I don't disagree with anything you've said. But given human nature, I don't think it's possible to level the playing field completely; parents will always be looking for a leg up for their kids. I think the best we can shoot for is to make the playing field *more* level, not by ringing down advantaged kids, but by bringing up disadvantage ones. 'Course, we all disagree on the best way to do that, and that would be a politically-charged thread for sure!

I gave and still give the SAT thought; standardized testing is a reality, whether I like it or not, and I will do my best to help my children be competitive. That *does not* exclude other real and deeper learning. That being said, the SAT was an *example* of anticipating the future, not *the reason*. Anyway, a study may very well have shown that kids who start later learn less, but 1) how on Earth was that quantified, 2) how are other factors that affect learning teased out of the equation so that only late or earliness is tested, and 3) what constitutes learning for the sake of that study? I can not imagine a human study that removed all variables from analysis so that just late/earliness was evaluated, simply because we can not experiment on human subjects in that way and still have an ethical study. I would be curious to see how "learning" was quantified, also, as I don't see how that could even be done when there are so many kinds of learning. I get that you are the best judge of when to send your child to school, and that the choice you made was right for your child, and I wouldn't question that because you know your kid and your school situation better than I do, better than your school district does, and better than other professionals in his/her life. So why question other parents at all? Those other parents are also considering their kids and their kid's school when making a choice. That includes not just a child's emotional, social, and academic status at Kindergarten time, but also what goes on in their district. I mentioned how in my district the only middle school program worth beans is the very competitive magnet program, which requires high grades and test scores in 4-5th grades. It's ridiculous, but it's reality and parents are responding to that. It's not about seeing an "A" on a report card for the sake of pride, it's about getting a decent middle school education. That simply will not change until the district starts to see children at all ends of the educational spectrum as being worthy of a top-notch education. So, if you were in my district and you paid no mind to those things, and didn't think forward to test scores, your child would have a much lower chance of entry into a decent middle school program and would be relegated to a second-rate education because of his/her placement. This is why people pay mind to test scores, age at Kindy entry, etc; it's not pride, it's practicality. I still maintain that if schools want to end extensive red-shirting, they need to address educational quality, methods, and policies up through high school. If they don't do that, parents will do what they need to do to give their child a competitive edge. If red-shirting were unavailable, my kid would not have gone to public school; he would have gone to a private school that would have accommodated him instead. In my district, the schools know this, and they have accepted red-shirting as a way to keep involved, middle class families in their schools, in order that their schools not devolve into warehouses for kids who have uninvolved parents. I get that this option is not open to those who are financially unable, and that's why I think current school/educational policies will only serve to widen the already wide gulf between haves and have-nots and needs to be changed. I agree with you wholeheartedly that it would be best for the schools to experience the consequences of their actions. But I just am not willing to sit by and sacrifice my child's prospects so that the school district can (maybe) learn their lesson long after my son is grown with kids of his own. My business is to give my kids the best I can offer, and I think most others try to do the same for their kids. It's not fair, but that's how it rolls.

Yes, I considered Montessori schools for my kids when they left pre-K, but there were no Montessori schools past 8th grade here and I wondered about their merging into a traditional classroom at that point, after having been in Montessori for so long. Ideally, this model could one day be the model of public education from pre-K through 12, although the way our education is heading, I doubt this will ever occur.

I agree with this too. But it will take a wholesale re-ordering of how the United States thinks about education, and a re-modeling of our educational system, to make a later start and an earlier end a reality. So in the meantime, I think parents are just working with within the system they have.

Absolutely, a bright child would be bored to death in a younger class, if the class was being run in a developmentally-appropriate way. But developmentally-appropriate classes don't happen that often in the younger grades in public schools these days (at least not in my district); I don't look at test-prep, pushing writing on children before the read fluently, and expecting every child to read fluently by the end of second grade as developmentally-appropriate. I think it's these factors that cause parents to say "whoa, nope, you're not imposing those inappropriate standards on my kid". I assume you sent your kids on time because you felt that they could handle the work, and that makes sense also (you're kids are different from my son and other kids who were reds-shirted). Schools want kids to fit into one box per grade, and that's not realistic, and they need to trust parents who have spend the last 4-5 years raising their kids and trust that they know them well. Another option for a kid who was red-shirted and undergoes great mental and spiritual growth during the year would be enrichment at home. But that's a far cry from more seat time in a higher grade. My son, while held back one year, also had home enrichment, including summer camps that gave him the opportunity to grow in sports, academics, and socially; but again, that was not seat time and test prep. I may be jaded because of my experience with our district; your district may operate differently. Also, I *always* look ahead to see what opportunities and problems may lie in my child's path. I am not a seer and can't predict with 100% accuracy what will be going down in 2, 5, or 10 years, but I certainly can look ahead and try to avoid pitfalls. I don't know who *wouldn't* try and do that. You prepare your child for the SATs in a number of ways throughout school, even though in 10 years, no school may accept the SATs. But you know that there is a high *probability* that being able to do well on the SATs will be necessary skill, so you plan for it, even though you can't foresee everything. Anticipating pitfalls and trying to avoid them is just common sense for a parent, and I am happy with how I have guided my son thus far; my predictions and judgment of his future has been spot-on up until now, and I trust myself to make those choices for him more than I trust the school. For the school, my son is not an individual, but a data point, and they do not have *his* welfare first and foremost in their minds because they need to consider more than just him. ETA: Perhaps a better model for our educational system would be classrooms that were not age-graded within a certain range and where students could progress at their own pace within the class framework and then move on to the next age-range class. The US probably needs to discard the strict age-graded classroom, but I get the impression the classrooms are set up more for crowd control than education anyway, so that's probably why that doesn't happen. Guess that's why we homeschool our daughter and plan the same for our son next year.

To the bolded: I've got one like this, but she just cranks the stuff out while kvetching about it non-stop. I've offered up other possibilities for math as far as curriculum goes (figuring maybe she is aggravated by the constant incremental review), but she doesn't want to part with Saxon. It's like she has this weird love-hate relationship with those dang math books. My daughter will be going to 8/7 from 7/6 this year, and based on her 7/6 grades (nearly all in the 90s) and what I see of 8/7 it will be quite manageable. I'm tempted to skip her to algebra, but I am afraid she'll miss something important and bomb algebra. I want to feed her some AoPS pre-algebra but she is resistant and wants to keep those Saxon books. So, what I've decided to do with her next year is keep the Saxon books and use AoPS as a fun supplement, to work through very leisurely and with no pressure to finish a certain amount or get a certain grade. If your daughter is competent in 8/7 yet still takes forever to do her work, I'd consider she may be bored with the curriculum. So although Algebra 1/2 would be a possible next step, if she really is good at math, consider something more deep and challenging (like AoPS pre-algebra); it might give her the attitude adjustment she needs. Worst thing that could happen would be AoPS isn't her style, you lose a few months, and then you just buzz through Algebra 1/2 a bit faster to complete it by the time she's due for algebra.

Oh, My! I love that link! Are there any similar links to the other SOTW books?

I know parents who did this, also, and in some ways, they are operating in a very logical way. If their kid is held back so that they have the academic foundation and physical stamina to tackle 4th - 5th grade and do spectacularly, that's not just vanity talking. As in my post above, many districts like my own have a very poor middle school programs that are of low-quality and with no real academic challenge. But the magnet schools are often very good. But those magnet schools also use 4th- 5th year grades as admission criteria, so setting up a child to be super-successful in 4-5 grade allows these parents to give their kids an edge into the local magnet program. Fair? No. But we all do what is best for our child in order to give them a leg up, and I don't blame or judge those parents at all. It's no different than using family money to buy admission into a private school; you use what resources you have for your children. People seem very envious when someone is able to give their kids a leg up in any way.

We tried like crazy to push for more recess in our kids' school, especially in older grades where the recess is already skimpy. Our district mandates 20 minutes per day, that's it, and the principal leaves it up to the classroom teachers. So even if recess is required, it's not followed in our school. I complained to the district about this, and for a time, they let the kids out for the required minutes, but then it went back to stupidity like taking away recess as a discipline tool, or sending notes home to get the parents to sign saying their child could be kept in for recess or lunch if they forgot their homework. (they called it "homework club"). I was *the only* parent in my daughter's class who refused to sign the permission slip for "homework club"!

I'm not sure about others, but I'll answer for myself (we red-shirted our very-young-for-grade son): We were looking ahead to the older grades, not so much looking at the immediate-future early grades. Here, Kindy/first grades have appropriate work, and even a younger can probably handle it. But, the same kid who is young for his age in kindy and does OK I thought would sink in 4th and 5th. Not so much because of the academic challenge, but because of the sheer workload and stamina needed to successfully accomplish the grade-level work and still have some semblance of a normal childhood. Also, my son was still 4 when he was scheduled for public kindy and was still napping in the afternoon, so the stamina did play a role in that sense, also.

This is definitely a factor in our district, as well. The problem is, again, in middle school, where the programs are not worth diddly-squat unless the kid is in an honors or magnet school program. In our district, even the honors program is a joke and is honors in name only. In that sense, I can't blame parents for trying to set their kids up for the best options in the future. ETA: The saddest thing I've seen lately are friends who have a charming, intelligent, kind, and polite son who is my son's age who happens to be young for grade level. Typically normal boy - rowdy, funny, creative. They toyed with holding him back but did not. The poor kid is now in 3rd grade; he is always tired (it's really too long a day for him with before-care, school, tutoring, and after-care) and zoning out, and so he was put on meds for his inattention. He also attends afterschool tutoring because he has to get into the public magnet program at the local middle school because the other programs are a joke. The child seems a shell of what he once was at 4, for which of these reasons, I don't know, but it is sad to see what has happened to him. Can't say I didn't see it coming, unfortunately, and even mentioned it to my husband when he wasn't voluntarily retained in kindy.

That is very true (and strange). We red-shirted our son because elementary expectations were inappropriately high, and pulled our daughter out of middle school because they were inappropriately low.

I've been pondering the same thing, although it's quite far in the future for me. Watching this thread......

I agree with this; a person sells for what the market will bear, or they can't sell their product. That works both ways, too; I've upped my price if I can sell for a higher price. I have been in sales situations where I can't sell something for a reasonable price, and I donate it and enter it in It's Deductible and I often come out ahead with donating something and taking the deduction off my taxes.

I know this question wasn't directed at me, but I sell for as much as the market will bear. And I shop for something at the cheapest price I can get for something I want in the condition I want. Sometimes, the value of a book goes up or down depending on how much easier or harder it is to find, and if it goes up, I will charge more if the market will bear it. TO me, that's being a smart shopper and consumer.

The overall condition of the text (including the cover and binding) is important to me because I plan to use that text with more than one student and I want it to be durable. In addition, I resell my books after we are done, so I get a higher re-sale value on texts in good condition.

For many, myself included, this is a parent response to curricula we feel is way too age-inappropriate for an elementary student. I don't see the trend of res-shirting stopping until public schools stop pushing over-the-top academics into younger and younger grades. Parents know ridiculous when they see it, and they are reacting in their child's best interests.

According to what you report, Saxon says step on up to algebra, but I suppose that depends on extenuating circumstances. What about it does she find frustrating?

Dress code for my soon-to-be 7th grade girl: A** not hanging out of her shorts and no see-through clothing. Other than that, we're good.

I think the ceaseless drive to push academics into lower and lower grades is going to prove to be one of the major factors in widening the gap between the haves and have-nots. The haves will walk out the public school door if they cannot find a public school to accommodate their kids on their own timetable (a timetable that is more developmentally appropriate for young children).

Yup, everyday. But it's not random, it's in my finger joints. And the doctor can't even blame it on my fat butt (which of course, they try to blame everything on) because I don't walk on my hands. :laugh: No other aches or pains, though, which I attribute to genetic luck and walking everyday.

I had both of my children in my 40s and although I have no point of reference to compare it to, say, having babies in my 20s, I wouldn't trade my experience for the world. It was very positive! I had my first at 40 and my second at 42. I had plenty of energy both go-rounds, but who knows if I would have had more when I were younger? I was not ready to have a family any younger; in retrospect, I was selfish, impatient, and unappreciative of the positive things children offered. My kids changed that and I had more patience, wisdom, money, and appreciation for them in my 40s. We were also financially stable and had travelled a bit and lived our own lives by that time. There were three downsides: 1) The incessant worry that my children would be born with a birth defect because of my older age, 2) the inane attempts by doctors to shame and scare me because of my age (and push birth control like a drug pusher after the delivery), and 3) the fact that I kept having miscarriages when I tried to have more in my later-40s because I had just aged-out of the baby business at about the same time I realized I enjoyed and was good at the baby business.

Not at all. They are easy to take down. It would be more of a deal breaker if the house didn't have something I really wanted/

MP Latin books, History of the US, Human Odyssey history books.