"Red Shirting - Kindergartners"

Of course it would come to this. Of course it would!!! Are you familiar with the sports term "Red-shirt Freshman". Refers to an incoming freshman athelete (4 year college) that is allowed to be around the team, practice with the team but just not suit up on game day. That way at the end of their freshman year in college they haven't technically used up a year of competitive eligibility. They can still play 4 years of sports. It's a way of getting five years worth of maturity in 4 years of playing. All the colleges do it and we can debate later about the relative merit or lack of merit of giving atheletes 5 years to play 4 years.

I want to focus on something more assinine and is the current rage. Parents in an effort to give their little "Jimmy Crack-Korn" kid an advantage deliberately hold their kid out of Kindergarten until they are 6 years old. These kids are referred to as red shirt kindergartners. That way when little Suzi Creamcheese enters kindergarten as a 6 year old (in some cases 6 1/2) she will be bigger that the other 4 1/2 or 5 year olds, have had another year of preschool (or home school) and in theory will immediately go to the top of the class. She or he will excel against the younger kids and all the way through school because they will be a year older all the way through. They'll graduate at 19, having presumably kicked the ass of all the younger kids along the way.

Some parents will say, well I want my little "Tawonda" to have a a fair chance, or they'll say their kid is developmentally behind and need more time. Maybe but probably NOT! This sounds like a scam PUSD parents would cook up.

Am I saying some kids wouldn't do better if they started later in age? Of course not; not all kids are ready for kindergarten at age 5. The one size fits all has always been one of the bad philosophies of American education. If it can be proved a kid is developmentally behind and another half year or year would help them be closer to being on par with the other kids of course do it. What I object to is the blatent scamming parents are doing as they look for yet another way to circumvent the rules and try to get an advantage for little "Skipper".

All this would be less of an issue if schools would simply ability group instead of age group. Put little "Basil" in with like ability students. If/when he has shown the ability to move up put him in a higher group. It matters less that "Guido" is 15 and "Lippy" is 16 in a class. It matters more if "Guido" has a 130 IQ, and is on track for UCLA and "Lippy" has an IQ of 85 and on track to change my tires in about 5 years.

The thought for so long has been: don't hurt the little kiddies by having them be in the "low" group. Instead put them in with the Mensa kids and they will push themselves to do even better. NO most of them don't. They spend their entire school career asking the smarter kids for help on homework, help on test prep, seeing teachers during tutorial and wondering what happened to them that they are so far behind and don't understand the in class discussions. I think most would rather be at the top of the average or low group than be the academic caddy for the superstars. Red shirt Kindergartners? Grade "F"