Connecticut lawmakers table plan to change cutoff date for kindergarten eligibility

From The Connecticut Mirror: The Connecticut Senate has put off for at least two years a proposal to raise the minimum age for children to start kindergarten. Instead, the lawmakers have opted to have a task force figure out how to reduce the large age disparity in kindergarten classrooms. The State Board of Education had proposed the change because the wide age disparity in kindergarten classes can make it difficult for teachers to meet the needs of all students. But education advocates say excluding the 7,000 students who would become too young to enroll would be detrimental to too many low-income children.


MAY 2011...from The New York Times: Connecticut, one of the last states to allow 4-year-olds to enroll in kindergarten, is considering changing its cutoff date so that children would have to be 5 by Oct. 1, not Jan. 1. As public schools have placed greater emphasis on standardized testing, kindergarten has become increasingly academic. That has spurred a movement to raise the age for kindergarten students to increase the likelihood that are socially and academically ready.