“Redshirting” isn’t just for sports anymore. Last week, a CBS news reported on a new trend among parents of American kindergarteners:
The National Center for Education Statistics found that close to 10 percent of 5-year-olds are academically redshirted — the term coined to describe this growing trend of holding kids back a year. Boys are twice as likely to be redshirted as girls.
Why? The article cites some popular reasons to redshirt, but it all comes back to a parent wanting to give their child an “edge” — socially, academically, even athletically.
Which is good. Parents should be willing and able to act in the best interests of their children. The problem is that in many cases it looks as though the decision to redshirt is shortsighted.
The first woman quoted in the CBS article held back her son because he was shorter than 90% of his classmates. Now she may have opened the door for him to be awkwardly large among his peers in the future.
Some parents want to give their kids a leg up, which they may actually get, at least for awhile. But I would speculate that most advantages even out by middle school, when the students are old enough that a year’s difference in age has become relatively smaller. Further, my experience tells me that rather than being celebrated for their accomplishments, most redshirts are stigmatized by other parents and students and have many of their successes written off because of their advanced age.
There are other less obvious disadvantages. Most parents probably never thought far enough ahead to consider the effects of one less year between college graduation and retirement age. A non-redshirt college graduate has the advantage of being able to set aside a few thousand dollars starting at age 22 rather than 23. With growth at about 10%, Johnny’s clever leg up in 2007 could cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars come 2072.
Finally, there are certainly cases where it is necessary and wisest to hold back a child. But when it’s done for frivolous reasons, it become increasingly selfish. Every parent who gives their kid a redshirt boost skews the classroom age distribution and passes the burden on to another student at the young end of his grade.
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I think more should be written about the widening gap between the performance of boys and girls in public education.
Who’s to blame? Easy, programs designed to bring equality for the sexes in 70’s and 80’s. While they did make an entire generation of young women complete equals with their male counterparts, they should never have continued once equality was achieved. We see the results now, public education designed for the female mind, taught mostly by females, resulting in boys falling behind. Boys and girls learn differently and they should be taught differently.
Time to tweak the system for a more balanced approach and time to end the war on masculinity.
Maybe more on later…
i’m surprised there wasn’t a thread in here somewhere arguing how unfair it is for female brain surgeons to be paid less than males, even though males have far more experience and qualifications in the field.
mustn’t remember middle school very well katie. age doesn’t mean anything, niether do grades, just your ability to kick a football if you’re a male and dodge being labeled gay… and if you’re a girl, all you have to do is not be fat and talk all the time.
Oh Katie; it is people exactly like those you ‘describe’ who think that parents holding back their boys are giving them a leg up; merely it is leveling the playing field so to speak. I dont think a boy his 5 and 5 dys is at the same level as those entering kindgarten and are 5 and 11 mos. My son who has the unfortunate bday is the end of august, will be redshirtted this year. We have decided to put our faith in his preschool teacher who has strongly recommended he wait another year before beginning his elem education. The most unfortunate thing about this is that no matter what he accomplishes in his future, I am confident that there will be many parents standing by to remind everyone how underserving he is due to his age advantage.
The article is not addressing your situation. It is about people that hold back a child with an April through July (or even August) that is clearly ready, but they do it just to have their kid kick some rear end on a child that’s up to 16 months younger.
Chris,
That’s pretty much what I was thinking, too.
So, when your son enters at 6 and 5 days, he will be in the same class as some other students who are 5 and 5 days. It’s a vicious cycle.
I also agree with you about the parents who will be standing by.
For the record, the boys vs. girls thing was merely part of the quote from the article. I had no intention of singling out a particular sex in this post.
Okay, so what is a parent of an end of August child to do? My child is currently in a preschool with 5 children who are more than a year older than my child. I feel this is very unfair and forcing my hand to red shirt my child. For the past four years, I had no intention of holding my child. Now, with “everyone” else red shirting it seams that my child will have to work that much harder to fit in socially, academically,physically. Are the kindergartens now acting like first grade? Meaning, if 90% of the class is already begining to read and write their name with accuarcy, are the teachers moving on to the next step? Or, are the teachers teaching the Kindergarten cirriculum and having 90% be bored because they may belong in first grade. I think it is unfair and irresponsible of parents to red shirt when there is no need. It skews the classrooms and puts teachers in an awkward postion. Teach what kindergarteners are supposed to learn or teach 6 year olds what they are suppose to learn. This is a hot topic for me and I am very torn as what to do for my child.
We live an area with very desirable school sytems and record for extremely high achieving students and parents. This past year the school moved to a full day Kindergarten program…the program our daughter was eligible to enter. We opted for serveral reasons to keep her in preschool for another year…in a fullday 5 day program at great expense to us.
When we attended the ‘kindergarten readiness’ discussion it was obvious that the real criteria for teachers and the school is measured around compliance. Basically they want kids that do not need extra attention outside of the extra attention mandated for children on IEP programs. Why? because they have a lot of transitions in the day in order to get in all the teaching/learning needed to enable high state test scores when they begin in 2nd or 3rd grade.
Our child is young for her age in this respect and always has been. We do worry that she will become bored in class next year…but balance that against knowing that now she is not mature enough to be in a much bigger class with a ramped up day without the risk of becoming the designated problem child. The children are flagged for extra attention from specialist in math or reading but not for compliance issues.
The parent comments have started already. But we feel we have done what is best for our child so she has the emotional foundation necessary to be able to start on the right foot…