The School Of A School Essay

The American educational system is based on the traditional, nine-month school calendar, which has been in place for over a century. Originally, the United States was an agrarian society. The majority of Americans lived on farms. People made most of the items that they needed, and with little trade necessary, there was no need for schooling (McLain, 1973). However, as people branched out into neighboring areas, they needed to learn new skills, such as basic arithmetic to price items, measure land, and more (McLain, 1973). As a result, it became the responsibility of those who were less needed on the farm or in the factory to acquire knowledge for the family (McLain, 1973).

Gone are the days of children getting off of school to help their family farms during the summer. Now, children as well as the teachers get out for some much needed relaxation. So why do we still follow the same schedule? It seems every school year the discussion of year-round education captures the attention of the general public. Is it time for year-round education (YRE) to be the new norm? Ultimately, there are not that many pros for year-round schooling to be the new thing and the traditional 180-day schedule should be kept.

In his article “Go Year-Round: A Push for True Summer School”, Milton Chen, the executive director of Edutopia, urges readers to use the year-round schooling system. He explains in brief words what the summer vacation was for. “…when farm families needed young people home during the summer months to replace the three R's with the two P's -- plantin' and pickin' " (Chen). He carries on discussing that the problem with the school days is not only the amount, but the schedule of the school day. The curriculum is too tight; neither the students nor the teachers have the time to step away from the books and text and learn from the outside. The students do not have the chance to go into the outside world and observe what is going on in the society that they live in. Additionally, the teachers do not have the chance to decide how their time is spent because it is spent on the strict schedule of the classroom.

Industries such as business and medicine depend on extreme methods and forward thinking ideas. To be a successful enterprise, one must be willing to take risks and try new things. Within the last century, education has attempted to take a leap of faith by completely flipping the traditional school schedule and idea of summer vacation upside down. Just as with any idea, there are advantages and disadvantages as well as supporters and opponents. Each district must look at their own individual needs and evaluate the trials from schools that have gone before them to decide if year-round schooling would benefit their school.

“The U.S. research challenges one of the main arguments for abandoning conventional schedules: year- round schooling improves achievement because it prevents students from falling behind during the summer and because it does not waste precious time reviewing past years’ lessons”

Year round school calendars aren’t the best idea we’ve had to improve our educational systems. This is just one of many ideas we’ve had. Year round schooling has affected families, students, and required maintenance in many negative ways.

Education has been the subject of some of the most heated discussions in American history. It is a key point in political platforms. It has been subject to countless attempts at reform, most recently No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Ardent supporters of institutional schools say that schools provide access to quality education that will allow the youth of our country to gain necessary skills to succeed in life. Critics take a far more cynical view. The book Rereading America poses the question, “Does education empower us? Or does it stifle personal growth by squeezing us into prefabricated cultural molds?” The authors of this question miss a key distinction between education and schooling that leaves the answer far from clear-cut. While education empowers, the one-size-fits-all compulsory delivery system is stifling personal growth by squeezing us into prefabricated cultural molds.

Have you ever really pondered the way schooling is done today? Have you ever wondered if it is really the best fit? Some experts say that a all year round schooling calendar would be more beneficial to students. Paul Von Hippel, a researcher and sociologist of ohio state University, says “Students have a better tendency to remember material because of short breaks.” While other people believe that summer vacation is an american tradition and shouldn’t be changed. If I could plan my ideal school, I would create an all year round calendar, teach specified subjects, and begin the school day later. Summer break dates back to the 1800s(Pearson, 2010). Now is the time for a change, or is it?

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 problem, however: year-round school. Year-round school provides many advantages for both students and adults over the traditional summer vacation schedule.

It is October 15th. Normally, students would be at school, working for hours on end at math, communication arts, and science. But this year is different. This year your school has now entered into the year-round calendar system. At home, you can enjoy the season of fall with pumpkins, Halloween, and beautiful weather. The idea of year round school has most commonly been pushed aside because of the misconception that it is too much school, or an on-going cycle of learning. However, those who declare this, do not understand the year-round school concept. Year-round school provides the same number of days as the traditional calendar. The difference, which will change our society and the achievement rate of our students in the future, is that the days are reordered into intersessions. The mechanisms of year round school include students attending school for a nine week period, then following this is a three week break. This rotation occurs year-round with a slightly longer summer break. Consequently, Though many people agree with keeping tradition with the popular school calendar, new evidence and testimony proves that year-round school provides the better avenue because the world is evolving, it benefits low income students, and intersessions are more effective than summer break.

As many districts have found, it is not feasible to add more subjects to the already demanding 6 or 7 period days. The problem in doing so is that there was little time for electives. At the same time, they began to find that adding classes only took away time from other parts of the curriculum already established. While some districts fumbled with the idea of adding classes and minimizing losses in other areas, a large number of schools, more specifically 25-40 percent of U.S high schools adopted block scheduling (American Federation of Teachers, 1999). It is apparent the block scheduling craze is thought to be a fix all solution to the problem, at least for those districts and individuals looking for anything to help increase the status quo.

The high end private school segment has great potential for success. Rancho Solano Preparatory School (RSPS) has had many successes, but also many challenges on their journey to becoming one of the best private school options in Arizona. To continue success, Rancho Solano must make significant investments and a commitment to change internally and externally. This can be achieved by focusing on improving some of the subsystems of the organization as well as people involved operationally.

His book Schooled was a delight for me to read, and once I started I did not want to put it down. I liked many of the characters as the author wrote them well and gave everyone a different personality, this kept the story interesting. The writing style was different than I had encountered before, as each chapter depicted a different person’s point of view. The alternating characters' points of view, allowed me to gain insight into the turmoil that each character was experiencing as Cap influenced their lives. Although I was hesitant of the style at first the story flowed nicely and I could really envision each character. I also really enjoyed the plot of this book. A home schooled eighth grade hippie being forced into society through a normal

School improvement is transformation. It is one of the most important actions of a school. It is a process that schools must use with fidelity to ensure that at all students are given the opportunity to perform and achieve at exemplary levels. School improvement is vital to schools and it is a process that cannot be done in isolation. It requires team work, collaboration, and constant analysis of data and setting of goals. School improvement goals focus on how to meet the needs of students. Addressing the educational needs, funding, and achievement gaps between subgroups is collaborative effort involves everyone that has a vested interest in the schools. These basic measures set the foundation for improvement. And so, if it is the

innovative by design. The standard 180 6.5 hour U.S. school calendar is up for discussion