So says the top-rated comment at "D.C. banned ‘redshirting’ years ago. Here’s why people are talking about it. The controversial practice of delaying kindergarten enrollment by a year has been allowed to happen at a small number of schools" (WaPo).
I think the answer to her question why is: It's part of the struggle against (what is perceived as) white privilege: "It is difficult to determine exactly how common it is to delay a child’s enrollment in school. Some national data suggest it’s rare — somewhere between 3.5 percent and 5.5 percent of eligible children do it. Most of those students are boys born in the summer months. Academic redshirting is also more common among White children at schools that serve large numbers of wealthy families, who can afford an extra year of preschool or day care, according to an article published by the American Educational Research Association."
ADDED: The Supreme Court's opinion in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which upheld the parents' right to exempt their own children from the school's gender-ideology indoctrination, relied heavily on Wisconsin v. Yoder, which upheld the parents' right to exempt their child a school requirement that had to do with the age of the child. In Yoder, Wisconsin wanted to compel school attendance up to the age of 16, and the parents, Amish parents, sincerely believed that schooling beyond 8th grade impairs religious salvation. They wanted their children to avoid the "worldly educational environment" and sought a different kind of wisdom and way of life, and the Supreme Court viewed their preference as a constitutional right. I'd thought of Yoder as a marginal case until I saw Mahmoud v. Taylor.
The WaPo commenter's slogan "Let the parents decide" resonates.
86 comments:
Frankly i wish i'd been held back a year. Both my next-door neighbors were and they benefited by being 6 months older then everyone in their class, rather than 6 months younger. Being bigger allowed them to have more confidence.
Of course you pay the penalty later when you graduate from HS one year later. But thats a small price to pay.
I agree, no holding back for anyone. That includes not holding back a kid who isn’t academically inclined in third grade. Tax-payers are funding K-Senior year in high school. That’s 13 years. You want to redshirt or repeat a grade, go to private school.
And if school starts in August then August 1 should be the starting point not September 1. School should get out the Friday before Memorial Day and start the Tuesday after Labor Day. And no holidays except for Thanksgiving. Get two weeks in the Christmas-New Years period.
Academic redshirting. That phrase suggests apocalyptic despair is eating the Left alive.
I know the real purpose of Kindergarden is free baby sitting, but has anyone looked at the real educational benefits? Does forcing kids to go to school at 5 or 6 really result in their learning more later on in life? I know its easier to learn a foreign language when young, but I'm skeptical that applies to anything else.
Black privilege is turning 16 in 8th grade.
"And if school starts in August then August 1 should be the starting point not September 1. School should get out the Friday before Memorial Day and start the Tuesday after Labor Day. And no holidays except for Thanksgiving. Get two weeks in the Christmas-New Years period."
Thankfully no one else wants that, Mr Gradgrind.
"White children at schools that serve large numbers of wealthy families, who can afford an extra year of preschool or day care ...".
Or have a Mom and a Dad, so they don't need to hand their kids over to the Marxists just yet.
"Why should this bureaucrat date dictate my child’s education?"
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Oh honey, you sure can't follow the narrative through all these trivial distractions:
If they can determine your child's health care, they sure as hell can determine your child's schooling. Parental rights don't mean too much to the WIN-NING crowd that has all the answers... Your son or daughter will eat the school hotdog, salute the school flag, pledge to the flag, and do their duty for their country. Make babies, kill children in foreign wars... the government decides best for you.
Ocean. No one cares about your childhood or your insecurities
Why do we need to mandate school attendanc in government schools anymore? Test them annually. If a child is at grade level from reading and self study on the computer and via books from the library, why do the kids have to babysit the teachers all day and pretend to be learning from them? There will be enough kids who need the daycare and will voluntarily attend to keep you gals employed.
My goodness! What a burden. Centuries ago, when I started, there was a cutoff date for entering kindergarten. Who knew it was racist?
You old men should have some children of your own you can raise. Trust me, the young women with kids today don't give a hoot about how it was for you, how you did it, or what you think would be best for their kids.
You had your chance with yours. You failed. Look at where we are today. Greatest Generation handed you boomers a huge lead, and you lost it and everybody in the world is nipping at our heels now...
And you old wankers think sending US tax billions overseas to kill Palestinian women and children in the name of "protecting" Israel and bringing about EndTimes is WIN-NING. lolol
White privilege? Or a case of parents recognizing that a very young 5 year old may not be ready for a kindergarten environment?
We ended up putting our youngest (9 Aug) in a private school for kindergarten to give us the option to let him go to 1st grade or do another year of kindergarten based on his social and academic development (VA has the same cutoff date).
Personally, I was pushing for just sending him through so he gets a year of his life back at the end, my wife wanted to hold him back so he wouldn't be the youngest and smallest in every grade. Socially, he is adapted enough to go into 1st grade however his reading skills are not quite there yet.
In the end, it should be the needs of the kids as first priority but having dealt with school districts in three different states, I can tell you that, like any good beauracracy, EVERYTHING is second fiddle to following their rules and regulations to a 'T'.
I was born in November and put in school when I was 4. I'm told I almost failed kindergarten. I caught up, I guess.
I was born in December and could not begin first grade when school started in September as I was not yet 6. Why is this controversial? It makes sense the start of the school year is the date chosen for the cutoff.
Any date is arbitrary; I'd give parents some latitude on such things, because they know their children better. My dad taught me to read when I was 3, so when I hit first grade I was way ahead of my peers and the teachers didn't know what to do with me, so they pushed me up to second grade. I had no trouble with the schooling, but I wasn't emotionally ready and it was a rough year or two. I also had to wait to get my driver's license well after my peers and I didn't turn 18 until I was in college, which had some impact on my social life. You get through it, of course, but on balance the disadvantages outweighed the advantages.
Some may want to delay their kid start, thinking their child may be bullied if they start too early. I’ve heard that from some Latin parents.
I thought it was all about football.
Academic redshirting. That phrase suggests apocalyptic despair is eating the Left alive.
Well, I’m going to be unpopular with any teachers in the commentariat. That’s okay, because they have little idea how the parents view them.
There is a perception — perceived by the parents because it’s basically true — that if one can get one’s children into a gifted and talented program (G-T) then those children will actually learn things. Like algebra. History. How to read and write, sort of useful things like that. The rest of the children, the ones not in G-T, will basically do learning despite the teacher. And if one’s child is a year older, and has had academic enrichment in that year, then it increases the chances he or she will test into G-T.
So the advantage of academic redshirting can be pretty profound.
"I also had to wait to get my driver's license well after my peers and I didn't turn 18 until I was in college, which had some impact on my social life."
Yep. I survived.
I had a mom who pushed like all get out to get this Nov. kid into school. Sounds good so far until HS. Then the boys in my grade one or two years older are 30 to 50 pounds heavier. At 18 first year in Air Force I gained those 30 pounds. oh yea and driving cars - not so much when you turn 16 as a senior - 4 months from graduation.
Nobody actually cares about anyone else's life or childhood or insecurities, but we have to pretend they care and we care or the whole thing will collapse.
And I was more interested in the academics than the bars anyways.
Would you make this a general rule: Remove all advantages for children that can only be taken by those who have vigilant, smart, advantage-seeking parents.
Harrison Bergeron.
No matter what you do, somebody will be the youngest or smallest in every class.
Ann Althouse said...
Would you make this a general rule: Remove all advantages for children that can only be taken by those who have vigilant, smart, advantage-seeking parents.
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No, because wealthy people's "advantages" aren't always all that...
I know a woman who is always looking to scam and exploit the loopholes. She is taking her girl grandchild across the world, teaching her how to benefit from a flight or room upgrade; sampling the "finest" foods and parks and amusements in the world. But... you're just really making the little girl into a concubine, teaching her -- like the woman herself, how to use feminine skills to feed off the people who do the work. Not "how to cook" but how to order in restaurants. Not how to garden or do chores, but how to hire others to do for you. Not how to play and get along with other children, but where to stay to be placed with the richest and how to cozy in and get some of those advantages for yourself.
But... the girl is not really developing how own skills or pursuing her own interests. She is turning into a snoot, it seems and the grandmother is pushing her into a precocious puberty -- lil boobies at 10, camel toe once she hit school age and was going to school only in long underwear with no skirt or shorts covering the crotch...
It's sad. I'm sure the grandmother will marry this girl off to a high bidder with all her feminine skills and ways of getting by in the upper crust, but I really do not think this child has any real advantages in life. If looking at the child's mother, also raised by this woman, is any indication, I think sometimes these "advantages" can be very taxing to the children the adults are living their lives through...
The idea that you can fix every problem has two fallacies; 1) you can't, and ii) your opinion that there's a problem in the first place is only your opinion.
The school system makes relating to people your own age very important and a one year age difference when you are 4 or 5 is huge. I was born in December but was allowed into kindergarden at 4 and then into first grade at 5 so I know how it feels to be the youngest by several months and to be almost a year younger than many of the others. At 4 years old, a 1 year difference is 1/4 of your life. It isn't "1 year"; it's more like the difference between 40 and 50. There's a huge gap in lived experience; it's hard to describe but it's real. But you encounter that kind of difference throughout life and the school system makes it too important. One of the problems of the current young generation is that they are too focused on their peer group and not very well able to understand that they have to work with all ages. They can't see that 55 year-olds can matter because experience matters.
Anyhow, at 81, at last I'm the among the oldest. Almost everyone in America is younger than I am. Fun fact: every American who is 81 or older is in one demographic category - 1% of the population. Unfortunately and unfairly, this means that once again I'm weaker and slower though this time I know what's going on better than the others. Smile and say, hello, it's life itself.
The dates should be general guideposts not redlines. Kids not ready for first grade can always do Kindergarten twice, which isn’t unheard of.
The WaPo commenter's slogan "Let the parents decide" resonates.
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Oh this is rich. I enjoy watching you have your cake and eat it too. "Let the parents decide" is not what these Courtroom Catholics are putting out there, ann.
Let the conservative Christians -- the men -- choose and incentivize. Sure you can say, no, but you'll pay for it. You know how blacklisting works proffy, as well as threats to make police reports and claim you've been threatened... (not doing that. But we all know who you are and the games you will play to advantage yourself...)
You thought you were buying your two boys advantages too. HOw'd that work out for them? Jon drive yet? He's a sweet boy, still trying to impress "my mom" with his lists of old boomer songs you might like, but he's no independent soul. He's no Ben Winkler. *wink*
Now now. Starting down that slippery slope of having choice and schools.
Ann Althouse said...
Would you make this a general rule: Remove all advantages for children that can only be taken by those who have vigilant, smart, advantage-seeking parents.
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Set a rule and enforce it, no loopholes.
We don't really care about all the "advantages" you give your kids except where it affects us and ours.
We don't want your "held back" son hitting on our daughters when he's years older and in heat and attracted to the little girls in class with him, over whom he has an age and physical advantage. The smaller can always compete up, but it's just not fair to give the athletic and physical advantages and have those age gaps in high school like that. No, my freshman daughter is not going to be the sex toy for your junior or senior son with sexual needs who should be at college sowing his oats already with a gal his own age...
We had the choice to send our son to kindergarten at 4/5 or 5/6 and chose 5/6. It gave him more time to prepare to sit for long periods of time. We didn't want to be pushed to medicate away the normal fidgetiness of small boys. It also helped with his size. He was in the 95th percentile for height and the 10th for weight. He was a string bean.
I was born in November and put in school when I was 4.
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Ditto. Mid October here.
I always got along with the class coming up behind me (we had some mixed-grade classes...) and didn't much realize I was one of the youngest except for the physical body maturity thing and if you're a late bloomer and started school early, you're going to be behind in puberty, nttawwt.
He was a string bean.
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ann's post missed all this.
She is focused on a girl.
It's the athletic advantage that the parents are exploiting. The schools don't use ages for the teams like the travelling sports squads, ie/ U12. They go by class grade. If you're held back for physical reasons so you can "catch up" to your classmates, it helps you in sports.
God knows, American parents are focused on the sports in the schools way more than the academics, unless you're talking about immigrant kids.
“White privilege? Or a case of parents recognizing that a very young 5 year old may not be ready for a kindergarten environment?”
This. Back when we were considering starting our whip-smart 5 year-old early, the kindergarten teacher asked us, “Do you want him to be the most prepared student in the class or the least?”. Good advice and it applies to every year of schooling thereafter.
Ann Althouse said...
Would you make this a general rule: Remove all advantages for children that can only be taken by those who have vigilant, smart, advantage-seeking parents.
As a (former) vigilant, smart, advantage-seeking parent, not just no but HELL NO.
Redshirting is popular in rural America for the sole purpose of giving kids an advantage in sports. I can tell you it makes an enormous difference to be bigger, stronger, and faster than your classmates.
We did not redshirt our son because we transferred from a metropolitan area where that was not common. When he was in elementary school, we moved to a rural area. He was the youngest person in his class by a year or more until another boy moved in from a different metropolitan area.
In addition to delaying the start of school, some parents held their children back a year (for athletic advantage or for academic performance). One kid in the same grade was almost 3 years older than our son!
The result is my son gave up on sports at a young age after being completely dominated by the older boys. And in terms of maturity, he was still wanting to play with matchbox cars when his classmates were dating.
I understand the "let the parents decide" argument, but...
If you are able to arrange things so that your child isn't the youngest/smallest, that means someone else's child is. And they're going to want to arrange things so that's not so and then, another someone else's child will be youngest/smallest... you can see where this is going, right?
Where do you draw the line? You have to draw it somewhere.
"Where do you draw the line? You have to draw it somewhere."
No, the line actually draws itself. The parents who are concerned about their kids welfare take action, and those who are not take whatever the government schools are dishing out.
Where do you draw the line? You have to draw it somewhere.
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The poor immigrant's kid is going to be the poorest, the smallest, the one with the least "comped" status. (the wealthy always make sure their kids don't pay full freight, even as they demand first-class accommodations. Employee/club discounts whatever -- they never pay the price marked that others do for anything...)
Thing is, the smallest kid isn't necessarily the most disadvantaged. You're there to learn, not to compete in sports or popularity contests for the boys. That's not for the immigrant kids, we compete in the game. We don't go pulling up our skirts to show off our twats to get the teacher's attention or to draw attention to ourselves as "bad grrrls" just like those ones to be emulated in Daddy's playboys he leaves out for the neighborhood girls to peruse...
Daddy didn't take any girlfriends on his lap to read them the newspaper, did he annie? They didn't have computer games to get the non-related gals to climb on them on the couch, did they? *wink*
I, too, failed kindergarten. How was I to know that other 5 year olds did not take their naps in the nude?
OT: Why is there still a "Spring Break" in K-12 public schools? Teachers' unions, I suppose
It's a teapot tempest. The reality is that most schools are harmful to most children, no matter what age. The public school system was designed to turn the children of Prussian peasants into reliable factory workers and soldiers. It was imported into the US by high-minded assholes from Massachusetts, whose intentions were inscrutable. It was originally staffed mostly by intelligent women, and they made it work fairly well, although it was always a massive waste of time. But they are largely gone now, replaced by Marxists and sexual perverts. Schools of Education at most universities have the lowest admission standards of any department, and the highest graduation rates.
If they want to take the choice away then they need to stop expecting little boys to act like little girls in the classroom. The majority (not all) of boys can’t sit for hours coloring, cutting and pasting, singing, etc. When boys struggle with this they are labeled troublesome. On top of that schools are reducing recess time and disapproving of rough and tumble play. And then they extended kindergarten to full day.
My story's the opposite. Born in October, I was 4 when I started Kindergarten. When I started at university, I was 17.
Everyone's ignoring the obvious solution. By federal mandate, all children must be born in July, and start public schooling at the same age.
See? Simple.
You can thank me later, after we all see what a huge success it is.
100% correct Reader! Back when I was raising kids, I read a book called “ the Hurried Child” , which specifically addressed the problems little boys have adjusting to the rigidity of school.
Two of my five had summer birthdays, we kept them home that extra year, and never regretted it.
There's some controversy whether "let the parents decide" applies to "gender affirming care" for minors.
When I was in 5th grade, the nuns suggested to my parents that I repeat the 5th grade so that I could be a closer physical size to my classmates. But it was ultimately my parent's decision.
The weird part is that sometimes I think about how my life might have been different if I hadn't repeated 5th grade.
BTW, since my grammer school was 99.9% Latino, this had nothing to do with race and I actually Think things turned out better because I was a little smarter than my classmates after that.
I had a December birthday and my parents were so eager to have me out of the house they insisted I be allowed to start school a year before my appropriate time. There was no public kindergarten in those backwards time so first grade was it. I opened my carton of crayons in the first few minutes of school before it was allowed and my education went down hill from there.
We lived a block from school. On the first day of 1st grade I walked home at noon. I thought school was over for the day.
. I opened my carton of crayons in the first few minutes of school before it was allowed and my education went down hill from there.
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Whatever you do, DON"T READ AHEAD. If the class is still listening to somebody struggle to read aloud, DO NOT FLIP AHEAD and continue silent reading. For some reason, they do not like that! And those early elementary years are often all about learning how to conform, not about reading ahead to find out how the story comes out...
It's curse. Be glad those of you non-readers who prefer audiobooks, whimsical fiction and holding the "real books" back for retirement. You don't know the STruggle. ;-)
(never ever ever get ahead of the teacher and read something that hasn't been passed under her nose yet. They Do. Not. Like. It. when you challenge their monopoly on the facts because you just know more...
Good times, annie. Good times!
tcrosse said...
There's some controversy whether "let the parents decide" applies to "gender affirming care" for minors.
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Consistency has never been annie's strong suit.
She's rather illogical like that, which is why she likely went into teaching not practicing law, and stopped with the serious law review articles (that her boy Jon often edited as a student helping his mother out) once the tenure hit...
Art major turned law prof.
Nttawwt, it would never happen that way today. Affirmative action was berry berry good to the Boomer grrrls.
which specifically addressed the problems little boys have adjusting to the rigidity of school.
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Try, "masculine children" not boys.
Otherwise the poor trans boys are gonna get stuck with all the girls stereotypes again! Luckily, I'm in a good state where the fears of parents like meade don't determine how trans kids are treated in the classroom. Can you imagine if his little girl had been a student in the 80s when Ryan White was in public school? Meade would have been one of those at the doors of the school "protecting" his lil gurlll, and demanding the AIDS kid get lost or he'd burn the place down...
Original Mike said...
We lived a block from school. On the first day of 1st grade I walked home at noon. I thought school was over for the day.
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He's not here to drop the story... again, so I'll tell it:
Dr Michael Kennedy of Chicago's South Shore only went to kindergarden the first day to spend with the nuns. After that, he went to work for the gardener across from the school. He'd go there instead of school, and would go home when the school day ended. His mother never caught on, and they moved by Christmas time, so he never got caught! If Dr Mike told us that story once on this blog, he told it 10 times... RIP Dr Mike.
...."Now the school district is cracking down. Officials say “a select few principals” may have redshirted students in the past, but the district now has tools to make sure the law is being followed consistently....."
'Cracking down' on what? Empowering tool kits to Administrators to pursue what end benefit, or eliminate what harm, exactly?
..."“Now, if there are specific cases and for specific children that demonstrate why they need to be in a lower grade, then that possibility exists.” Said the Commissar of Admissions, opening the negotiations for the arrangements to follow.
I wonder what the nearby charter school might say.
Melissa Harris-Perry is nodding along...
What do you think it does to the mental health of 4 to 9 year old boys to have teachers consistently disapprove and punish normal little boy behavior as disruptive but have those same teacher praise and reward little boys for acting like little girls.
My beef is with the education system for meddling and the medical community for medicating and operating on children and thus limiting the child’s choices as an adult in the future.
I was always one of the youngest in my classes. Turned 18 the day after I graduated high school. Didn't seem to make a difference one way or the other.
Good thing my parents weren't racist.
Like Jim I was always the youngest in my class. My birthday is November 2d, and the cutoff in the district was November 1st. My brother was 11 months younger--and the two of us would have been in the same grade. If the two of us were in the same grade I would have been the "dumb older brother". The district let me start first grade with my older peers. I was still 17 when I started college. All in all it didn't hurt me. Was I denied "white privilege". If you are dumb enough to think about things like that, I suppose so.
reader said...
What do you think it does to the mental health of 4 to 9 year old boys to have teachers consistently disapprove and punish normal little boy behavior as disruptive but have those same teacher praise and reward little boys for acting like little girls.
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What do you think it does to students who are allegedly girls being punished for normal little boy behavior as disruptive and trying to force a child to play and act like the other passive little girls? Stop with your damned gender stereotypes and "advocating" for your boy children and/or your girl children. Treat them as individuals with their own interests and talents.
You adults want to put everyone in boxes and some are strong enough to say NO... and suffer the consequences that come with that action. It's easy to say on paper, harder to live with the results of your choices, but if you aren't true to yourself... you end up trying to control others and live through others too. Look at how small and tight meade gets year after year after year here. He's undereducated, but can't admit he doesn't have the education to keep up. He once upon a time was a worker, he says, and always has busy work projects cutting down trees at ann's or building bike ramps in the backyard for his boys, but a real worker contributing to his community? He's ann's spouse. Takes care of her... SOmebody has to keep the water flowing, the contstruction being built, the roads maintained, etc. It's the foreign men doing the work men like meade are too soft to do and their sons simply cannot. Nevermind a CDL, the poor althouse boys got chauferred by mummy everywhere and never learned that independent skill that most workers need to get to the job site... Not everybody likes to be driven or have their food cooked for them, and maid service, etc. Rosalita raised ann's boys while she worked and mr. cohen was out of the house... but the rosalita's of today won't have the babies for you too...
My beef is with the education system for meddling and the medical community for medicating and operating on children and thus limiting the child’s choices as an adult in the future.
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Your beef is with other parents who wouldn't make the same choices and decisions for their child's medical care that you imposed on yours. You do your kid. Leave the other kids alone. I guarantee you no doc is operating on kids without parental consent... It's the parents' role, mind yours.
Girls mature faster then boys and don't have to put up with the PHYSICAL bullying.
Our summer-birthday son was NOT READY for Kindergarten but we started him anyway because that’s how it’s “supposed “ to be. We ended up having him repeat Kindergarten. This caused the kids in his small private Catholic school to assume that he was retarded. He just wasn’t ready and did great the second time around. But the stigma of having to repeat made him feel pretty bad about himself for several years.
My birthday is in early July so most of the kids in my classes were several months older than me but I never once noticed it. I doubt that it really makes any difference for the vast majority of kids with birthdays in July and August.
In the school system I went to (Pike County, KY) the cut off for kindergarten was October 1st- you had to be 5 by that date to start classes in early August of the same year. I only know this because my middle sister had a birthdate in the 2nd week of October and my mother tried to get her into kindergarten anyway but they sent her away after the second week of school when they realized she was a couple of weeks too young for the cutoff.
My first son missed the cut off by a few days so he was one of the oldest kids in his grade. That extra year made a big difference in his ability to focus and sit still. My next son was a summer birthday. We didn't hesitate to redshirt. It was also during covid. Best decision too.
Interesting issue. I was reading at 4 and my parents skipped kindergarten for me. Every elementary school class picture has me at the bottom row. Bring the smartest and the smallest is a challenge in XYville.
Individualized AI instruction will obviate all these concerns. Put the kid in the pod and the AI teaches to the kid's strengths and weaknesses. Heck, you could rearrange the grades into weight classes so they don't bully each other traveling to/from the pods. Once you're in the pod, all that matters is you.
RR
JSM
I would have benefitted from academic redshirting.
Society would have benefitted from my being redshirted.
(Late October)
The cutoff was October 1 when I started school, and I was born a few days before. There was no public kindergarten in those days, and my parents didn’t sent me to a private one, either because they didn’t think I needed it or they were cheap, or possibly both. So I started at 5, graduated and started college at 17, and graduated college at 20. I don’t think it made much difference. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to wait another year to start school. I would have been massively bored.
My January-borne daughter graduated a year early from high school, which in Texas at the time was significant not only for her academic excellence and work ethic, but also because she knocked a child from that class out of eligibility for automatic attendance at the University of Texas, a highly sought privilege of class rank. And almost made valedictorian for the previous year, too. Smart cookie, that kid.
Our school district’s cutoff was November 30 and my son’s birthday is November 27th. Waiting a year was best for him.
Ann Althouse said...
Would you make this a general rule: Remove all advantages for children that can only be taken by those who have vigilant, smart, advantage-seeking parents.
The fastest way to start a hot civil war would be to kill Trump.
The second fastest way would probably be taking kids away from parents and forcing them into mediocre public school systems and then letting the Karens that run public education hector parents for wanting their kids to excel as you suggest.
I was curious enough about this topic because my own experience is so different that I asked chatgpt -- because I started kindergarten at age 3 and first grade at age 4, and graduated high school at age 17, in 1968.
Apparently it wasn't that unusual back then and there was no cut off age of 5 by Sept. 1 to start first grade. What blows my mind the most is remembering climbing up on the steps of the school bus on the first day, and seeing all those kids looking at me, honestly it was scary.
Grant said...
The cutoff was October 1 when I started school, and I was born a few days before. There was no public kindergarten in those days, and my parents didn’t sent me to a private one, either because they didn’t think I needed it or they were cheap, or possibly both. So I started at 5, graduated and started college at 17, and graduated college at 20. I don’t think it made much difference. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to wait another year to start school. I would have been massively bored.
You were sociality adept.
A minority of boys are socially adept.
The consequences of being socially inapt in real life at 6 or 7 generate social losers in high school.
Most of us halfway recovered, and succeeded in life, but it seems so unnecessary, a result of uninformed decisions.
If you believe in the benefit of the kid starting school a year later, why not two years later, or three? At what point are you putting your child at a disadvantage, and does that disadvantage arise because 2 or 3 years later is bad in and of itself or is it because it makes your kid an outlier?
If you believe in the benefit of the kid starting school a year later, why not two years later, or three?
The benefit is not academic, it's social.
Ideally, kids would be driven academically at whatever pace they could handle. For absolute sure, plenty of 4 year old kids can master elementary addition and subtraction. And master algebra, both years of algebra, by 10-12. And they should be pushed to do just that.
But being socially inept means being a social loser. People don't like you. That has lifelong effects. Not all of the effects are negative, but on sum they are negative.
Kids usually make fun of the boys who should be in the grade above. Mama’s boy. Retard flunked kindergarten. Etc
"Would you make this a general rule: Remove all advantages for children that can only be taken by those who have vigilant, smart, advantage-seeking parents."
No. My parents cared deeply about me, my siblings, and our education. The only way a government could remove all such advantages would be to imitate Harrison Bergeron.
Loving your children should matter.
I "... had a mom who pushed like all get out to get this [January]. kid into school. Sounds good so far until HS. Then the boys in my grade one or two years older are 30 to 50 pounds heavier. "
Yep. My HS had an enrollment of about 3,600. Now imagine wanting to play sports but, literally, being the smallest boy in that huge pool of potential athletes.
And, to cap it off, I went to 5 (count 'em) grade schools as we followed Dad around for work. Blend in an introverted personality... and immaturity (some might say that continues to this day...).
Yeah, glad it worked out for many of you. I found it to be hellish.
Fortunately I grew.... much of it after high school. I turned 18 between semesters my Freshman year at college.
I’m 100% behind letting parents decide. I look at my own family where parents both held back some and advanced others. My cousin Bob’s birthday is Dec 26th. By all rights he should have been held back but the Catholic grammar school allowed him in so my aunt could help with PE classes. He did fine as always being the youngest in the class. My BIL is also a December birthday and my mother in law made the conscious decision not to let him start early. He ended up as class president plus all conference in two sports and went on to fly jets for the USAF. Dates were not so hard and fast for us Boomer kids.
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