Don't know how to "fix" my 5-year old kid

wrote and I snipped:

I feel that the following stats in a report actually dated in 2000 are
significant, but that's just me.

"Redshirting may be a response to demands for a higher level of school
readiness (Graue & DiPerna, in press; May et al., 1995). In a national
survey, teachers indicated that ***48%*** of their students were not
ready for the current kindergarten curriculum (NCEDL, 1998).
***Alarmingly high percentages*** of teachers indicated that half of
their students lacked important skills, including "following
directions" ***(46%)***, "academic skills" ***(36%)***, and the ability
to "work independently" ***(34%)***. In light of such data, many
scholars suggest that academic curricula are not appropriate for young
children (Graue & DiPerna, in press; May et al., 1995; Shepard & Smith,
1988).

Which tells me that kindergarten should be about kids learning to follow
directions, not about an academic curricula.

-Patty, mom of 1+2

Jeanne wrote:

It's pretty dangerous to generalize to even a single country (I think
that's what Chrissypete is pointing out). It all depends on the study's
sampling scheme (*if* such exists - I've seen study populations picked
serendipitiously, so how would you assign weights?) as well as the
researchers' focus.

It may not be enough to control for the usual suspects: income, race,
ethnic origin, age, metro area, and sex. Those, again, are broad
categories that may not tease out differences. The researchers do need
to have some idea of other possible factors in order to investigate
their roles; if they pick the wrong factors, then study results in
misleading conclusions.

This is true as far as it goes, and obviously no
study is going to be perfect in this regard, as even within
the US, there is a reasonable amount of variation in educational
systems from state to state (not to mention district to district,
school to school, and even teacher to teacher). On the other
hand, you have to look at the bigger picture as well. *IF*
it's true that "the gift of time" is a pretty much unalloyed
benefit, then you'd expect at least *some* of the studies
(all of which will have samples limited in some way) to turn
up some benefits. At this point, I'm unaware of *any* studies
that show long term benefits for redshirting for normal kids
who are close to the age cutoffs. Even when no single study
has a perfect sample, you start to get suspicious when
theorized benefits fail to crop up in multiple studies drawn
from different populations.
It's important that sampling and statistics be
done well when they're used. At the same time, there's no
such thing as a perfect sample in this sort of environment,
and there are also valid and reliable qualitative methods
that can be used to study these issues as well, so statistics
isn't the be-all and end-all of analyzing an issue.
I didn't find any studies that made sweeping
generalizations from limited samples. All the ones I saw
recognize the limitations of their design. No one claimed
that redshirting has no benefits for anyone, anywhere.
What they claimed was that they couldn't find the purported
long term benefits in situations where they were theorized
to exist, using designs that should have been able to capture
the sorts of benefits theorized to exist. The designs couldn't
exclude the possibility that for some small subset of students
with some unstudied characteristic there was a benefit to
redshirting, but they can pretty effectively suggest that
any benefits accrued to a rather small subset of students
considered for redshirting.
Here's a review article that has a decent analysis
of the literature up to 1999 on redshirting (there's been
more since):

http://tinyurl.com/gtslg

Their conclusion:

"These studies all conclude that delayed entry does not appear to
provide substantial, if any, benefit for students, indicating a need for
serious reconsideration of its continued use for immature or 'unready'
students."

Estimates are that a good 10 percent or more of students
(especially boys) are redshirted. That's a *lot* of kids
to redshirt with precious little evidence of benefit! And
when you think of the possible disadvantages, some of which
have been documented, it gets a bit scary. Doesn't it make
one wonder that boys' academic performance has been going
down as redshirting has been going up? (No studies there--
just a question that begs some empirical study...)

Here's another nice review article targeted toward parents:

http://www.journal.naeyc.org/btj/200...yingKEntry.pdf

and another one:

http://www.srcd.org/documents/public...PR/spr16-2.pdf

Incidentally, one of the best analyses of dropout
rates versus age (Alexander et al., "Grade Retention,
Social Promotion, and 'Third Way' Alternatives") basically
comes down on saying that the most significant reason for
an increased dropout rate has to do with retained (or
delayed entry) adolescents dropping out because they
are out of synch (age and developmentally) with their
grade peers and lose their attachment to school (partly
because school attachment tends to drop across the
board, and partly because they tend to be less involved
with the extracurriculars and friendships and such that
can help mitigate that drop because of the age
difference) and reach an age where it's legal to drop
out in earlier grades than normal-aged students. (And
that from authors who are proponents of retention! They
do, in my opinion, too much pooh-poohing of some of the
negatives, but even they recognize "One of the things
accomplished by social organization is the coordination of
social time, calendar time, and biological time. When that
coordination breaks down, complications arise.")

So, while the research situation isn't nearly
as robust as anyone might like, there *is* a body of
decent, relevant work that does shed some light on these
issues. It's not perfect, and we need more studies,
and researchers have to wrestle with all kinds of
practical issues that make it impossible to get ideal
data, but this isn't a case of researchers who don't
know how to take a sample or who over-generalize from
what they've got.


Best wishes,
Ericka

PattyMomVA wrote:
wrote and I snipped:
I feel that the following stats in a report actually dated in 2000 are
significant, but that's just me.

"Redshirting may be a response to demands for a higher level of school
readiness (Graue & DiPerna, in press; May et al., 1995). In a national
survey, teachers indicated that ***48%*** of their students were not
ready for the current kindergarten curriculum (NCEDL, 1998).
***Alarmingly high percentages*** of teachers indicated that half of
their students lacked important skills, including "following
directions" ***(46%)***, "academic skills" ***(36%)***, and the ability
to "work independently" ***(34%)***. In light of such data, many
scholars suggest that academic curricula are not appropriate for young
children (Graue & DiPerna, in press; May et al., 1995; Shepard & Smith,
1988).

Which tells me that kindergarten should be about kids learning to follow
directions, not about an academic curricula.

It also makes me wonder just why they're too good
to teach these skills. Hello? Isn't this school? Since
when is it okay to say, "Hey, the kids don't know this yet.
Let's just tell them to go home until they've figured it out!"
And that's even before we get into the issue of wealthier
parents being more able to redshirt than poor parents,
leading to curricula becoming ever more inappropriate for
the students who are already least well served by the
educational system.

Best wishes,
Ericka

dragonlady wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:

dragonlady wrote:
@aol.com says...

I'd agree -- there seems to be a general trend to start kids (especially
boys, but girls, too) later, with no evaluation of readiness. While it
can't hurt to evaluate a child's readiness for first grade (or
kindergarten), assuming it would be best to start him a year later seems
-- well, just wrong. If he's in the age range that they normally start
school in his area, then wny assume he's too young?

--
It isn't just a recommendation or a trend. Most schools do readiness
testing. If they do not, it was just put out there that it may be a
possibility for his child.

Also, if the cutoff date for starting school is December 1 for which
the child must be 5 to start kindergarten -- this leaves kids in
september, october, and november kind of out there. If they start when
they are 4, they graduate when they are 17. If they start when they are
five, they graduate at 18, like the majority of the rest of the class
born in December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July AND
August - they drive around the same time, etc. So say I am born in
January 2000 and you are born in November 2000. The cut off is December
1, 2005. This makes January 2000 able to start school in the fall of
2005 because he/she is already five and about to turn six in four or
five months. This also makes November 2000 a whole 10 months younger,
only four, about to turn five, just shy of a whole year younger - a
huge deal at this age. Now November 2000 can start school, and should
if they are gifted or deemed absolutely ready, but why in the world
would you otherwise rush them out into the world? I don't understand
it.


I know quite a number of kids who graduated at 17 (including my oldest).
It wasn't a problem. It used to be close to half the class was 17.
There are lots of college kids who are just turning 18. On the other
hand, with the trend to want to make sure that no one is the
youngest...I know more and more who aren't graduating until 19.

That doesn't need to be a problem either.

I just don' tunderstaned the tendency to ASSUME that someone turning 5
early in the academic year is probably too young. If the school has a
cut off date of Dec. 1, I assume they are set up to accomodate kids that
age.

The cutoff date in Southern California - not sure if all districts but
certainly most at that time, was Dec 1 I believe (maybe even Dec 31).
Myself and 2 siblings were born in November and started 1st grade at
age 5, another sibling in Sept and started at age 5. We all graduated
at 17. Sure, I was nearly a year younger than some in my class, but it
didn't really matter. We were all more than ready to start at that age,
and all managed to do well in school, socially and academically.

Ericka Kammerer wrote:
[snip]
Incidentally, one of the best analyses of dropout
rates versus age (Alexander et al., "Grade Retention,
Social Promotion, and 'Third Way' Alternatives") basically
comes down on saying that the most significant reason for
an increased dropout rate has to do with retained (or
delayed entry) adolescents dropping out because they
are out of synch (age and developmentally) with their
grade peers and lose their attachment to school (partly
because school attachment tends to drop across the
board, and partly because they tend to be less involved
with the extracurriculars and friendships and such that
can help mitigate that drop because of the age
difference) and reach an age where it's legal to drop
out in earlier grades than normal-aged students. (And
that from authors who are proponents of retention! They
[snip]

It makes you wonder whether this has a knock-on effect on
drop-out rates in younger grades as well.

As an example, a kid who is 16.6yo when his first friend drops
out of school, might stay until he is 17.6yo. Alternatively,
if his first friend (redshirted) drops out when the kid is only
15.9yo, then the kid might decide to leave at 16.9yo.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Welches
says...


"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Welches
says...


"bizby40" wrote in message
...

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
The researchers in these studies aren't so braindead
as to have failed to control for some of that.

I've seen some braindead studies in my day. People find what
they want
to
find. I've drifted in and out during this thread, so haven't
read any
specific studies that you may have mentioned.

Yep: It's usually a case of use the statistic format which will
give you
the
result you want to find. (even if the opposite result can be found
using
different statistic formats) Particularly among biologists who
don't
really
understand the statistics they're using either!
Debbie (who's travelled enough with accademics to see this in
action)

So - are the plans here to dismiss any study you want as
"braindead" or
not
using good statistics? Or is it to analyse some of these studies
to show
where
they're flawed.

Hand-waving away all and assundry research work as "must be
flawed" isn't
a very
good way to advance.

Mainly to say: Don't take any research as rigourous and necessarily
accurate. Look at it. Check the data and see which statistic test
they've
used. If it's not the most obvious, then it can be because that gave
them
the "wrong" result, particularly if an obscure test is used.
Changing the
significance can change the result too, as can altering the
area/timescale/boundry conditions. A simple example was on BBC about
the
weather http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5019846.stm
but unfortunately researchers will alter their methods to get the
result
they want, which mean you need to look at more than just the results
and
conclusion.
It's a good idea to check who's sponsored it too-apparently there
was some
research done which showed that chocolate was good for the teeth. It
was
sponsored by a couple of the main chocolate maufacturers in US
(don't know
which ones, and this was ages ago too)

Sure, it's a good idea to be aware of the quality of our sources,
and to look
into the details of research in which we're interested. Absolutely,
not all
research is "rigourous and necessarily accurate". And I'll even
throw in that
the good research is but a part of the continuing scientific
process, testing
hypotheses, and may be superceded by future findings or may even
fail to be
reproduced.

But, to bring up this general concern, which exists for all
research, poor, or
brilliant, biased or detached, *without describing how this applies
to or what
the specific concern is regarding the research in question* is a
rhetorical
tactic known as - - innuendo.

What_ _exactly_ _is_ _the_ _concern_ _with_ _the_
_research_
_concerning_ _largely_ _poor_ _outcomes_ _of_
_redshirting_ ??

Well, for *me*, the concern over these specific studies is that Ericka
asked me to respond to them when I haven't actually read them, and she
did not give me any links even after I told her I hadn't read the
whole thread and hadn't seen any links if they were posted. So when I
said that I'd seen some brain-dead studies in my day, it wasn't a
rejection of a particular study, only an explanation of why the fact
that there are these "studies" out there somewhere has not yet swayed
my opinion on this topic.

Bizby

bizby40 wrote:

Well, for *me*, the concern over these specific studies is that Ericka
asked me to respond to them when I haven't actually read them, and she
did not give me any links even after I told her I hadn't read the
whole thread and hadn't seen any links if they were posted. So when I
said that I'd seen some brain-dead studies in my day, it wasn't a
rejection of a particular study, only an explanation of why the fact
that there are these "studies" out there somewhere has not yet swayed
my opinion on this topic.

I have posted what information I have, with
either links or author/title (which will get you to
them quickly in Google). Some things I only have
on paper, so I obviously can't post those.

Best wishes,
Ericka

"Jeanne" wrote in message
. ..

It's pretty dangerous to generalize to even a single country (I think
that's what Chrissypete is pointing out). It all depends on the study's
sampling scheme (*if* such exists - I've seen study populations picked
serendipitiously, so how would you assign weights?) as well as the
researchers' focus.

It may not be enough to control for the usual suspects: income, race,
ethnic origin, age, metro area, and sex. Those, again, are broad
categories that may not tease out differences. The researchers do need
to have some idea of other possible factors in order to investigate
their roles; if they pick the wrong factors, then study results in
misleading conclusions.

And, it is hard to study any particular population, as then the behavior
changes to compensate.

Case in point. When my oldest daughter started kindergarten red shirting
was absolutely rampant in our little school district. About half the girls,
and 90% of boys with fall birthdays started kindergarten at age 5, even
though the cutoff was Dec. There were quite a few that even started
kindergarten at age 6. The district saw it as a plus to start them later,
so it encouraged kids that didn't excel at the kindergarten readiness to
stay out one more year. Fast forward 10 years. Now, according to experts,
the local high schools are having bigger drug problems than they ever had in
the past. Just yesterday I heard of yet another family with ultra involved
parents that had tried everything and finally found their only option left
was to send their child away, to intervention and then boarding school.
These "older" kids are looking for independence, and finding it in bad
places. This is a community of sheltered kids, and sheltered parents, and
the combination of 18 and 19 year old adults in high school and kids who
haven't had to "say no" has become dangerous.

Look back at kindergarten, the school district has shifted back. The number
of redshirted kinders, and those that take two years of kindergarten, has
gone way down. The high school district is coming up with alternative
programs for students that are ready to fly, but don't have the credits yet.
A new one starts next year that allows students to take college level and
high tech vocational classes from noon on at a different campus. So when
today's kids get to high school there will be more choices.