Confused About Kindergarten Redshirting?

I don't often agree with Richard Whitmire*, but I do enjoy reading his new-ish blog, "Why Boys Fail?" Richard is smarter, more honest, and more data-driven than most other proponents of the current "boy crisis" storyline, and to the extent that the boy crisis has a kernel of truth to it--and it does, particularly for poor and minority boys--he's one of the more thoughtful people investigating that.

But this post he recently ran, by University of Alaska-Fairbanks Professor (and noted boy crisis hysteric) Judith Kleinfeld, makes no sense whatsoever. Like many "boy crisis" promoters, Kleinfeld believes many boys are not developmentally ready to enter school or begin learning to read at age five, and that this is one reason boys tend to lag girls in reading achievement. Kleinfeld has proposed delaying boys' entry into kindergarten as one potential strategy to address the literacy gap. She notes that the practice, known as "kindergarten redshirting," is common among affluent, white parents, and suggests that poor and minority boys, whose parents are much less likely to redshirt, would do better if they were held back from kindergarten too.

Then she does something really wierd.

To support her argument, Kleinfeld links to a recent study that reaches the exact opposite conclusion. In an NBER working paper released this June, David Deming and Susan Dynarski write:

Red-shirting is referred to as “the gift of time” in education circles, reflecting a perception that children who have been allowed to mature for another year will benefit more from their schooling. As we will discuss, little evidence supports this perception...There is little evidence that being older than your classmates has any long-term, positive effect on adult outcomes such as IQ, earnings, or educational attainment. By contrast, there is substantial evidence that entering school later reduces educational attainment (by increasing high school dropout rates) and depresses lifetime earnings (by delaying entry into the labor market).

 

 

 

 

In fact, Deming and Dynarski conclude that "The recent stagnation in the high school and college completion rates of those in their late teens and early twenties (especially males) is partly explained by their later start in primary school," due both to kindergarten redshirting and to the passage of state laws moving up the cut-date by which students must turn five in order to enter kindergarten in a given year. In other words, redshirting is part of the problem for boys today, not the solution, and following Kleinfeld's advice to hold more boys back a year before starting them in kindergarten would likely exacerbate the boy crisis she purports to want to address. Moreover, Kleinfeld seems utterly unaware that the very research she's citing to buttress her argument, works against it.

This may seem like a small point, but it's important for two broader reasons.

First, some boy crisis proponents have actively opposed expansion of quality pre-k programs because they argue that these programs inappropriately push boys into language and literacy activities before they're ready for them. To be sure, some poor quality preschools--particularly those with less-educated teachers--push inappropriate academic activities on children before they're ready. But the fact that boys lag girls in language and literacy is a terrible reason to deny them access to quality programs that improve their language and literacy skills. If anything, young boys need the boost in language and literacy skills that quality pre-k programs provide even more than girls do. Boys also benefit greatly from the social and emotional development quality pre-k programs support, which can improve their ability to function in a kindergarten classroom once they get there.

Second, Kleinfeld's arguments here reflect a broader poverty of thought and disconnect from evidence that pervades much of the current conversation about the boy crisis. Boy crisis proponents persist in pushing kindergarten redshirting despite the utter lack of evidence that it improves boys' acheivement (see a summary of the research by Deborah Stipek, attached below, for more info). Look at many of their other recommendations to address the boy crisis, and you'll find similar problems, shortages of evidence supporting their prescriptions, or disconnects between proposed solutions and the problems they purport to address. For example, boy crisis proponents also habitually misrepresent or fail to understand evidence from neuroscience and cognitive science about gender and the brain in order to make the case for gender-based educational approaches. Not always, but often, the "boy crisis" simply seems to be a hook for individuals' preconceived ideas and agendas about gender or pedagogy.

Whitmire, in contrast, seems sincerely interested in looking past the rhetoric and ideologies to find real data, real answers and real solutions to the achievement problems plauging poor and minority boys. But he'd do better to stick to writing his own blog posts from here on out.

*I'm particularly less than crazy about his recent Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed on gender balances in higher education and the hook-up culture on college campuses. See Kevin Carey here and yours truly here for more on why.