Dive Brief:
- Five-year-olds whose families voluntarily delay their entry into kindergarten by a year do better academically in early elementary school compared to students who enter kindergarten when they're eligible age-wise. However, that advantage dissipates by 3rd grade, according to research released Tuesday by assessment and research company NWEA.
- Between 2017 and 2025, about 5% of first-time kindergartners were redshirted because their 5th birthdays fell before their state's age cutoff for enrollment. The research found this rate to be similar to patterns from the 1990s and 2010s.
- NWEA said that while redshirting likely doesn't lead to long-time academic gains, families can make the decision — with help from educators — based on each child's readiness, temperament and needs.
Dive Insight:
Students most likely to be redshirted were White students and boys. The practice was also more common in schools with lower levels of poverty and in rural areas, NWEA found. Between 2017 and 2025, redshirting peaked in fall 2021 at 6.4%, the report said.
The report classifies on-time kindergarten entrants as those whose 5th birthday falls in the 12 months before their state’s age cutoff.
For some students, delaying kindergarten entry may not be an option, either because of when their birthday falls or because of state or local policies. For example, District of Columbia Public Schools last year emphasized that it would enforce an existing policy that bars redshirting. If a student is older than 5 before Oct. 1, they must enroll in 1st grade, under the district policy.
"DCPS does NOT allow redshirting because it exacerbates inequities between families who can afford an additional year of childcare and families who cannot," a district handbook, updated in December 2025, said.
NWEA's research found both positives and negatives associated with redshirting. While students who started kindergarten at an older age tend to be more academically and socially mature, those advantages lasted only until 3rd grade.
While other research shows redshirted students may have an advantage when it comes to sports, NWEA points out — as District of Columbia schools said — that delaying kindergarten entry could cost families more in childcare. Other studies point to a higher risk of dropping out, because a student who was redshirted in kindergarten would be 18 or older when they graduate high school.
“It may seem like redshirting is a rising trend because the volume of conversations about whether parents should delay their child’s entry into kindergarten for a year seems to have grown in recent years,” said Megan Kuhfeld, director of growth modeling and data analytics at NWEA, in a statement.
“However, our data show that redshirting is still uncommon," Kuhfeld said. "For most children, delaying kindergarten doesn’t produce lasting academic benefits, so families should consider both the advantages and the potential downsides to holding their five-year-old back.”
NWEA's research is based on national data from more than 3 million kindergartners in NWEA's MAP Growth assessments. Researchers also tracked the kindergarten cohort from the 2021-22 school year through 3rd grade to examine whether initial test score advantages for redshirted students at school entry is sustained over the early elementary grades.
