Boys tend to start kindergarten less prepared, academically and behaviorally, than girls — and it can affect their achievement in the long term. To close the gap, one idea already in use by some parents is starting boys in kindergarten a year later — at age 6, with girls starting at age 5.
The practice is known by the sports term “redshirting,” or in education circles, giving children “the gift of time.”
Cutoff dates vary by location, but many schools require children to turn 5 by Sep. 1 of the year they start, so those born in the summer are about a year younger in class than those born in the fall. The children starting at age 6 are mostly the boys of rich white families born in the summer.
Some districts, including New York City, have banned this practice (with exceptions), in part because these children already tend to be ahead in school, so it could contribute to a long-existing achievement gap by race and family income.
But a different way to address that issue, supporters of redshirting say, is to make it the national policy for all boys. That would make it accessible to more Black and Hispanic boys and those from low-income families — the children least likely to be redshirted now but most likely to benefit, says Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men.
Such a policy might sound far-fetched. The data is not clear that it helps in the long run. Children develop at different rates, and a universal policy is unlikely to serve them all. Crucially, kindergarten is usually the first year that parents have free child care, and without universal pre-K, this would force many parents of boys to pay for another year of private care.
But research shows that being a year older benefits children, especially boys, in one critical way involving self-control — and helps illuminate why many young children are struggling in the American school system.
Why redshirt?
Redshirting has been happening in small numbers for decades. Malcolm Gladwell popularized it in his 2008 book “Outliers,” noting that professional athletes were often old for their grade. The idea to redshirt all boys was proposed in 2022 by Mr. Reeves in his book, “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It.”
It gained momentum because of two changes to education.
First, parents have become more competitive about educating their children, and redshirting has been a way to give them an edge in academics or athletics. Also, school has become more academic earlier — meaning more time spent preparing for tests and less time learning through play.
That has been particularly difficult for boys, who on the whole mature later than girls. The result is a gender gap in kindergarten readiness that continues through high school, with boys going to college at lower rates.
Shrinking the gap early on could help in adolescence, too. Girls go through puberty about a year and a half before boys do, and tend to develop the executive function skills crucial to school, like time management and self-control, earlier.
“I think the main reason for giving more flexibility is not because of kindergarten, it’s because of those later years,” Mr. Reeves said. “I actually think adolescence is when the gaps are biggest, or at least the most consequential.”
Joe Strickland, who taught middle school outside Savannah, Ga., for 25 years, said he thought the policy would be “the smartest thing the schools ever did,” because in his experience boys and girls at that age “are completely different.” The girls, he said, tend to be focused and interested in school. Many boys? “Just general silliness, horse playing with each other, anything but focusing and concentrating on their work,” he said.
Nicole Appell started her son in kindergarten at age 6, after his preschool teacher suggested it. At first, Ms. Appell, who teaches preschool herself, was taken aback. He was already reading. But he wasn’t emotionally ready, becoming easily overwhelmed and crying a lot at school.
“In hindsight, I’m so glad she did that,” said Ms. Appell, who lives in Seattle. “It was really important. Being a little more mature means being able to handle the situations that happen at school.”
What the research says
Studies of redshirting have found pros and cons. Some research has found that any boost in achievement fades away as children get older. Redshirting could increase high school dropout rates because older students would reach the legal age for quitting school earlier. It could also disadvantage men by delaying their entry into the job market.
Yet several large studies — of nearly all the kindergartners in three states — show clear benefits to being older.
In Florida, where children start kindergarten if they have turned 5 by Sept. 1, researchers compared those with September birthdays, who were relatively old for their grade, and those with August birthdays, who were almost a year younger. The older students consistently scored higher on tests in third grade and, to a lesser extent, eighth grade. They were more likely to attend college and less likely to go to jail as juveniles. The findings were true for children of all backgrounds, but especially for boys and for children from low-income families.
Researchers in Tennessee and North Carolina found similar results, including that redshirting reduced the male-female achievement gap. Studies in other countries have also found that older children score higher and have more self-confidence in school.
One line of research provides a clue as to what exactly is benefiting older children. They stood out in a key skill: their ability to sit still, concentrate, think before acting and see tasks through to the end, found a study of Danish children. These traits, which girls tend to develop earlier, have been shown to be crucial to academic success.
Thomas Dee, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and an author of the study, said children develop this kind of self-control through pretend play, and older children probably spent more time doing that in high-quality, play-based Danish preschools. (He cautioned that the potential benefits of redshirting might not be realized if the extra year were spent in a less enriching environment.)
This idea — that these attention skills are driving the differences between older and younger students — is backed by studies showing that the youngest students in a grade are more likely to be diagnosed with attention disorders. A study of 400,000 children in every state found that those with birthdays just before the kindergarten cutoff were significantly likelier to be diagnosed with A.D.H.D. than those with birthdays just after the cutoff. A study of a million children in Britain found a similar pattern.
“Age really matters,” said David Figlio, professor of education and economics at the University of Rochester and an author of the Florida study. Yet he also didn’t think universal redshirting for boys was the answer.
What else could help, if not redshirting?
A better alternative to redshirting all boys, some researchers said, would be to make it optional for any student so that parents could choose whether it was right for their child, with advice from teachers and the option to attend an extra year of public pre-K.
An easier change, some said, would be to make the cutoff date for kindergarten earlier, so all children would turn 5 at least a few months before they start. Teachers could group classes by birth month, with the older kindergartners together in one class and the younger ones in another.
Also, schools could restore more of the play-based learning — like dress-up, art and nature exploration — that was much more common in kindergarten before 2000.
“Boys are half the population, so if we’re doing all these things in school that we think are disadvantaging them, the answer isn’t to redshirt,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, professor of education and social policy at Northwestern. “We can do something cheaper and better, like not over-intellectualizing kindergarten — more circle time, fewer work sheets about circles.”
Amy Fan contributed reporting.
Claire Cain Miller is a Times reporter covering gender, families and education.
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