The Popular Rise of Redshirting

RUNNING HEAD: REDSHIRTING

"The Popular Rise of Redshirting"

Allison Boswell

PSY 384

Everyone wants their children to have an exceptional education. They want their children to go to all the right schools and they start to achieve this goal as early as preschool and Kindergarten. Many parents want their children to be accepted into elite private kindergarten. Parents get their kids private tutors and all of the best learning equipment in order to give their children the upper hand in being accepted at one of these elite schools, even children sending their kids to public schools are just as worried about their child excelling at school. A practice that is gaining popularity is holding a child back a year from kindergarten-instead of starting at five years old as is the normal age, he/or she will start at age six.

This practice has become so popular that it has become known as "red shirting" (Dell 2011). Redshirting derives from the athletic world when an athlete sits out a year or more in order to lengthen eligibility. A parent choosing to hold their kids back a year gives them the opportunity to spend extra time on their alphabet and also gain an extra year of growing time, although that pertains mostly to boys. In Dell's article she quotes Emily Glickman, president of Abacus Guide Educational Consulting, "This has been a trend for years but it has accelerated in the last five."

A primary force behind redshirting is schools themselves. Older children interview better and are more likely to get slots; private schools look for older more mature children because they are the ones more likely to succeed. But public schools are also promoting redshirting. Parents want their children to have a leg up; an extra year of reading can mean better test scores and more self-confidence in the short term, and more physical prowess if you are thinking in terms of athleticism (Dell 2011). Different studies are in disagreement about whether there are any long term advantages.

In Dell's article she cites a study by David Deming and Susan Dynarski that stated in the fall of 1968 96 percent of six-year old were enrolled in first grade or higher and by 2005 that figure had fallen to 84 percent. The study found that about a third of the decrease was due to legal changes due to state upping the age when kids are allowed to start school and two thirds was because of parents or teachers redshirting children.

This a disadvantage to lower income families who can't afford to pay for pre-school, because they just have one less year of school when they graduate. This also causes a problem because if everyone starts to redshirt their children then no one will have an advantage.