Who shun ‘academic redshirting’

troublesome preschooler who irritated his teachers.

There was seemingly no end to the phone calls and notes home to discuss behavioral issues: refusal to sleep at naptime, tugging on peers’ hair or clothes, reluctance to participate in quiet activities.

His birthday is in early August, close to our state’s September 1 cutoff, and we agonized over whether to let him proceed to kindergarten. And then, for the next 10 years, we agonized over whether we failed him by not keeping him out an extra year.

Today, as a sophomore in high school, The Wiggler is still one of the youngest in his class. Until recently he was always one of the smallest boys in his class. And also the most annoying to his teachers who, over the years, continued to send notes home begging us to keep him from tapping his pencils, making silly noises and, yes, wiggling himself practically out of his seat.

But, according to Schanzenbach and Larson, “The research on relative age indicates that being among the youngest in the class has benefits, in both the short and long term. Why? Because older classmates tend to be higher achieving and better behaved. They model positive behavior, and the younger students achieve greater academic gains from learning and competing with older ones. (Two studies reviewed) find that, with age held constant, learning with older classmates boosts students’ test scores.”

Schanzenbach hit upon the idea of investigating the veracity of redshirting while chatting with Larson about whether Schanzenbach’s daughter’s development would adequately prepare her to be successful in kindergarten this coming fall.

“This is one of the hottest topics on the playground! Parents often struggle with this decision, and want to know what the advice from experts is, and what the research says,” Schanzenbach told me via email.

This is really the most comforting thing we can hear. So much of what parents do revolves around making the best choices for their kids and we always worry that we haven’t chosen well enough.

On any given day we must just do our best with the information we have and hope that the scholarly research eventually pats us on the back for not messing up too badly.