There was a panel of kindergarten and first grade teachers telling us what to expect, but they spent the entire time telling us how hard school is compared to when we were kids and how we'd be doing our kids a favor keeping them in preschool longer.

ABL and I don't see eye to eye on this issue, here's my personal experience: Having a birthday in November, I entered Kindergarten late. I felt normal in Kindergarten, but by first grade, things were going wrong. Why? I was older, smarter, and more mature than my younger peers. I used to get in trouble in first grade because they would put me in a 3rd grade classroom for time out. The 3rd grade teacher would actually call on me to answer questions. By 4th grade, I was tutoring the slowest guy in my class, by 5th grade, I was completely bored and 'A Disruptive Influence' (which by the way was the most fun I ever had in school - but I didn't learn much). I felt like this decision affected me well into High School.

So, when I hear these teachers saying school is harder, so keep your kids out another year, it makes me think it's a self fulfilling prophecy. The kids are older entering, so they are able to handle more advanced concepts, so the younger kids seem less prepared, so keep them out another year...

Obviously, not everyone can handle school at the same time, but I think the age cutoff should be a guide and not a rule and testing should be a better measure of whether a kid is ready for school. It's easy to hold someone back if they are struggling with school, it's much harder to have them fit in if they skip ahead a grade, so I would rather err on the side of caution and put them in Kindergarten at 4.9 years old instead of waiting until they are 5.9 years old.