The Year-Round School Model The issue of year-round schools is not a new one, nor is it without its supporters and detractors. Each camp can either logically defend its views on the viability and success of year-round schools or can argue against it equally articulately. How did America arrive at the point when the discussion of year-round schools is again a critical issue in education, and more importantly, will such a radical change to the education system be possible?
The History of the School Calendar
Since the early days of the American one-room schoolhouse in the 1800’s and early 1900’s, students stayed out of school during the critical farming months, but contrary to popular belief, the months which students missed school were not the summer months. In an agrarian community, crucial months on a farm are in the spring and fall, during planting and harvest. In fact, students spent more time in school during the summer months (PBS NewsHour, Sept 7, 2014). according to historian Kenneth Gold (2014) the school calendar as we know it has more to do with nineteenth century school reform which worked to provide a nationwide standardized calendar than the needs of farming families. The choice of a long summer break was driven more by the sweltering heat in urban environments before the days of air conditioning when the wealthy could leave the city for cooler county air. The results of this school calendar reform look much the same today as they did then. Students are in
The first year round school was established in 1904 in Bluffton, Indiana (Glines, 2002). Year round education is described as a “calendar modification that requires students to begin school earlier and end later than normal, with the lost summer vacation redistributed in blocks throughout the year” (Glines, 2002, 2698). It is important to note that year round schools have the same number of days in a calendar year as does the traditional school year. However, the days are distributed throughout the year. Year round schools differ from traditional schools in a variety of ways.
The reasons behind having a three month summer break are outdated and do not provide any functional advantages to the present day student. The current school year lasting nine months with a three month summer vacation is not necessary in today’s society. It originally served to allow children in rural communities help their families with the harvest (Hemerson and Gove 8). Educators originally saw the nine month school year as a way to maximize attendance in rural areas of the country (O'Sullivan 399). This serves no functioning purpose in today's society. It is estimated today that only 3% of the population is involved in agriculture (Kralovec 32). The nine month school year originally was supposed to allow more working children to attend school, but,with
Many schools across the America have tried implementing year-round education. However, some school districts that tried YRE go back to the 180- day schedule (Sardo-Brown, Deborah, and Michael Rooney 1). When year-round education is proposed most of the time opposition is met. In 1992, parents of a possible pilot school were surveyed on their thoughts. 59% of the parents responded. There was an overwhelming amount of rejection. Just 10% of those surveyed favored YRE where 83% were against (Sardo-Brown, Deborah, and Michael Rooney 1).
School and summer. Can you guess which one is dreaded the most? School; a part of education that has been around for centuries while causing moaning and groaning from students hopping out of bed in the morning. But then again there’s also the season of summer; a two month break that most kids look forward to, simply because it’s their time off from school and being educated eight hours a day, for five days a week. Although these two activities are very good for an adolescents mind, there is also the question about going to school year-round. Year-round schooling is all the 180 days split up over the whole year. Sure it sounds like a terrible plan, but what you aren’t hearing is that students and staff get longer breaks throughout the school year as well. In the articles Should American Schools Go Year Round by Sindhu Nair and The Pros and Cons of Year-Round Schooling by Scholastic, they both focus on their specific argumentative side. While gathering
Year round schooling should be a thing. The time we leave school and go back to school is crazy now we get about a month off and when we leave we forget everything we have learned the past year. Its preposterous and repetitive, why forget everything we learned and struggle to relearn it when we could just stay in school. Most kids are against it because they don't want to lose their summer vacation but when it comes down to it, you'd get more time off and more breaks if you had year round schooling anyway.
“It’s for the public it’s year round and it 's also for the schools because we 're going to re-establish our school programs and all our outreach programs” Susan Hayward. Will year round schooling help or benefit the schools of the United States and society? Year round schools could change the reasons why teachers are teaching ("Top 10 Reasons"). Elimination of extended breaks from schools in the United States. would be beneficial to the population.
In America most public schools go to school on a 10-month system established when America was mainly agriculture, and the children had to work in the fields during the summer. Year-round school was first used in the early 1900s to fight overcrowding and underfunding. It wasn’t until the 60s that year-round school was used again when a school in California became the first school to use it since 1904. I believe that the school schedule is fine the way it is. Some of the cons of year-round school are students can’t have summer jobs, most programs such as lunch and buses cost more, and extracurricular conflicts.
retention rates, however it still does allow for a summer break for students to aid their families
The idea of having a year round school schedule has been thought about at the state level throughout the country for many years, especially in the past two decades. The driving idea behind the argument is that if year round school is put into place, there would be an increase in academic performance because students will not forget what they learned so easily. This change of schedule will obviously have a lasting effect on society, with child care, vacations, regular living, and social life would have a major change on every family. Other operations would have a dramatic change if summer vacation would be taken away. Federal and state government, churches, businesses, the school’s community, and public
The traditional American school year was constructed around a nine-month schedule requiring 180 days in the classroom. But times are changing and many people are suggesting that the school system in America does away with this “outdated” system and move into this new idea of the “year round education”. There are theories that knowledge is lost when kids go on summer break and others think that financially summer breaks are in fact needed. What needs to be explored further is what affect does year round school have economically, whether year round schooling aid’s or hinders children’s educational knowledge, and how would this new schooling affect children socially.
To begin with, when public schooling first became available to students, our society was mainly agricultural and children were needed during the summer months to help at home with chores and field work. Today’s society is a technological society and there is no longer a demand for children helping on the farm during their busy time. Many students spend their summer at home alone while parents work.
There exist great concerns about the quality of the American educational system. Many reforms to the American educational system has been made for the betterment of the educational system for family and child. Despite these reforms, there seems to stagnate growth statistically. Internationally, America is competing at a lower level than most developed countries and that is due to several factors. Year-Round school is one such factor that could be contributing to higher academic achievement globally. Nationally, there seems to be a measurable increase of year-round schooling vs. traditional schooling. The growing popularity of year-round schooling is attributed to higher student achievement, higher wage earnings for teachers, and increased affordability for low-income families.
Throughout time education has been considered a process that every so often must be improved. The education quality in the U.S. has declined over the years and people have been looking for a way to make improvements. A more recent proposal has been to go from a traditional nine-month schedule to an all year program. Supporters of year round school claim it gives the student a better education. However, the prospect of year round school is not beneficial to the taxpayers pocket, to the education a student receives, or to the people involved with the district.
but the idea did not become popular until the past two decades when it became clear
Knowledge, much like radioactive material, has a half-life. Against many countries world-wide, the United States’ education system only ranks in the middle of the road. The countries that have the highest education ranking have one major quality in common: School children attend school year-round. Information learned in school must be used and reinforced in order for children to retain it for the long term and to build upon for higher understanding. Long summer breaks result in forgetting a lot of information learned in the previous school year. They were once needed to ensure that children were available for harvest, however, in this day and age we do not require children to do that. Long summer breaks also require teachers to spend several weeks reviewing old material just to provide a base to learn the new material. Adopting a year-round education system will increase the efficiency of our education system and help ensure the United States remains competitive on the world stage.