http://www.ctmirror.org/story/11331/malloy-kindergarten-age
Malloy: Raise kindergarten age even without expanded pre-school
January 28, 2011
By Jacqueline Rabe

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Friday the state should move to increase the minimum age for kindergarten, without waiting until it can afford expanded pre-school for low-income students whose public education is delayed.

"I think we should be setting the age based on what we know about the likelihood of success, or increased opportunities for success, based on appropriately aged and grouping students," he said in an interview.

The proposal, made originally by former Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan, is now incorporated in proposed bills that will have a public hearing sometime in February. The idea is to narrow the age range for students in kindergarten, which now includes children from 4 to almost 7 years old.

Malloy and other education officials said such a wide developmental range makes it difficult to meet the needs of all the children in the class.

"It is extremely hard for kindergarten teachers," said Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, a longtime early childhood educator and co-chairwoman of the Higher Education Committee.

But Bye and others fear delaying the start of kindergarten could hurt children in low-income households unless the state also expands pre-school opportunities--an expensive proposition in a tight budget year.

"Until we solve where these children with low income parents will end up, I can't support changing the age," Bye said.

But Malloy said the fact that some children would start school later should not override the need to ensure that children should not be entering kindergarten before they are ready.

"I think those things should not be linked," he said. "I am a believer in universal access, which I hope will ultimately lead to a system where the state plays a role in making sure no child is denied an educational experience because of financial circumstances. But I don't think that should be tied to the age of a student when they begin kindergarten."

Connecticut currently allows students to be enrolled in kindergarten if they will turn 5 by Jan. 1 of that school year. The state Department of Education's proposal would push the cut-off date back a month at a time, until by the 2014-15 school year, children would have to turn 5 by Sept. 1 in order to enroll in kindergarten. Ultimately, the change would affect about a quarter of some 40,000 kindergarten students in the state.

<rest at link ; my comment below>

Many gifted children with birthdays between September and January are well able to start KG slightly before age 5, but their existence seems to be off the radar screen. I hope the gifted association of Connecticut will remind politicians that some children ARE ready to start KG early.

This is how GA already is. I wish we were more like MD. They have the Sept 1 cutoff, but any birthdays before Dec 31 can test to see if they can enter K that year. I wish that was available for DS7. Of course, we were lucky, and he was grade skipped after a few weeks in K.

I look at it as him beating that birthday rule, as opposed to grade skipping.

Our district cut-off is Sept. 30th. You have to be 5 by that date to start K. Same here, you can be tested with CLOSE birthdays to see if you can start but they try really hard to stick to those rules.

We had the opportunity to test DS (now 9) into K early, but we purposely chose not to because he was really not emotionally ready for it, although academically, he could easily have handled 1st at that point. When he ultimately did start K (at 5:9), he spent months having trouble tuning out all the sensory input and just dealing with being in the classroom. There is still part of me that wishes he could have been ready to have started early, so that we wouldn't be dealing now with as big of a mis-match.

So, here's my random thought.... Wouldn't it be lovely if they went ahead and set the minimum age at whatever, so that a child would "mature enough" (whatever that means) to be at school all day, but when the child reached that minimum age, they were given a test to see which grade they should start at? Of course, that would mean that we would no longer have an age-based school system, which I know would make us all soooo sad.

My DC was the same way Mama22Gs. She was more than academically ready, maturity wise was ready, but we were more so dealing with getting her to learn the routine of school, socializing, and directed learning. School has always been too easy, and though we started K at the "state mandated age" she ended up skipping a grade later on anyhow. So, now she's not with the kids her own age, and she is still not challenged. Age based schooling stinks, if you ask me. Especially for a child who is ready to move on. I agree, that though the academics were there and bypassed at the start of K, we wanted to expose our child to the rest of schooling. Even now, with a skip, I presume we'll need additional accomodations soon, but again, the idea of age and already being skipped once weighs in. What to do, what to do.