I'm a late September birthday and was always the youngest in my class. I was also always among the smartest in my class -- I went to a top 10 undergrad, top 5 grad school, and am still quite successful. So there's that.

Ugh. My daughter's pre-K class is going to be more than 50% redshirters. Her preschool has hard a difficult time rearranging classes due to the number of unexpected redshirts -- it means there are several younger 3s who aren't able to move into 4 year old classrooms as expected.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be interested to know from a real researcher if this FL only data can be used as a proxy for nationwide outcomes.

Not a researcher but here is the paper the news story is based on:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660.pdf

Not a peer reviewed publication, though that doesn't mean it is wrong, just that they haven't gotten to that part of the process yet. Certainly I would place more weight on this than other "studies" I've seen with much smaller sample sizes.

Academic here: NBER papers are usually quality and a step toward publication

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Anonymous wrote:Most "summer birthday boys"? Summer birthdays range from part of June through part of September. Who would redshirt a June or July kid?

Private school families commonly red shirt kids born as early as May.

My private school had an incredibly strict cut off - Sept. 1st. There was a girl in my class born on September 2nd whose parents wanted her in the grade ahead, but she couldn't, well, because rules are rules.

My birthday's 9/20, so was relatively old for my class, but I never felt out of place. There were tons of other September and October birthdays and my mom loved having me around for "another" year, too. Being older definitely served me well athletically and academically, and I never felt un-challenged.

Why don't more privates stick with a strict cut-off? "Redshirting" seems rampant, at least according to this thread.javascript:void(0);

Anonymous wrote:I'd be interested to know from a real researcher if this FL only data can be used as a proxy for nationwide outcomes.

Not a researcher but here is the paper the news story is based on:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23660.pdf

Not a peer reviewed publication, though that doesn't mean it is wrong, just that they haven't gotten to that part of the process yet. Certainly I would place more weight on this than other "studies" I've seen with much smaller sample sizes.

In my experience as a middle school teacher (nearly 3 decades), I've seen many extremely bright summer birthday kids (especially boys, but girls as well) hit a wall academically around 7th-grade when kids who are even a bit older start to leapfrog over them in terms of maturity. This often plays out in terms of poor organizational skills that can swamp even the most able students. At the same time, the younger kids find themselves struggling to keep up as the social scene changes dramatically. For this reason, my husband and I decided to have our own summer birthday kids start kindergarten at age 6. We have never regretted it.

I know a family who had their daughter repeat 8th grade, not b/c she was failing but just because she was on the young side (Oct Bday) and also physically very small. She changed schools after 8th at school 1, and "repeated" 8th at school 2, where she is doing well and has been much happier.

My own DD has a late June bday and is I sometimes wonder if it would have been better for her if I had waited a year for K. She is one of the youngest in her class and also physically smaller than most of the other kids. But she does well academically, and I think would be insanely bored if she repeated a year.

^^ That was in reply to why it's not a good idea to have 19 year old high school seniors.

Because they get bored of high school by that age. I remember when I was in high school the oldest senior boys were often getting in trouble. Also then you have 14 year olds in the same school as 19 year olds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The backside of the redshirting trend in a few years will be the rise of the 20-year-old HS senior.

The parents I know who redshirted haven't even thought about this.

Because this doesn't happen. At worst, kids who were redshirted and spring bdays and earlier will be 19 towards the end of the school year. You should recheck your math.

I think the older HS kids (19-21) are more common among teens who come to the US from poorer countries where they recieved little formal education.

Anonymous wrote:Most "summer birthday boys"? Summer birthdays range from part of June through part of September. Who would redshirt a June or July kid?

Private school families commonly red shirt kids born as early as May.

I'm interested to see how this plays out for my son. His birthday is in September and he will start K in a few weeks. Some of his pre-school teachers encouraged us to have him tested for early entrance because they thought he was academically ready. I chose not to because I felt like he needed more time to develop socially and emotionally. I am an elementary teacher and see what's expected of kids in K. I feel like during this "extra" year he has grown a lot socially and emotionally and he is a much more confident kid. I feel like he's truly ready, whereas if he had been born in August and started K last year it would have been more of a struggle for him in those areas.

I have a late August birthday and my parents started me on time so I was always one of the youngest. I feel like it worked out fine for me but back then K was half day and was more about learning how to be in a classroom and learning letters and numbers. I remember a lot of outside play and free choice time, even in a half day program. Now K is basically like what first grade was back when I attended.

I'm not sure I yet concede that older kids do better, but for argument's sake I will concede it here.

Age is 1 factor, and there are many other things that also made a kid do better including socioeconomic status, parents' education level and even higher birth weight (https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/upshot/heavier-babies-do-better-in-school.html).

I stressed about sending my summer bday kid on time (we did send on time) but in my heart of hearts I believe the same kid born a few days before the cut off and goes on time would have the same outcome if born a few days later and missed the cutoff.

PP- I am also in a low SES. This is my 6th year. I agree with everything you wrote. The expectations placed on us are over the top. I feel like we are overstepping the boundaries between school and parents. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Now we are talking about teachers visiting homes of frequently absent students everyday they are absent. Our admin usually makes these home visits but now they want to send someone to cover our class so we can visit these homes every the kids are absent. Um, no. Why should the rest of my class suffer because of these frequently absent kids? They will miss out on instruction because of it and who knows how often. Last year, I had 5 students who were absent 20 days or more. So every one of those days, I have to make the rounds to bang on doors? That is ridiculous. If my district didn't pass so much more than the surrounding districts, I would be gone.

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Anonymous wrote:If schools don't want parents to redshirt, they need to tone down the early elementary years. Otherwise, we will continue to have kids who turn 7 in kindergarten.

"Schools" are doing this because the privatization movement (supported by both parties) has convinced the general public that the raving inequalities in our schools aren't due to poverty (which they are), but due to poor teaching. Until the public wisens up and starts working to reduce inequalities--which begin long before the first day of preschool--nothing's going to get better. Go read a Diane Ravitch book if you're honestly interested in learning more.

Diane Ravitch...what is this, 1987?

Definitely an example of a stupid American proud to wallow in ignorance. She's the forefront of the anti-privatization movement in the US, and her text Reign of Error continues to be the top text in federal education legislation on Amazon, 3 years and 414 reviews later with a 4.7 average.

That book is the gold standard for destroying every BS argument for charter schools and privatization ever created. The PP is definitely a fool, and doubtless someone who sees herself as "educated" on the issues despite eating all the anti-public school garbage she's been fed over the last decades.

+1. Very few people in this country understand the blacklisting public schools have gotten in the name of privatization, when the core problem has always been, and will always be, poverty. No matter how much we test kids, cut recess, or fire teachers, the rich kids will always do better than the poor ones. But it's easier to pretend poverty doesn't exist than work to make an equal society, especially in a society as individualistic as ours.

NP here but I agree that the issue is our country expects public schools to solve all the problems of poverty.

I'm glad someone else acknowledges this. I have worked in a high poverty public school for 15 years and this is getting more and more to be the case. It's absolutely exhausting to have to fill the roles of teacher, data analyst, parent, counselor, social worker, nurse, food provider and club sponsor but then be held responsible when standardized test scores aren't where they should be. My friends who work in higher SES schools pretty much just have to show up and teach the curriculum without all of the other stuff and the kids do well on the standardized tests and they are heralded as amazing teachers where we are constantly told we aren't doing enough and we need to figure out ways to do more for our students. Their schools have great resources and the money with which to fund that stuff through PTAs with deep pockets. My school is using outdated intervention kits and there isn't money for new ones. My friends' schools have multiple subscriptions to programs like Read Naturally and other expensive research based interventions.

I love working with the population I work with and I am an effective teacher, but at this point in my career enough is enough and I need to put my own family first which is why I'll be seeking out other opportunities at higher SES schools even if it means my commute doubles.