The Times (of London) spells out the issue (and explains the origins of the mysterious term "red-shirting" to British readers. As a bonus, the article includes remarks from not one but two different Michigan faculty members.
I was going through elementary school back in the old days referred to at the end of the article and was actually given the opportunity to skip a grade, I think it was fifth. I was already at the young end of my class and did not relish the social disruption, so I declined.
More (much more) broadly, this is a tough issue as there are real externalities here. If it is relative position that matters, then moving one kid ahead in relative age by holding him or her back makes the other kids worse off. At the same time, there clearly is a lot of heterogeneity in child maturity at early ages, with the implication that a one-size-fits-all cutoff dates is unlikely to be optimal. One could leave it to the discretion of the school (or perhaps allow some sort of formalized external testing) but that adds cost and favors (like the current system) more educated and higher-income parents who are better able to manipulate the system. I wonder how a fully private school system would handle this, or how private schools handle it now in their corner of the market?
Whew.
8 years ago
