Redshirting (academic)

Redshirting is the practice of postponing entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children in order to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual, or physical growth. In the United States, this also refers to creating laws that set cutoff dates slightly before the new year in order to "redshirt" children born in the later part of the calendar year (often September to December) for the same purposes. This occurs most frequently where children's birthdays are so close to the cut-off dates that they are very likely to be among the youngest in their kindergarten class. In the US, more boys than girls are redshirted due to sex-based differences in neurological development.

Etymology

Redshirting originated as a term for a similar activity but occurring in college sports rather than kindergarten, where a redshirt was "a high-school or college athlete kept out of varsity competition for one year to develop skills and extend eligibility" and originated "from the red shirts worn in practice by such athletes". The term is an Americanism from circa 1950–1955.

Incidence of redshirting

In the United States, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that academic redshirting occurs at the rate of about 9% per year among kindergarten-age children, according to surveys from 1993 and 1995. Although modern data suggests this may be inflated, as studies have found only around 4-6% of children are redshirted. The change has been even larger in first grade: over a period of forty years, the proportion of six-year-olds in first grade went from 96% to 84%. Redshirting has traditionally been more common in affluent communities and for children attending private schools, although some scholars speculate that there may have been a recent increase in certain public school districts.