Year Round Education: A Worthwhile Transformation Essay

Imagine a school year that never ends. A year without summer, relaxation, and vacations with family. Summer is the time of year that every student cannot wait arrive. But what if the playful time filled with friends, smiles, and laughter did not exist? What if school remained in session year-round? This is happening in 3,181 schools across America and is gradually increasing (edweek.org). The government calls it: Year-Round School. There are both many pros and cons to this controversial issue in today’s education; however, Year-Round School is not a good decision because of the social outcomes, the financial costs, and the academic effects that Year-Round School burdens on the students.

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

The gap between lower and higher income students, and advantaged and disadvantaged students becomes smaller as well. Because learning loss is reduced because of the breaks, teachers do not have the spend time reviewing previously taught material. Instead, they can teach new information with the time that is typically used for reviewing (Reasons). The extra time can also be used to ensure that the students all understand what they are learning. With standard schooling most students whose parents have a higher income have the opportunity to attend summer camps and other learning places over the summer (Weller). The problem with that is that most students whose parents have a lower income and can not afford the summer camps. This creates a learning gap between the two groups because the lower income student generally do not participate in any extra learning. Year-round schooling can decrease the gap between the students. The higher income students can still participate in camp, but as they do that the lower income students will continue to learn and not stop the learning process during the summer days (Weller). Research shows that performance among low income students increases with year-round schooling (Lynch). Studies have found that students with learning disadvantages fall behind as well.

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).

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.

Some advantages of year-round schooling include improved achievement, improved attendance by both teachers and students, reduced discipline problems, lower teacher stress, increased motivation due to frequent breaks, and increased opportunities for enrichment (Palmer and Bemis). During the two week breaks in between school sessions, students have the opportunity to take classes on karate, ballet, photography, cooking, and swimming. This intersession provides time for hands-on, big project classes that get kids involved in topics that interest them. Intersession can also be used as an intervention for students who are falling behind. “Karl Alexander, sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University, studied 800 students for more than 20 years in Baltimore’s elementary schools. He found that by ninth grade, low-income students had fallen 3 ½ grade levels behind their middle-class peers. And most of that gap was attributable to learning lost over the long traditional summer” (Schulte, 2009). The biggest driving force and proponent of year-round schooling is the effect of the “summer slide.” Students lose two months of achievement in math skills and students from low-income families lose more than two months in reading achievement according to the national Summer Learning

“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”

Have you ever wondered what the difference between traditional schooling and year-round education is? Maybe you didn’t know that there are more than one type of year-round education. A year-round school schedule can benefit educators, students, and even families. Year-round schooling is where the breaks in school are on a balanced schedule. Instead of having a three month summer break, there would be 60 days off and then the students would be back to school. If on a multi track schedule, teachers could use their off time to substitute at their school on a different track or at another school to get paid more. For students, the shorter breaks away from school increase retention rates, therefore reducing the amount of review necessary at

The average school period is one hundred and eighty days with small breaks in between and a three-month break during summer to ease students’ minds and let them relax. The Board of Education should make all schools in the United States year-round to increase educational time and decrease the loss of knowledge over the breaks. It gives students the same time to relax and plan family vacations periodically throughout the year, but never creates the stress of changing sleep schedules that summer break changes. Not only is it a good way to enhance education, but it also is better for planning family events, positive effects on budget, academic achievement, and could decrease the absence rate of students.

It is very common for students in the fall to have at least six weeks of review because they have forgotten so much. Michelle Obama stated in Education today, “Our children could score higher on every measure of testing if they didn’t have such a long break between grade levels.” Many countries outscore America on math tests. This might be because math needs to be used continually or the equations are forgotten. Ms. Obama also stated, “Many poor parents cannot afford daycare, so they have to leave their children with older siblings while they are at work.” Public schools are paid for the government and they would be taking care of the children except for Fridays. The elementary students would be safer in class than at home without adequate supervision. Lastly, Ms. Obama declared, “Extended weekends mean that families would have more time together and might take fewer vacation days during school

DeNisco, Alison. “Year-round schooling gains popularity.” District Administration, vol.51, issue 9, Sep. 2015, pp. 15-18. EBSCOHost, web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/

Year round school eliminates regression of learning due to extended time off. Having a year round school can reduce what people known as summer learning loss ("The Pros"). Almost every child will experience a decrease in their math over the time of summer break each summer break ("SUMMER LEARNING"). “On an average students lose two months of reading skills over summer” ("SUMMER LEARNING"). After

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).

lose skills in math and language art over summer break, they also have to readapt to

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.