Three quick poiints:

1. We've red-shirted two of our three kids. Our oldest, a girl, has always been mature for her age. Now that she's almost 18 and has another year of high school left, we wish we'd sent her on a year ahead. She's academically and emotionally ready. Plus, though we love her dearly, having a young, independent and headstrong adult in our house is already driving us crazy. Our youngest, by contrast, is a boy, and boy are we glad we held him back. He's thriving in school, but only because he's a little older than a lot of his classmates. Like a lot of boys, he's way less mature than his sisters were at his age. (I joke that comparing my daughters to other kids used to make me think that we were great parents. My son's antics, especially when he was younger (he's now 11) humbled us.)

2. You weren't really calling for this, but parents (even politicians) almost never make sacrifices with their kids for a perceived greater social good. Human nature.

3. The baseball age cutoff for most recognized youth leagues (including Little League) is now April 30/May 1 - probably in recognition of the academic red-shirting phenomenon.

I have a September birthday so my parents sent me to Kindergarten when I was 4. I was always one of the youngest in my class. Academically, I did well. By 5th grade, I was reading 11th grade material. By the 8th grade, my parents presented me with a choice: go on to high school with all of my friends but remain one of the youngest in the class and graduate when I am 17 -or- stay out of school for a year, take some courses at the local community college and gain volunteer experience at several local businesses then start 9th grade the following year.

I chose the latter. Looking back, I think that it was a good choice for me because I learned a lot. It was kind of tough seeing my friends graduate a year ahead of me, but in the end, it worked out fine.

My second pregnancy was a surprise gift of identical twin boys, born 8 weeks early years ago in a little rural hospital where they survived very well because they were meant to survive. They were born in August, we did not send them to school until they were a full seven years old. They did very well and today are both school principals.

You are probably thinking "what's the big deal". My husband and I raised seven children on a ranch/farming/dairy operation. I look back on the ages when we started them in school (there was no kindergarten available until our youngest started school). If they were born before Sept. they started the first grade. If after, they had to wait until the next year. An exception was our oldest who was born the first part of Oct and we started him before he was six years old. He did just fine, but he was mature enough to do it.

Look at the child, people, don't look at a magic number and apply it to all children. Each child is different and to think a blanket solution fits all is doing an injustice to the children.