Why is redshirting so rare if it's so advantageous?

Strictly speaking, there is “schooling” for 2 to 6 year olds in Finland:
2 to 3 year olds have “playtime” with a teacher:toddler ratio of 1:4 (who have a specific (selective) 2-year degree)
4-6 year olds have a teacher:ratio of about 1:7 (selective bachelor’s degree).
It’s called “learning through play”, with structured play times (informal “language development” and “quantitative development” takes place then), unstructured playtime including mandatory 90mn outside regardless of temperatures or weather (within reason, ie., not in the middle of a -30 blizzard). There are also reading times, painting and art time, discovery times when you venture out into the world (4-6 year olds). Teachers have plans, a curriculum, etc. But there’s no sitting at a desk, no writing, no tests.
It also works because the inequality gap is small.
The program is free and open to all.

Overall I agree that we should consider that K, 1st, and 2nd graders are a year behind, and districts should try to implement policies that help remediate this rather than pretend covid never happened or that little kids weren’t impacted by remote schooling.

It can be a dilemma: my nephew has a late August birthday AND is very small for his age… and he’s also very bright.
He started with his age group but try to imagine the reception when for show and tell in PK he decided to present his favorite Renaissance painting. (At age 3 he got really into “mother and child” depictions from various eras, then moved on to “piètas”…)
He kind of does his own thing right now in the 5th grade, because he’s roughly 2 -?- years ahead academically. He’s also 4’3… and we all worry what’s going to happen next year in Middle School.

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The public school district my kids used to attend was at that time very accommodating to parents who wanted to redshirt on the taxpayers’ dime, most commonly by repeating kindergarten and sometimes by repeating first grade. Parents would literally on the first day of school announce to the teacher/principal that their kid (fall or summer birthday) was on the “two year plan” and would be back for a second year of K. And these were affluent parents who could well afford to pay for an extra year of preschool. Meanwhile, the neighboring school district, similar demographic, refused to allow that, and told parents in no uncertain terms that children got one year of K, and would repeat only if the district determined the child was “retainable” (not particularly common, since the preferred approach was to advance the child with his age peers while providing additional academic or emotional/behavioral support as needed).

I’m not sure what the district is doing now, since the K cutoff has changed from Dec. 2 to Sept. 1. But at the time it was a bit of scandal because the way the district was funded, all the K and 1st repeats were actually affecting the district’s budget.

By the way, my daughter has a late summer birthday, and entered K at 5. She’s doing well, but honestly I could imagine her doing even better a grade level lower (she’s a sophomore in HS now).

I imagine. Probably why in the state where I live, the public districts make you go to the grade your birthday dictates (no redshirting or acceleration though later on, kids can and do take classes higher than their age level). Only exception is if you started in a private and then switch over to a public. So if you want to redshirt, it has to be through a private.

I’m a freshman in HS and there aren’t many redshirted kids in my grade but it’s very common in the younger ones. My brothers are in third grade and most of their friends were redshirted.

I don’t know how true this is but my mom was talking to my brother’s pediatrician about it and he was saying that it’s very common in high-performing school districts where parents want their kids to have every advantage possible.

Yes. It’s definitely more common where parents can afford it (school saves on daycare for working couples) and are mentally invested in their kids’ educational outcome (which they should be).

I just wonder who’s getting the advantage. Is it the child or the parent? Nobody wants to field phone calls about their son hiding under his desk in kindergarten. But assuming they’re not doing that the whole year and they adapt to the activities expected of them and their peers, they may have a successful, enriching experience and be ready for 1st grade the next autumn, instead of only being ready for kindergarten like they would be if they spent the year in pre-K.

Also, parents may not always need to put in the effort to teach their kids to read, but it’s something to watch out for. A younger kindergartener will probably need a bigger boost at home. The younger child in kindergarten may be quite capable of the academic accomplishment and eager to participate socially though a little rough around the edges. It will be more work for parents to shepherd such a child through kindergarten, but that does not mean that the child is any worse off for it.

And I say this from experience as a non-redshirter. (Non-judgmentally, I hope it’s understood.) My son enjoyed kindergarten. He usually looked forward to going to school, kept up with all the reading and numbers prep, and was very proud of the arts and crafts projects he brought home. His teacher was wonderful and very understanding of his maturity level. I felt bad about the hassle for her, but she liked him and really took an interest in his advancement.

I can’t imagine doing it any other way. But yeah, just paying to keep him in pre-K and letting him start when he was a head taller and could sit still would have reduced my workload and his teacher’s. It would also have been a perfectly good choice. However, I don’t think it would necessarily given him an advantage, just a different kind of start.

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My suggestion for anyone considering it would be to do some research (more than a CC post) and discuss it with a professional.

From
Delay Kindergarten at Your Child’s Peril
to
Redshirting may do more harm than good
and

Research on redshirting suggests that while some advantages may accrue in the short term, these advantages dissipate by the end of elementary school, and may be replaced by deleterious effects in the long term

and the many links in the Wikipedia article on the topic, it seems quite clear to me that " it’s so advantageous" is far from a settled fact.

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In our public system, In order to qualify for more intense interventions, a student needed to be performing 2 years below grade level. That created a huge incentive to get started sooner. Sort of perverse that you needed to “fail faster.”

I know this thread is about redshirting typical kids in order to gain some kind of advantage. However, I wanted to chime in again to remind people that there are kids with real developmental delays.

Our son’s preschool teacher told us she thought he might be on the spectrum. My gut said that wasn’t the issue, but we took him to be evaluated. The psychologist figured out that DS had given up talking in school because no one could understand him. His speech impediment was that severe. At five, he could not match the letters of the alphabet with their sounds, or do jumping jacks, or sit without propping himself up on something.

The school district has a policy of sending everyone to K “on time,” so they wanted to put him in a self-contained classroom for kids with a variety of special needs and disabilities. I knew that most of the kids in this program had behavioral challenges, but DS was the most happy, flexible kid. I felt like he would do just fine being mainstreamed at the school where his siblings went, if he could just have another year in preschool. When I didn’t go for self-contained classroom, the district tried to convince me to send him to regular K on time with lots of services. I figured out that he would have spent more time being pulled out of the classroom than in (for resource room, speech, OT and PT). So I stood my ground and he entered K at six.

DS is tall, and parents did sometimes make remarks when they found out how old he was—thinking we “red shirted” him so that he would outshine their kids. DS has literally never been the best at anything except being a genuinely nice person. He’s a high school freshman now (at a public school), getting mostly B’s. He uses a variety of tutors, audiobooks, and study tricks to keep up. Most importantly, he likes school, loves learning, and feels good about himself as a student. I do not think we would have had this outcome if he had gone to K at five.

If asked why he is old for his grade, I simply say that he did an extra year of pre-K. I hope people don’t assume that we held him back with dreams of HYPSM or sports scholarships.

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Yes, of course. I think the only case where I’d be judgmental about redshirting is if the child is definitely ready and interested in kindergarten, but the parents are either embarrassed by having a less than perfect start where the kid shows some immaturity, or have some kind of strategic plan looking ahead to college admissions. Even then, it’s their prerogative, and maybe I’m the one who’s wrong. It is not the call I would make though.

But yeah, a child who is not ready should not start. The big question is whether the choice is in the best interest of the child. Given that there are advantages and disadvantages going either way, there are many children on the borderline where either choice is reasonable.

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Or one choice could be better than the other, but which one actually is better is unknowable, since knowing would depend on seeing into the future in both paths.

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My granddaughter will turn 5 on Sept. 1. In the state of her birth, she would be eligible to start K in 2021. In the state where they relocated during the pandemic is is not eligible to start. She is very verbal, has a great memory, and is very imaginative. The only other children she has been with since March 2020 are her younger sister and recently biweekly visits with a similar age cousin. There was no doubt that she was going next fall pre-Covid, but she would also have had a whole year of preK (she sadly said recently, “I’m not ever going to 4 year old school, am I?”). Her parents are extremely Covid cautious and may not send her anywhere this fall either. One idea her mom has is to homeschool a Kindergarten curriculum, send her to a developmentally appropriate preschool if it seems safe, and try to enroll her in 1st grade in 2022. It’s all so confusing compared to the conversations we had a year and a half ago about her!

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“The only time she complained was when she was one of the last to get her learner’s permit & driver’s license.”

It’s not like she would’ve been able to drive any earlier in her life had she been red-shirted. She would’ve still got her license in June of 2019, the only difference being she would’ve been an incoming 10th grader instead of an incoming 11th grader. The set of people in the world who could drive before and after her would’ve been the same no matter what. The only thing that definitely would have different is that she would’ve been less educated at any given point in time.

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“She didn’t say she would have held me back, but I think she should have. I was fine academically and wasn’t athletic at all so that wasn’t a factor. But from about sixth grade on I was playing catch-up socially. I think I would have benefitted from a later start.”

It’s not like you were any less socially mature at any given point in time than you would’ve been had you been held back. You were just less socially mature relative to your classmates. The set of people in the world who matured earlier and later than you would’ve been the same no matter what. The only thing that was definitely different is that you were more educated at any given point in time than you would’ve been if held back.

“One problem is that many childhood activities have cut offs based on birth date, not year in school. My daughter was the youngest in her K. It happened to be a group of about 45 kids with very early birthdays so she was anywhere from 4 to 20 months younger than the others. She was 4 going into K and almost half the class was 6 before Christmas. Come June, she couldn’t go to the girl scout camp because she wasn’t 6. She couldn’t go to the church camp the next summer because she wasn’t 7.”

It’s not like she had to wait any later in her life to do those activities than if she had been redshirted. She still would’ve gone to girl scout camp at 6, but as a Kindergartener instead of a 1st grader. She still would’ve gone to church camp at 7, but as a 1st grader instead of a 2nd grader. The only thing that definitely would’ve been different is that she would’ve been less educated at those given points in her life.

Except she will do these things a year behind her classmates/friends. Seems like no big deal - unless you are that child. I skipped a grade (1st grade) and always lagged behind in being able to do things that my friends could. It might not be a big deal for some kids, but at the time , it was for me. I always felt “out of sync”.

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We sent our two kids to K when they were 4 and they turned 5 a few weeks, and a month, later. We live in an affluent area and it is highly unusual. Most of their classmates are at least 1 year older. There are some kids, that by my calculation will be 19 and even 20 when they graduate high school. Maybe that’s good and will let the kids that need to mature, mature in high school and college.

Knowing what we know now, I don’t know if it was the right or wrong call. They are both doing well academically and socially. The one kid that was behind socially improved, but I can’t identify the cause of that as age or exposure to more social opportunities. One more year of preschool would not have made them into anything they wouldn’t have the chops to be, in my opinion. They might have had a slightly easier time learning things more quickly, maybe or maybe not.

Being in activities that are age-based is a consideration. But after elementary, that isn’t as relevant in our experience.

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The point I’m trying to make is that objectively, the same kids who could do certain things before you would’ve still been able to do those things before you had you not skipped a grade. Someone born in December of 2016 will be able to drive in December of 2032, regardless of whether they’re a 10th grader of an 11th grader at that point, and go to bars in December of 2037, regardless of whether they’re a college junior or a college senior at that point.

From a scientific standpoint, it makes a lot more sense to compare yourself to people born on the same day as you, rather than people in the same grade as you, seeing as how education hasn’t always been around, but biology has. You didn’t do things like drive or drink any later than people born on the same day as you, but you did hit your educational milestones(such as graduating from high school and college) before them. The only objective difference that skipping a grade made was that you were more educated at any given point in time, and usually, the more educated you are, the better.

Which kind of matters when it comes to interpersonal relationships, social dynamics, etc.

An 8th grader is spending much more of their time with other 8th graders than with 7th graders.

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Yes, but schools don’t group kids by exact birthdates. Most do so by 12 month groupings. Granted, at a Montessori, this stuff doesn’t matter nearly so much.

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Then it worked out fine, IMO.

As I mentioned, the youngest kids in a grade cohort tend to do better academically (and thus later in life).

Hard to tell how much is selection bias, however (that is, the kids who seem behind academically would be more likely to be redshirted while the kids who are advanced academically are less likely to be redshirted).