Giving Compass Take:

· Kevin Mahnken discusses academic 'redshirting" and how that extra year of development equates to better test scores and higher achievements. The study by Duke professor Phillip Cook finds that white males are held back more often. This gender gap positively affects the achievement gap which favors girls over boys.  

· Does academic "redshirting" benefit weaker students? Can academic "redshirting" help decrease the achievement gap between boys and girls?

· Read more about academic "redshirting".

Academic “redshirting” — the practice of holding children back a year before they enter kindergarten — is most widely used by parents of white male students, according to a paper circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Granting certain students that extra year of development before starting school can meaningfully affect achievement gaps, the authors found.

Some parents have always opted to keep their kids at home longer rather than enroll them as the youngest members of a class. But the redshirting phenomenon has only recently waded into the mainstream discussion, most notably after Malcolm Gladwell dedicated a book chapter to the benefits of being the oldest and most physically mature student in a cohort.

It has been estimated by Stanford professor Sean Reardon that between 4 percent and 5.5 percent of students begin school a year late. Research has largely shown that the effects of redshirting on academics are positive, with older students likely to score higher on standardized tests than their younger classmates. One recent study by Northwestern University’s David Figlio indicated that later school entry was associated with higher rates of college attendance and graduation, as well as a lower likelihood of incarceration.

Read the full article about the student achievement gap and "redshirting" by Kevin Mahnken at The 74.