Thursday, April 1, 2010

Year Round Schooling

Year-round schooling, also known as modified calendar has become a hot topic in the United States. Year-round schooling is a 180 day school year but with a ratio of 45:15. This means that students go to school 45 days with 15 days off and a 30 day break in the summer. Within this model there are several others; such as the single track and multiple-track. Single-track involves an entire school using the same calendar and getting the same holidays off. Multiple-track has groups of students attending school at different times with different vacations.

Currently 2 million students attend this kind of program, and the current Obama Administration is pushing for more. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says, “I think our school day is too short. I think our school week is too short. I think our school year is too short," Duncan said. "I want our children to be able to compete with the best in India and China. And simply put, in other countries they are spending more time in school than we do here. And I think that hurts our children."
This topic generates strong feelings both positive and negative. Advocates claim that year-round calendars help students achieve higher, and allows teachers to provide a more effective education. Opponents insist that year-round education is detrimental to student learning.
Some pros to this issue are that:
  • End the “summer hangover:” do not spend weeks trying to get studentsback into the school frame of mind.
  • Increase in retention
  • Beat teacher burn-out due to frequent breaks
  • The 15 days off can be used for enrichment and remedial classes, and sports.
  • Flexibility for vacations
  • ESL and at-risk students suffer greatest summer learning loss
  • More efficient and productive to plan curriculum for shorter blocks of time
  • No worries for child care all summer long
  • Co-curricular and extracurricular activities can take place throughout the year and can reinforce previous learning.
  • Teachers can take advantage of year-long opportunities for staff development
Some cons are:
  • Availability of childcare
  • Need for and cost of climate control in buildings. There is no air-conditioning during warm weather.
  • Conflicts with other “traditional” district calendars
  • Facilitating building cleaning/repairs
  • Families/siblings on same schedule
  • Complexity of scheduling family vacations
  • Not all students are on year round schedules parents have that choice so need teachers to do traditional.
  • Teacher finally get “geared up” only to be brought back down by the break.
  • Students can’t get summer job.

Many people believe that having Year Round Schooling can increase student achievement but no studies demonstrate effectiveness of traditional calendar or academic harm in any of the modified/balanced calendars. Unfortunately, research that attempts to measure the influence of year-round education on student achievement is inconclusive and contradictory. Reviews do state that the students, parents, and staff that participate in year-round schools are quite positive about the experience. Despite a lack of conclusive evidence showing that year-round schooling is able to dramatically raise student achievement, the approach is becoming an attractive strategy for more and more schools and districts. Overall, year round education is a very complex topic with many variables that must be considered. If parents and teachers support it, it will undoubtedly do well on the other hand if many people oppose its implementation it will not succeed.


Christina Niemczura

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