't girls killing it academically over boys now? Not sure your point?

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting perpetuates the society-backed artificial dominance of men over women, by getting it started early on in a classroom full of 6 year old boys and 5 year old girls, who are academically mostly equals. It is unacceptable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting perpetuates the society-backed artificial dominance of men over women, by getting it started early on in a classroom full of 6 year old boys and 5 year old girls, who are academically mostly equals. It is unacceptable.

Plenty of people redshirt girls. Plus do tell how a September birthday boy is so dominant over an October birthday girl. Would love to hear it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best countries don't even begin to teach reading until 7. Holding back preschoolers is a GOOD practice under today's high pressure environment.

+1

Why the rush?

I don't GAF if my kids are the oldest or youngest. I wanted them to wait for school until it was more age-appropriate. Sounds corny, but it really is the gift of time.

The only people who are comparing ages or worried about "the competition" are the hysterical anti-redshirters. MYOB, ignorant twits.

School is age appropriate. What is wrong with you to think its not? We wonder why the current generations of young people behave like they do and its because of parenting.

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting perpetuates the society-backed artificial dominance of men over women, by getting it started early on in a classroom full of 6 year old boys and 5 year old girls, who are academically mostly equals. It is unacceptable.

Anonymous wrote:Redshirting perpetuates the society-backed artificial dominance of men over women, by getting it started early on in a classroom full of 6 year old boys and 5 year old girls, who are academically mostly equals. It is unacceptable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if some of the angst of the anti redshirters is economic. Academic redshirting is done by those who can afford it if they see the need. People who can't afford another year of childcare may feel bitter about this.

I'm not a fan of redshirting, but it's not due to economic anxiety (we have a child in private, one that doesn't allow redshirting, AFAIK). It actually doesn't personally affect my situation at all. But I don't like it from a societal perspective, because once more and more people do it, it's becomes a slippery slope as to how far schools and curricula will have to adjust for older and older kids, not to mention teachers as they scramble to accommodate a wider range of ages in their lesson plans.

Finally, I do think it's an unfair advantage that a small percentage of affluent, mostly white families use to position their children in the top of the class academically and athletically (here, I'm not referring to legitimate developmental delays, recommendations of pediatricians, etc.). I think it also may exacerbate the achievement gap in some situations, when middle/lower SES minority families can't afford to do the same.

Wow. It's like you are trying to demonstrate the point about the lack of self-reflection from anti redshirt people.

PP back. How so? Curious to here what you think.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best countries don't even begin to teach reading until 7. Holding back preschoolers is a GOOD practice under today's high pressure environment.

+1

Why the rush?

I don't GAF if my kids are the oldest or youngest. I wanted them to wait for school until it was more age-appropriate. Sounds corny, but it really is the gift of time.

The only people who are comparing ages or worried about "the competition" are the hysterical anti-redshirters. MYOB, ignorant twits.

It's hard to MYOB when your business is effecting my non-redshirted august child. Easy to tell others to do that when you're on the perceived top of the chain.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if some of the angst of the anti redshirters is economic. Academic redshirting is done by those who can afford it if they see the need. People who can't afford another year of childcare may feel bitter about this.

I'm not a fan of redshirting, but it's not due to economic anxiety (we have a child in private, one that doesn't allow redshirting, AFAIK). It actually doesn't personally affect my situation at all. But I don't like it from a societal perspective, because once more and more people do it, it's becomes a slippery slope as to how far schools and curricula will have to adjust for older and older kids, not to mention teachers as they scramble to accommodate a wider range of ages in their lesson plans.

Finally, I do think it's an unfair advantage that a small percentage of affluent, mostly white families use to position their children in the top of the class academically and athletically (here, I'm not referring to legitimate developmental delays, recommendations of pediatricians, etc.). I think it also may exacerbate the achievement gap in some situations, when middle/lower SES minority families can't afford to do the same.

Wow. It's like you are trying to demonstrate the point about the lack of self-reflection from anti redshirt people.

PP back. How so? Curious to here what you think.

I will be offline for several hours momentarily. I don't mean to post and run, and you asked a serious question, so I want to give you a serious answer, but I am sorry, I can't engage further for the rest of the day.

The lack of self-reflection is this: there isn't much evidence that redshirting has any real impact one way or the other on achievement gaps. In fact, looking at the studies out there, statistically speaking it's relatively rare. There's no real body of evidence linking low-SES performance to redshirting. However, there are literally years of analysis on the impact of private education and the achievement gap. Putting your child in a private school has a much more significant impact on the achievement gap than redshirting has or ever will. Withdrawing your child from the public system is known to have an impact in a way that redshirting doesn't even get close to touching.

It seems very much a lack of self-reflection to talk about doing something educationally advantageous that middle/lower SES families don't have the same access to when in the same breath you are sending your child to private school. I have nothing against private school -- I may eventually send one of my kids -- but I do think it's hypocritical to criticize parents who redshirt for allegedly harming lower SES students when you're opted out of the public system entirely.

PP. First, there actually has been some research linking redshirting to widening the achievement gap--I posted this article earlier.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09645292.2018.1468873

Second, comparing private school to redshirting is an imperfect analogy, IMO. We've done public and private, as have *many* families at our child's current school; some plan on going back to public at some point, so it's not a decision to do private all the way through. Further, we are not white or Asian, so to the extent that private leads to improved scores/performance, enrolling our kids in private would actually help close the achievement gap. (However, we do private now primarily for language immersion, not other academic reasons.) Finally, our school does give a lot of financial aid, and is fairly diverse as far as race/ethnicity and SES.

I will concede that in some cases the decision to enroll one's child in private is motivated by a desire to get a leg up. But certainly not in all cases, which is why I think the analogy doesn't work.