Essentially, an argument against year round schools is an argument opposing change, one that must show that for each true positive feature, there is an equal or greater negative feature, creating more reasons not to change than to change. For example: one reason to switch to year round is to accommodate more students and/or reduce class size by staggering who is and is not on break. However, this is balanced by the fact that this costs taxpayers tens of thousands more dollars in teacher’s salaries and maintenance costs (such as more lockers), as caused by more students.
Full year schools are numbered at three thousand eighty-one nationwide (in 2002-2003), compared to the roughly ninety-five thousand schools that are not year-round. This shows how little faith and trust is had towards this new, yet stale, initiative of inadequacy already, as schools continue to switch back from year round to traditional. One of the three most common ways in which students experience this deficiency is the forty-five-fifteen plan, in which seven weeks (forty in-school days) of school occurs, followed by three weeks (fifteen days) of vacation. The second is the sixty-twenty plan; twelve weeks of school followed by four weeks of vacation. The third organization of days is the ninety-thirty plan, effectively splitting summer in twain. Some elaboration, however, is required: each of these schemes has only one hundred eighty days, equivalent to the number days in a normal school year.
Firstmost in ratione, year round schools cost astronomically more than regular schools per year. In Albuquerque, if all schools operated year round, it would cost the taxpayers an estimated eleven million dollars more (Albuquerque Tribune October 3 1992). In Baltimore C...
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White, William D. "Year-Round No More." American School Board Journal. July 1992: 27-30.
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Pearson, A. (n.d.). Year-Round School Advantages & Disadvantages. Education. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://education.seattlepi.com/yearround-school-advantages-disadvantages-2521.html
Nonetheless, there is some resistance to schools converting to a year-round calendar. Most of that opposition comes from the reduction in intersession length, and some students and/or parents don 't like the idea of year-round education from the start. This gives families a reason to voice their opposition when both the parents and child 's schedules do not line up with one another. This usually affects households that wish to take long vacations over the course of a summer. Parents, in some cases, may oppose this change because of child care needs. Child care raises opposition since there is a shift in the school year calendar. Parents may not be able to find nannies or babysitters. In addition, parents will have to check for or maybe even search for new or different childcare services. To add, parents with multiple children may have to worry about their children being put
... Year-Round Schools. Ed. Adriane Ruggiero. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 May 2014.
The change of the system to include summer breaks was due to issues not quite under their
The United States has a long and proud history of providing public education to its citizen’s children. The fundamental idea behind the creation of this educational system was that it be available to all, regardless of geographical location or family status. In the era that this initiative was generated many of America’s families lived and worked on farms, and children were a vital part of this lifestyle. The founders of the United States’ public schools had to create a plan that included all children, even those who were expected to perform agricultural work in the harvest season. Thus, the nine-month school calendar was brought into use, allowing farming children a three month break from school in the summer to aid their families in the crop yield. In time, youth participation in farming became outdated and obsolete, and this arrangement slipped from necessity to simply being a tradition held on to through the years. In our modern era, a year-round school calendar would benefit the teachers, students, and finances of America’s public schools.
The BC Ministry of Education recently allowed for flexibility in how school districts choose to organize their school calendars. BC School Districts currently follow a traditional school year calendar with students attending school approximately 190 days, most with a two week break in winter and spring and two months off during the summer months. “This model was very practical when the school calendar was designed to accommodate children with the needs of an agricultural economy” (qtd in Webb 5), and can be “described by some as outdated and irrelevant in today’s society” (Winter 401). A balanced school year calendar, also referred to as a modified school year and year round school, would maintain the same number of instructional days, but would evenly distribute breaks throughout the year. The literature and research available on the balanced school year is mostly American, with a few Canadian sources. This research indicates that those in support of this type of calendar see many benefits, but the most strongly supported with evidence is the reduction of summer learning loss experienced by students, especially for English as a second language (ESL) and low income students. For those who oppose the balanced school year, some believe summer learning loss does not exist and some strongly argue that changing the school calendar is only warranted with proof of increased academic achievement for students.
The traditional school calendar has been in effect for more than a century. By the middle of the nineteenth century rural areas the school year lasted for five to six months, based on the harvest schedule. In contrast, many schools in urban areas were open for eleven or twelve months. A uniform calendar was established in 1847 that is the traditional calendar of today. (Shields, 2000) There was resistance to this calendar from the beginning; people in urban areas had to go to school from much longer to receive the same education. YRE began in a premature form in 1904 in Bluffton, Indiana with a four-quarter schedule. (Speck, n.d.) YRE began to be popular in states like Texas, New Jersey, North Dakota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. It ceased during WWII because national uniformity was felt to be essential to the war effort. Hayward, CA implemented at official YRE programs at Park Elementary School in 1968 to become the first YRE school after WWII. (Speck, n.d.) YRE schools began to sprout up all over the country after that. In 1969 the first multiple tract school was established in Missouri. Since the late 70’s YRE has picked up in popularity and is a continuing trend. According to the National Association for Year-Round Education, more than 2 million students attend close to 3,000 year-round schools in 41 states and 610 school districts, which is a dramatic increase compared to the early 1990’s. There have been a variety of YRE schedules and currently there is the choice of single or multi-track, options within both of those, and an extended school year.
There are various models of YRS that can be implemented, all of which are reconfigurations of the traditional, nine-month calendar. In some areas these models are known as alternative or modified calendars (Shields & Oberg, 2000) and they all have unique characteristics. Because of theses differences, school systems should spend some time analyzing which model will be best for their particular school; educators may find that some models work better than others depending on the school. Estimates on the exact number of year round schedules vary, although it has been estimated that at least 50 different scheduling patterns exist (Palmer & Bemis, 1999). The most common alternatives include the single track calendar and the multi-track calendar.
"Summer school? Should schools be in session year-round?" Know Your World Extra 18 Apr. 2008. General OneFile. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
All year school ends up costing the school district and surrounding community more money than a traditional nine-month schedule. "More funds would be needed to cover the costs of paying the teachers and staff for one full year instead of for 180 days work." (Stevenson 2). "Teachers currently make an average of $37, 000 in the United States. However, the costs would increase to $53, 000 to keep the teachers for a full year." (Somersby 8). Currently, a district uses a lot of its budget on paying teachers. Once the increased costs are put in place, the budget depletes rapidly. Yet teachers must be paid, as they are the cornerstones of education. Also, it takes additional funds to run the school all year, due to things such as air conditioning in the summer (White 28). Many schools due not currently need AC systems to be used. However, AC is a costly ame...
Shortly, we became more industrialized and had more advanced technology which made the summer vacation that was so crucial to the survival of the family now purposeless. With these long summer breaks, it can affect a child’s learning in so many ways. According to the benefits of year-round education article,”As of the 2006-2007 school year, nearly 2,800 U.S. schools were classified as year round.” One essential problem with long summer breaks is lack of retention of learned material and can lead to the student not being able to make progress with their learning in the next school year. In year-round schools, kids don’t waste time on review as opposed to traditional schools who take about three weeks reviewing the information they learned in the
Family vacations, pool memberships, and corn de-tasseling; these have been the experiences of traditional Midwestern summers. For centuries young American children have attended school during the winter months, during farming off seasons when their families could afford to be without them. Families have grown accustomed to a traditional school calendar that provides time for bonding throughout the year. Students have grown accustomed to an eight week break during the summer months where they are allowed to refresh their minds before returning for a new school year. Unfortunately, these traditional experiences and practices are now in jeopardy. In today’s race to improve student achievement, traditional school calendars have become a point of contention. Today more and more school districts and parents alike have begun to debate the pros and cons of an alternative school calendar.
Palmer, E. A., and A. E. Bemis. "Research Spotlight on Year-Round Education." Rss. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Today however, the role of the modern public school is beginning to change. The United States is no longer an agrarian society. As a result, people feel that the traditional school calendar is too old-fashioned a...
Day or School Year: A Systematic Review of Research." Sage 80.3 (2010): 401- 36. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.