Back in the early ages, the idea of year-round school would be thought as completely insane, because the farming families depended on their children to be home during harvest time. Now in modern times, the term year-round school is becoming more and more common in the United States of America. Slowly the schools are changing the way they teach, from giving the students a long three month break to a shorter one month break during the summer. The change of America’s high schools to the year-round schedule benefits both the schools and the students because they still get breaks throughout the school year, the children are less likely to forget information, the children would have more time with the teachers to learn, and the parents would not have to pay for childcare during the long summer break.
One of the first concerns of a student when they think of year-round school is that they will be attending school five days a week, 52 weeks a year. That thought is incorrect. The year-round school schedule is still based on 180 days, which is the same amount as the traditional school year. The big difference between the two different systems is that the year-round school year have breaks that are more spread out throughout the year. Instead of have a long three month summer break from school, the year-round schools give a one month summer break. Although the summer break is shorter, the system allows the school to have longer breaks during the school year. One example of a year-round school schedule is from Balanced Calendar; the children would attend school for nine weeks, and then receive a 15 day break. These two week breaks that happen periodically throughout the year allow the children to relax, and not think about homew...
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...owledge, and our country will no longer be the one that makes technology and medical breakthroughs. The school systems need a change, and that change is a move from traditional to year-round schooling.
Works Cited
"Balanced Calendar vs. Traditional Calendar." Balanced Calendar vs. Traditional Calendar. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. .
Granderson, LZ. "We Need Year-round School to Compete Globally." CNN. Cable News Network, 11 May 2011. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. .
"Memory and the Importance of Review." Memory and the Importance of Review. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. .
"Rankings of the States 2012 and Estimates of School Statistics 2013." Rss. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2014. .
One of the most talked about issues of schooling today, would be year round schooling. The program started as a new way to learn. The old way and still the way most schools calendar is set up was designed the way it is due to harvest times, when the United States was a farming country. There have been many studies done, and some schools have already implemented this program. The studies and the schools that have gone ahead and implemented the program have seen both good things and bad things in their findings. There will be both pros and cons for every issue, and some may see pros and cons differently. Year round schooling is the idea of attending school for an entire year, not all 365 days, but continuously throughout the year. Year round schooling operates on a different schedule to incorporate the same amount of classroom time as a typical school schedule has. The only difference is that the breaks are shorter, but there are more of them in year round schooling. This is the basis of most of the arguments for and against year round schooling.
Paul von Hippel, an author of study and research statistician in Sociology at The Ohio State University, says, “We found that students in year-round schools learn more during the summer, when others are on vacation, but they seem to learn less than other children during the rest of the year” (Grabmeier). Both schedules, year and traditional, have 180 days in their school year, the difference in scheduling is that the year-round schools have many short breaks throughout the school year, while the traditional gets a long summer break and a few breaks during the
adaptations need to be made back to the year-round school. If society has continuously adapted
The founders of the American public school system had a dream that all of America’s youth would have the opportunity to attend school in the best way possible for the times. The educational leaders of today must take up the same mission of providing the best school system imaginable for our modern era. Yearlong education is the solution to many problems that plague teachers, students, and school budgets.
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.
United States. National Center for Education Statistics. NAEP Data Tool v3.0. Web. 4 May 2009. .
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.
Back in the olden days, schools were originally put on a schedule in which students would spend the majority of the year in school, and 2-3 months off for summer break. The purpose of this was so that children could be home for the summer to help their parents run family farms. Today, due to progressive industrialization of farming, modernized farming equipment, and decrease in family farms, the need for children to be home during the summer to help run family farms is minute if not obsolete; because of this many schools across the United States have transitioned to year-round schooling (“Summer”). Contrary to belief, year round schooling does not usually mean more school days. Currently most year-round schools adhere to the 180 day school year. Instead of the traditional lengthy summer vacation, year-round schools distribute the 180 days throughout the entire year while allowing for shorter breaks. Common scheduling for year-round schools includes cycles of 2-3 months in school followed by 2-3 week breaks (“Research Spotlight...
There are many advantages to year round schooling. The two major advantages for year round schooling is the elimination or reduction in learning loss during summer breaks and improvement of student achievement. Winter, also stated other advantages such as attendance in school, reduction in drop out rate, student attitudes, and teacher attitudes. Less absenteeism by both teachers and students.The students attitudes were more positive to school and learni...
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.
Year round schooling sounds rigorous, but in fact it is just a change in schedule. The traditional school year was made with farming families in mind when the families needed their children to help with the crops in the summer. That is why the traditional school year has a three month period where kids are not in school over the summer. In today’s modern world, that does not make any sense because now a days, big huge machines take care of the farms and crops. Also, our economy does not depend on the crops and farms like it did back in the 20th century. The year round school year would still require the same amount of school days as the traditional school year, which is 180 days in the classroom. But instead of a prolonged summer break, it would have a 45-15 plan. 45 days in school and 15 days out of it, which translates to nine weeks in school and three weeks off. The breaks would include three weeks off in fall, winter, spring, and summer. These breaks would be in nine week intervals.
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.
The phrase “year-round” scares students and parents alike. Some argue that students attending school year-round will get so burnt out that the new schedule would be counterproductive. However, the term “year-round” is misleading. Students would not go to school non-stop twelve months out of the year. Instead, students would attend in blocks separated by short but frequent breaks (Hapka). The National Education Association gives insight to the block system:
To have year round schooling it much more expensive than a regular school year, to have school year round it, can cost “up to $1,300 more per student.” Also, most students in high school have a summertime job for those three months. But, if schooling was year round teens wouldn't be able to work in the summer. So the amount of times teens can work would decrease. In addition, kids would be much busier with school year around because of all the work and less free time to do whatever. For instance, kids with a lot of homework, projects and other things from school wouldn’t allow them to do things they like in their free time. For example, kids wouldn't be able to hang out with friends, family, play travel sports, or go on vacations because of the lack of free time they would get with school year