[ceras]

That's what the article is arguing for -- delay school start by 1 year for boys, which they call "redshirting." Key argument is towards the end:

> One striking study, by Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach of Northwestern and Elizabeth Cascio of Dartmouth College, drew on data from Tennessee to study the impact of a delayed school start. The children in their sample were allocated randomly into different classrooms. Overall, Schanzenbach and Cascio found that being a year older had a positive impact on eighth-grade test scores, reduced the risks of repeating a grade before high school, and improved the chances of taking the SAT or ACT. The benefits for boys were at least twice as big as for girls on all measures through eighth grade. By high school, only boys were seeing any gains.

> Lastly, they found that the younger classmates of redshirted children suffered no negative consequences. If anything, they wrote, there were modestly positive spillover effects. That’s one reason to believe that girls would only be helped by this shift—having more mature boys in classrooms would likely improve the learning environment.

> Cascio and Schanzenbach’s research is the most robust to date, but their findings have been confirmed by a number of other studies. And related research has shown that redshirted boys are happier, too.

[mchusma]

It's unclear to me if these are helpful markers. I mean, in a vacuum eighth grade stats are nice. But don't we want functioning adults? I was one of the youngest in my class, in hindsight should have skipped a grade, but I will would have probably done better in eighth grade had I waited a year.

It's interesting, I think the takeaway is probably that overall we need to make it easier for people to time shift their grades up or down. Like maybe people should be graduating high school between 16 and 20 more frequently, instead of tightly grouped around 18.

[l2silver]

It's very difficult to find good long term studies on the effects of education decisions. Very difficult.

[cafard]

I have seen this done a certain amount, and in at least one case for a girl. Something to do with living in an affluent area, probably.