N.C. Kindergarten entry age
I have an article in Sunday’s paper regarding the age at which kids are allowed to enter Kindergarten in the normal course of things.
Click here to read that story.
The bill, which has yet to be filed, is championed by Rep. Dale Folwell and Rep. Earline Parmon, both of Forsyth County. Folwell is a Republican, Parmon a Democrat.
Briefly, under current state law, students may enter Kindergarten if they turn 5-years-old on or before Oct. 16. The proposed change in law would move that to Aug. 31, so all children entering Kindergarten will turn 5-years-old by the time they start school or a week into the year. Under current law and the proposed change, if a child misses the cutoff and a parent wants him or her to enter school anyway, they can appeal to the school's principal.
Any change likely couldn't happen before the 2008-2009 school year, and certain timing considerations may push that back to 2009-2010 if the bill is run later rather than sooner.
Click here to listen to Folwell give some of his reasons for seeking the change. Folwell sees the Kindergarten bill as connected to the high school drop out rate and teacher retention.
Folwell and I were having this conversation over bowls of chili, so this next bit of audio is kind of noisy. The other voice you’ll hear on the segment is Rep. Hugh Holliman, a Davidson Democrat, who asks a question or two.
I should note, there could be some push-back on this bill, although I hear only a little bit in my reporting. There is a school of thought that says kids need to be exposed to an academic setting as early as possible, particularly if they're no in pre-school or a More-at-Four or similar program.
Notes and linkage:
- Folwell tried running this bill last year, but essentially ran afoul of the General Assembly’s committee system. Click here and here for notes on the 2006 effort.
- Three of the powerful education lobbies are all on board with this effort. NCAE, the teachers association, NCASA, the school administrators group, and NCSBA, the school boards group all have moving the Kindergarten age back as part of their lobbying agendas.
- This briefing paper by the Rand Corp. lays out some of the pros and cons of such a policy.
- Folwell pointed to this story by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt (behind the paywall) in the New York Times that showed how kids with birthdays earlier in the year do better in international soccer competition. From the story:
If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in next month's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months.
If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this quirk to be even more pronounced. On recent English teams, for instance, half of the elite teenage soccer players were born in January, February or March, with the other half spread out over the remaining 9 months. In Germany, 52 elite youth players were born in the first three months of the year, with just 4 players born in the last three.
What might account for this anomaly? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above.
(SNIP)
Since youth sports are organized by age bracket, teams inevitably have a cutoff birth date. In the European youth soccer leagues, the cutoff date is Dec. 31. So when a coach is assessing two players in the same age bracket, one who happened to have been born in January and the other in December, the player born in January is likely to be bigger, stronger, more mature. Guess which player the coach is more likely to pick? He may be mistaking maturity for ability, but he is making his selection nonetheless. And once chosen, those January-born players are the ones who, year after year, receive the training, the deliberate practice and the feedback — to say nothing of the accompanying self-esteem — that will turn them into elites.
This may be bad news if you are a rabid soccer mom or dad whose child was born in the wrong month. But keep practicing: a child conceived on this Sunday in early May would probably be born by next February, giving you a considerably better chance of watching the 2030 World Cup from the family section.
Full disclosure: I have a three-year-old at home with an early September birthday. And I’m a December birthday who entered Kindergarten at 4-years-old. (I’ll leave it to you to decide whether it hurt me any.)
As always, the comments link is open for your comments and questions.
Comments (9)
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I think that this bill is a step in the right direction, but personally I wish that the standard were even earlier. Public kindergarten is much more academically-oriented now - due to high stakes testing - and most children with later birthdays would do well to wait a year. I have boys with August and September birthdays. Most of the experts I consulted recommended that boys with birthdays after May 1 wait. One even recommended that the cutoff for boys be March 1 that it be June 1 for girls.
Posted on February 25, 2007 10:58 AM
Oops - What I meant to write was, "One even recommended that the cutoff for boys be March 1, and that it be June 1 for girls."
Posted on February 25, 2007 11:00 AM
Susan: Thanks for your thoughts.
I've never heard anyone mention (at least in Raleigh) different cut-off ages for boys and girls.
Posted on February 25, 2007 2:05 PM
I was wondering if there was any more news on this?
Posted on February 26, 2007 3:40 PM
Thanks for your question. The short answer to your question is not yet. The legislature is just now getting its committees working, so they haven't been hearing a whole lot of bills yet. That will change soon. And when this bill moves, I'll write more about it.
My guess is you'll hear about it again sometime in March or early April.
Posted on February 26, 2007 3:49 PM
My question is...
School registration for kindergarten here in Craven county is April 13th. Will we know something before then? What if I have already registered my child and the bill goes through around June or July, or anytime after registration???
Thanks!
Posted on March 8, 2007 8:16 PM
I think that it is premature to even consider a measure such as this without focusing more on public preschool. Private preschool costs are astronomical in our area. We pay upward of $10,500-$12,000 a year for 4 year old preschool. Most families can not afford it. The kids who can afford it will benefit because they can essentiall be readshirted and taught privately before entering the school system but the kids who need it the most will now be an additional year behind. Not to mention the fact that most parents who can afford private preschool will most likely opt for doing private Kindergarten instead since those schools will still have the option to set their own criteria through readiness tests. I predict an even greater exodus from the public school system and an even greater gap between those students who come from poor famlies and those that come from wealthy families that can afford private preschool or Kindergarten. What do they plan to do with those students who have been ontrack to start Kindergarten in Fall of '08 if this does pass? Instead of trying to push the date back why not focus on creating student enrichment programs that start preparing children for Kindergarten.
I'm curious to hear what other parents think about this effort. I am of course not suprised at all that it's being heavily supported by teachers, school administrators and school boards.
Posted on March 16, 2007 11:55 AM
I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old. My 4 year old will not be affected by this change but my 2 year old will if this law passes. I do think that most parents with children born in September and October struggle with the decision of sending them or holding them back. I know that it has been something that my husband and I have thought about since our youngest son was born. We realize the importance of a good education and the importance of establishing a good foundation to build on. Ultimately, I think that the parents and the teachers should be able to make the decision on a child by child basis. If a child does enter Kindergarten too early and is struggling perhaps it would be better to repeat Kindergarten than to keep them at home an additional year. I think that it is a valid concern that those children who are not exposed to a preschool setting before Kindergarten would lose an additional year and that this change could widen the gap between those children whose parents can not afford preschool and those who can.
I did search for research concerning this matter and found that the studies on the effects of age at kindergarten entry yield mixed results. In The Effect of a Child's Age at School Entrance on Reading Readiness and Achievement Test Scores (ERIC Document ED366939) Karen Magliacano reported that scores from Metropolitan Reading Readiness Tests and the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills were compared for two sample groups of second graders. Sample A was made up of students who were between the ages of 4 years 11 months and 5 years 4 months (younger students) when entering kindergarten, and Sample B was made up of students who were between the ages of 5 years 5 months and 6 years 1 month (older students). The study found "no significant difference between the samples in reading test scores as a result of chronological age”.
Posted on March 16, 2007 12:05 PM
My son turned 5 at the end of July before starting kindergarten. He is very tall for his age and has no problems what-so-ever with his school work. He is now in 1st grade and is in the top of his class. I have a daughter that will turn 5 in the middle of Sept 2008. She is also "advanced" and will be quite ready for school that year due to her daycare and at home reading. I am very upset about this change that may come. This state, or at least this school district (Gaston) did not test my son to see if he was ready for school. Although he was. I feel they need to evaluate the children before starting school. I tutored in the kindergarten last year and the older students were the ones that had more trouble with letters, numbers, etc. I feel it comes down to the individual child. More needs to be taken into consideration than just birthdates.
Posted on March 27, 2007 7:55 PM