Can somebody please explain, if this is so bad and rampant, why school districts don't set an upper age limit on grades K and 1?
So, if junior is 5 by September 1, he starts Kinder. If he's turned 6 by September 1, he starts G1, and so on.
The only way the ages wouldn't be applied would be with a diagnosis and IEP, or because of "failing" the grade the previous year.
It seems like such an easy fix, yet the districts seem loathe to impose it.
Why is that?
Maybe the school districts, in the upper-middle class districts where this mostly happens, are scared of the parents making an über-fuss? Or maybe the school districts just don't see it from the perspective of parents with kids on the younger ends? I don't know. Good question.
I can see the outcry now "you are setting my child up to fail!!!! don't you think I know if my kid is ready for kindergarten!!!"
I hear you.
The woman who runs DD's preschool is NOT a fan of redshirting, at all. Like, I'm sure she could make bank by letting kids stay an extra year, but she literally disallows you from returning there for preschool the school year after the child turns 5.
Her repeated statement: "The more seven year olds there are in kindergarten, the more kindergarten is about teaching seven year olds."
...personally, I hate the move toward "academic" kindergarten... and I think it's becoming a chicken-and-egg quandry. The older the kids are, the more need there is for academics in kinder, the more people want to keep their kids out so they can mature.
Can somebody please explain, if this is so bad and rampant, why school districts don't set an upper age limit on grades K and 1?
So, if junior is 5 by September 1, he starts Kinder. If he's turned 6 by September 1, he starts G1, and so on.
The only way the ages wouldn't be applied would be with a diagnosis and IEP, or because of "failing" the grade the previous year.
It seems like such an easy fix, yet the districts seem loathe to impose it.
Why is that?
Chicago has this--at least for K/1st grade. What happens is that parents start their kids in private school and switch them at 2nd grade or so. Walla--redshirting accomplished. By that point, you can't just bump them up a year.
Althought I have heard rumblings that this will go away, too. Which is bad on so many levels, but mostly because it will broaden the socioeconomic achievement gap.
The 60 minutes thing said that Chicago was absolutely against red-shirting but parents made such a stink that they are reviewing it because so many parents are just sending their kids to private school.
The 60 minutes thing said that Chicago was absolutely against red-shirting but parents made such a stink that they are reviewing it because so many parents are just sending their kids to private school.
And by "parents" they mean "UMC parents," because the poor people I know are always trying to find Head Start programs with openings, or public preK that's more than 2 hours a day.