Kindergarten cut-off dates and lifelong success

See this NY Times article which talks about how the increased academic pressure on Kindergarten students is leading many states to move their cut off dates earlier in the year. NYC public schools continue to have among the latest cut offs for Kindergarten, December 31, according to the allied chart.

New York City private school cut off dates are much earlier; and it is very common when a child is applying to a private school, especially boys, that they suggest that they reapply the next year for Kindergarten again.

Though the red-shirt issue is mentioned only in passing in the article, the research is clear that kids who are old for their age group are far more likely to excel.  The number of professional athletes is significantly linked to their month of birth.  

Here’s a good explanation of how this accumulated advantage works in sports. For example, see this article , which reveals how elite Canadian youth hockey teams are more likely to have players born early in the calendar year, a phenomenon also found among professional hockey players.  

This “accumulated advantage” over time was named the Matthew effect by sociologist Robert Merton, from the Biblical quotation in Matthew: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”  The Matthew effect has also been shown in soccer, swimming, tennis, and major league baseball .   

Yet relative age advantage is not only seen in sports; but in many other areas as well.  A recent study reveals how the youngest children in their grades are more likely to be diagnosed as having ADHD and to be prescribed medications such as Ritalin than their older classmates:

“From his analysis, Elder found that the youngest kindergarten kids were 60 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest in the same grade, and also, by the time those groups reached the fifth and eighth grades, the youngest were more than twice as likely to be on prescription stimulants. Elder estimated that overall in the US, the misdiagnosis rate is about 1 in 5, that is around 900,000 of the 4.5 million children currently diagnosed with ADHD have been misdiagnosed.”

Here’s another study that shows that younger students by grade are more likely to be diagnosed with psychiatric disorders.  At age 15, they also tend to have lower test scores, are more likely to have low esteem and commit suicide in their teens, and less likely to become CEO’s as adults.

These studies collectively reveal the life-long damaging effects of the way we arbitrarily group children by age – and put excessive pressures on them to succeed .  The damage has been obviously exacerbated by the high-stakes accountability systems being imposed in schools around the country.

A great holiday present for our kids, and please help us help you!

There’s great news today, and a holiday present for NYC public schoolchildren! Yesterday, the NY State Supreme Court rejected the city’s attempt to lease half of the sports fields on Randall’s Island to twenty private schools for the next twenty years, without first going through the mandated process, including review by the local Community Board and City Council.

Class Size Matters helped organize this lawsuit in 2006, when the city decided to unilaterally grant two thirds of these fields to the private schools, and this is the second time in two years that the court ruled in our favor. Yesterday, we were rewarded with a slam dunk decision, in which Judge Marilyn Shafer said that the city's arguments were “inherently incredible,” and ordered the city to pay court costs and fees to our (pro bono) attorneys, because of their attempt to evade the earlier ruling. (The decision is posted here; see also the Daily News, Times , NY Post and WNYC.)

The court ruling caps an eventful year for Class Size Matters, in which we’ve been busy advocating for all NYC students to be provided with smaller classes and a better opportunity to learn. We led the “Build Schools, not Prisons” campaign to alleviate school overcrowding, and recently the city added 5,000 seats to the capital plan. We co-authored a report on the growing numbers of students discharged from our schools but not counted as dropouts. We published a book on the Bloomberg-Klein educational record that received attention as far away as Australia and Thailand.

We helped form the Parent Commission to advocate for a better school governance law with more real parental input, and together with other public school parents, created NYC Kids Pac, to support candidates who will work for positive change in our schools.

We continue to offer news and information to parents through our two list servs, contribute to and manage the NYC public school parent blog, and also started a column on the Huffington Post. Finally, as mentioned above, we just a won a major case that will hopefully ensure the right of all NYC students to have equal access to the sports fields on Randall’s Island for years to come. Just some of our nearly 100 press clips from the past year are posted on our website.

Please be a part of this effort by contributing what you can. We rely on your financial support. Just click here, or on the link below to give a tax-deductible donation.

Anyone who donates $50 or more will receive a free copy of our acclaimed book, NYC Schools under Bloomberg and Klein, what Parents, Teachers and Policymakers Need to Know, with essays by Diane Ravitch, Debbie Meier, Steve Koss, Patrick Sullivan, and others.

Help us achieve our goal: that the city will finally fulfill its obligation to provide all public school children with smaller classes, a quality education, and a better chance to learn.

Please make a tax-deductible contribution to Class Size Matters now!

Happy holidays and a happy New Year,

Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters