This delay that parents’ have may in part created, is due to the fear that their child is not socially or developmentally ready to begin kindergarten (Bassok and Reardon, 284). Policy is not the only factor that has influenced this change- it is also believed to come from parenting techniques. This ultimately led to a steady decline in six-year olds enrolled in first and second grade, dropping 13% between 19 (Bassok and Reardon, 284). During this time, twenty-two states increased the minimum age for kindergarten entry. Some believe that policy shifts in entry laws from 1975-2000 contributed to the rise of redshirting. Redshirting kindergarteners, however, has become a recent phenomenon, with scarce mention before the early 1970’s. Redshirting comes from the practice used by college athletic teams, a technique where an athlete takes a season off for development and training purposes. Redshirting has also come with consequences, causing a greater disparity of knowledge in kindergarten and changes in school curricula. There is no single explanation for what caused the shift, but there have been many factors that influenced the increase in redshirting. Redshirting arose, by name, as a public issue in the early 1980’s and since, studies have shown that redshirting has steadily increased in the past three decades. In this paper I seek to uncover: When and how did the practice of “redshirting” for kindergarten arise as a public issue, has the practice become more prevalent in recent decades, and if so, what kinds of factors have influenced it, and what are the broader consequences? Redshirting has created yet another inequality in the United States public education system. Redshirting refers to the practice of postponing a child’s entrance to school with the intent that your child will have an advantage. Different states have different cut offs so I assumed that it was as simple as that, but then I learned of the redshirting phenomenon. I am one of my youngest friends here and I am born in April, the fourth month of the year! It really surprised me to learn that students are in my class but almost a full year or two older than me. Upon my arrival to Trinity College, I learned something interesting when we shared our birthdays and ages at orientation something that I hadn’t given much thought to until now.
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