One of the most documented reasons for switching to a year round school is what’s known as the “summer slide.” Students leave spring semester after taking their exams and don’t think about school for almost 12 weeks. These students then come back in the fall not only failing at subjects they knew three months prior, but in dire need of having the foundations re taught to them. This forces teachers to spend valuable class time re-teaching lessons, which dips into class time that should be used for grade appropriate lessons. In her article, O’Sulivan theorizes, “the less times students are away from school, the less time teachers will have to spend reviewing material from the previous year and acclimating students to classroom rules and procedures”. …show more content…
It was also noted that while one teacher was expecting to have to reread several chapters of the class book, she was pleasantly surprised to only have to go back a few paragraphs. The most popular opposition to this theory is to assign summer homework, which some schools have already implemented into their curriculum, for the students to complete on their own time over break. However, even with school assigning summer work as a way to combat the summer slide, there is no way to enforce when, or how much effort, students put into their summer work, and nothing assigned over break can compare to what students learn in a school supervised environment with no distractions. Harris Cooper, director of the education program at Duke, confirms that when tested in the spring and fall, “kids generally slide in math and reading during the traditional summer break” (O’Sullivan), proving that two of the most real-world applicable subjects need to be continuously practiced upon to reach …show more content…
However it can be argued that the more frequent breaks throughout the year will leave students feeling refreshed and ready to continue learning when they get back. In the proposition detailed above, students will have a series of breaks throughout the school year, with the longest being three weeks over the winter holidays. This gives ample amounts of time for families to vacation and celebrate together and hopefully leave the students feeling refreshed and ready to learn when they get back. It was also indicated by administrators that “renewed motivation and continuous injection of new ideas maintained a higher level of enthusiasm than [students] had experienced in their previous traditional calendar schools” and that they fully believed this was a critical factor in improving student performance throughout the year (Shields). It should also be noted that the vast majority of jobs offered globally do not have a summer break, and by shortening summers from 13 weeks to 7, students will be more prepared to enter the work force once out of school, and should have an easier time transitioning into the year round life as opposed to students used to taking 10 to 13 weeks off at
In a key portion of “Year-Round School Is What’s Needed, Not Camp,” Granderson explains scientific studies shown on the learning process. The article questions why educators haven’t proposed the issue to the school board. In this section of the article Granderson introduces a neuroscientist that says, “during summer vacation kids can forget anywhere from one to three months’ worth of math and reading skills.”
They believe that with a shorter summer break and more breaks mixed in the school year, students will retain more of the information taught to them without loosing it in the summer. However, there is no proof that students in a balanced calendar learn more than students in a regular nine month calendar (Grabmeier). “Over a twelve-month period, average test score gains were less than 1 percent larger in year-round than in nine month schools” (Grabmeier). The test scores between year round schools and nine month schools show no significant difference.
Year-round school maintains that students forget knowledge and skills they learned during the previous school year. There are studies that support this theory. Students show loss of knowledge in math and language arts knowledge over the long summer break. Students must re-acclimate themselves to the school schedule, their new teachers and their classmates, as well as to school rules and expectations, homework, and non-academic demands such as participation in sports. From teachers experience the first month of each new school year is spent figuring out what the student has remembered from the previous year and reviewing what they have forgotten over the summer
It’s Summer Vacation WOHOOO… or is it. Schools and districts around the country have been starting to implement year-round schooling for their students after the idea has been in the air of discussion since the 1970s. Year-round schooling is a system when the usual yearly summer break is switched to a series of smaller breaks throughout the year, usually lasting 2-4 weeks before the students return to school. The most used form of year-round schooling is the 45-15 plan, in which students attend school for 45 days then get 15 days off.
“Student Note & Comment: The Ten-month School Year: Are We Ignoring Educational Research in Order to Preserve Summer Vacation? Finding a Compromise between Educational Advancement and Over-Schooling”, by Mary O’Sullivan, tackles the issue of year-round schooling. She presents the idea of year-round schooling in a good light, arguing the benefits of having it. The author suggests that teachers will have better communication with students and parents, that the current system in which we give students time off is inefficient, and provides its own rebuttals for the other side of the issue’s points, such as family time being harder to find, low-income families finding difficulty in keeping their kids in school, and other points.
The idea of year round school is becoming an increasingly popular idea as this calendar is beneficial to both students and teachers. Under this new calendar, students attend school twelve months rather than nine months. Instead of having a long summer break, which can cause learning loss, students have frequent short breaks throughout the year. The effect of constantly learning throughout the year causes students to improve in test taking. When there is a long summer break, not all students have the same opportunities, creating a gap in achievements. Furthermore, teachers have more time to prepare lessons and teach them. Ultimately, students are more likely to excel in school with this new calendar.
Researchers have found that home life plays a very important role in how kids learn. Barbara Heyns, tested students at the end of the year and at the beginning of the next year in order to see if the summer months caused this achievement gap to widen. She found “that gaps in skills grew quickly during the summer in between, when school was out” (Downey and Gibbs 349). Based on this research, Downey and Gibbs conclude that school actually lessens the gap because students retain more during the school year than in the summer months where the gap widens. The obvious solution then, is to change the school year to year-round education, however researchers found that students learned about the same amount in both school rotations (Downey and Gibbs 346-351).
“Students in “year-round” schools don't learn more than their peers in traditional nine-month schools”- Paul Von Hippel
With the year-round schooling schedule, students are able to have better focus when coming back to school and remember information learned from the past school year. With multiple breaks throughout the year instead of a multiple month long summer vacation, it offers more constant
Further research indicates that economically disadvantaged students are more susceptible to summer learning loss, as they make equivalent achievement gains during the school year; they tend to lose more information during the summer (Huebner). Cooper further contributes, “Differences between classes contribute to the findings, due to middle-class students having a greater opportunity to practice and read in the summer.” Students are always going to have limitations on opportunity. Those who are poor should not have to suffer academically because they do not have means to stay on track. There are multiple approaches to limiting summer learning loss within students; however implementing a year-round schedule
Over the course of a typical U.S. summer vacation, which is approximately two and a half months long, students can lose precious weeks and months of learning. According to Oxford Learning, “2.6 months of math skills, and two months of reading skills are lost over the summer” (“Summer”). The loss of information and skills over summer vacation is not only detrimental to students, but also negatively affects teachers, who must adjust the curriculum to compensate. The same study by Oxford Learning also concluded, “Six weeks in the fall are spent re-learning old material to make up for summer learning loss” (Summer). The illogical set-up of the agrarian American school year is not only inefficient, but it also produces achievement gaps between different demographics within the country. According to Motoko Rich’s article, “To Increase Learning Time, Some Schools Add Days to Academic Year,” during the summer break, “Students — particularly those from low-income families — tend to forget what they learned in the school year. Getting back to school early, supporters of a longer calendar say, is one of the best ways to narrow an achievement gap between rich and poor students” (Rich). The achievement gap created in the current system causes countless students to suffer through losing and having to relearn skills and
A large portion of the knowledge gained during the last school year is lost over the long idle months and must be retaught for weeks, which wastes a lot of time that could be spent learning new material. This puts students behind in that year’s curriculum, and over many summers, can add up to students being months or years behind where they would be if no learning was lost. There is a solution to this
One of the reasons Florida should convert to year-round schooling keeps the learning process going. Text 2 states that students “spend less time reviewing material since students don’t forget everything over the summer.” Because there are multiple
Do you ever get stressed over work from school or your job? Well, that is why breaks and vacations are so important. Stress is pressure or tension applied to a material object. When people have stress or are stressed, they do not need to worry about it, stress is a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way. Stress is your body’s way of protecting you. When working properly, it helps you stay focussed on what you're doing, keeps your energy flowing, and helps you be more aware of what is going on. Being stressed isn’t always a long lasting situation, it can easily be demolished by taking frequent breaks in between activities, events,
Everyone is familiar with this break. The long 3 month break that a student gets in school to relax, go on vacations, and to be as lazy as they want to be. This is known as Summer Vacation. But as good as Summer Vacation is, how would you like the opportunity to have more frequent breaks and improve school academics? This is all possible with switching our school calendars from an agricultural calendar to a balanced calendar. Schools should switch to a balanced school calendar because there is no longer a need for an agricultural calendar, and with less disruptions, it improves test scores significantly.