Kindergarten Readiness

An article from today's New York Times discusses kindergarten readiness and the growing trend of holding kids back an additional year to give them an edge. Interesting stuff, even if it's disheartening to read,

That the social skills and exploration of one’s immediate world have been squeezed out of kindergarten is less the result of a pedagogical shift than of the accountability movement and the literal-minded reverse-engineering process it has brought to the schools. Curriculum planners no longer ask, What does a 5-year-old need? Instead they ask, If a student is to pass reading and math tests in third grade, what does that student need to be doing in the prior grades?

Missouri has an early cutoff date for kindergarten (August 1), and I've heard moms of kids with summer birthdays discussing whether they'll send their kids at 5, or wait a year until 6.