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Is year round school better than traditional
Is year round school effective
Is year round school effective
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Laura Cimpeanu
Professor Bromell
English 102
9/18/15
Year Round School: Conventional or Conflicting?
Routine is an important part of people’s lives. School is a place where almost everyone routinely went to, which on average, consisted of going for about nine months and a three month break. The room forms of schedules that occur in year round schools are 45-15, 60-20, and 90-30 plans. The first number is how many days the students go to school before they acquire their official break which is the second number. The reason we have our school schedules set up the way they are now is because of the agrarian times when families needed help in the spring and summer with the farming of their crops. Ever since then, America
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just seemed to accept this schedule of going to school as normal. What if the entire United States of America decided to switch to breaking up the 180 instructional days into all four seasons evenly? Schools are considering this type of because they argue it will help the students academically with the “learning loss” that they say occurs over the summer break. Year round school years are shown that they do not help students with summer break “learning loss”, do not benefit students in low-income families, and minimize family time. In the fall semester, many of the students are going into school with not a very fresh mind of what they learned in the previous school year.
Some parents and educators want to blame the long break in between each school year. What they don’t take into account is the quality of education that students are being taught in school. In all reality, it comes down to the instructor and their message. If the message isn’t getting through clearly to the students, then it wouldn’t matter when and what type of school they attended. The student is not learning in that specific environment regardless. Students in other countries attend school for much longer days in the students in the United States. Japan, for example, they go to school for 260 days. On top of that, the majority of Japanese students attend cram schools. The effort is made in that country for education to be top quality and a very large part of the students lives. The summer break is not the verdict to blame for students lacking in productive learning; there is always a way to keep a student reaching academic …show more content…
goals. There is an on-going theory that year round school schedule will benefit students that come from a low-income family.
Not only is the year round school schedule cheaper for the family, but it is also cheaper for the school. Over-crowding is another problem that can be solved this way. The reason for that is between the short breaks that students get, the students move to a different classroom. They also stick with the same teacher so all the students are on the same page with the teacher. This all seems pretty easy to adjust to. Is year round school really the answer though? "However, a number of recent studies have found no significant connection between year-round schooling and improved student achievement. For example, a review of 39 studies found that modified school calendars have a very small, insignificant, effect on achievement" (Education Projects in Education Research Center 2004.) A way to go the extra mile is summer programs that revolve around exceeding academically. Educators are working on making these programs available to parents and students who usually can't afford to go to such camps. A wonderful camp that has been made to help with the lower income families assist the children in getting college degrees is Rainier Scholars. "...Rainier Scholars, a year-round enrichment program that accepts 60 to 65 highly motivated low-income minority students annually from almost 600 applications" (PBS 2015). This program also functions solely through
donations and fundraisers. The future needs these types of programs available and year round school interferes with those programs. Consequently, year round schools can minimize the time that students have to be with their immediate and distant family. Summer break is usually the time that students visit their family in different states, different countries, or even just being out of town. I asked a friend of mine, Michael Vera, who went to Phoenix College and has his Associates in Science, about how he felt about year round school. His response was, "No. I don't like it. People go on vacation in the summer" (Vera, Personal Interview). That is a typical response from students because they like the idea of just relaxing for awhile and not having to anticipate school coming up. Personally, coming from someone who moved from their native country as a baby, the only time I really got the chance to meet people who weren’t from my immediate family was during that summer break. The breaks that the year round school offers are quite short for someone who plans on paying for an expensive plane ticket and expected to only be in that country for a certain amount of time. On average, the two times I visited a different country, it was about 4 weeks. The 15 day break would not be convenient for someone like me. I have friends that go visit their family in Europe for two months. Buying a round-trip ticket multiple times in a year is quite pricey. Of course, there is a peak season for plane tickets. Ticket costs most likely will not cut in half just because some schools decide to switch to the year round school year. The arguments between the year round school year and the traditional school year each have their own amount truth and why they are better than the other. Keeping the traditional school would be a much more convenient option for the students of the United States of America. There are other academic opportunities that students can take if the student or a parent is concerned with the individual achieving more academic knowledge. Summer vacation can also be a very strongly anticipated event for students who want to travel or visit their family. Not enough studies are shown to prove that year round school will benefit students in any way. Over-complicating school will not make things any better. Page Break Works Cited Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. (2004, August 3). Issues A-Z: Year-Round Schooling. Education Week. Retrieved Month Day, Year from http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/year-round-schooling/ PBS. "Year-Round School Commits to Students from Middle School to Last Day of College." PBS. PBS, 21 Apr. 2012. Web. 21 Sept. 2015. Vera, Michael. Personal Interview. 18 Sept. 2015
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
Another significant reason is summer vacation needs to be longer. The primary reason for this is children need time to wind down and relax before they have to go back to school. For instance, during the summer children relax and prepare for school, if they...
First, the pros of year round schooling can include; effects on absence and burnout rates, effects on budget, more frequent breaks, and also a big effect on academic achievement. The way that year round schooling works to reduce burnout and also reduce absences is that by having more frequent breaks; students are less likely to want to skip class. This is definitely noticeable after spring break where most schools don’t have any days off until the end of the year that is usually more than 2 months straight. In other words the “April, May, June stretch”. Year round schooling will also help students with their academics as well because with the way the schedule is set up, students do not ha...
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 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:
While growing up, I attended a traditional school. This is a schooling method many individuals are probably familiar with. A student attends school for nine months out of the year, and then has a three month break during the summer. However, in my immediate hometown surroundings, nearby traditional schools are assessing the idea of transforming into year-round schools. Year round schooling is one subject debated in high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools nationwide. Are schools that operate 365 days a year academically better than traditional schools? What are the cost differences between the two? How would a year-round school effect families? Changing the schooling technique from traditional to year-round has numerous variables that need to be taken into consideration before any grade school or secondary education institution fully commits. Year-round schooling schedules should not be implemented and traditional schooling calendars should be maintained.
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...
School is usually a huge part of every child’s daily agenda. Teenagers in high school basically dedicate their entire day to school and homework. Students in grade 8 are similarly going through the same process as high school students. As students work 2 months after the Winter Break, some of them tend to start reducing their quality of work. When we’re tired of doing school work for two straight months, why should we only receive a short March break?
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.
In conclusion, the advantages of year-round schooling are beneficial to all. If all schools did change to year round schooling, I believe we would be able to teach all the students without having to reteach skills from previous years, it could be done during intersessions. Year-round schooling benefits both the teachers and students. Teachers are able to reflect on their teachings and adjust in time before the next session would begin. The students would feel positive about themselves in school. With this change, we may even be able to accomplish No Child Left Behind.
First, Long summer breaks is a problem for traditional schools. Year round school are schools that function on a 180 day system
Although, year round school wouldn’t be just a bad thing. For example, shorter summer breaks may decrease the amount of learning students lose. It can also mean that students are less likely to have summer learning loss. Also, students test scores lower after summer break. Therefore, some people get free or reduced meals but in the summer they wouldn’t get that. Shorter breaks would cause a hard time to find childcare and to pay childcare.
Would you consider going to a school where you learn year-round? Maybe this would be your ideal school, but, when would you get to have some time to go to summer camp, or get a summer job, or play a sport with games during the day? Schools with the traditional schedule may actually be a better choice, and not just because kids love summer break. Schools should have a traditional school year schedule instead of a year round schedule because there isn’t a significant difference between the students’ performance, and year round schedules make planning family vacations hard, make the teachers’ job more difficult, and are more expensive. Also, having a summer break allows kids to participate in activities that they would not be able to do on a year round schedule due to the shorter breaks.
The first reason why year round schooling wouldn’t be a good idea is because of focusing for long periods of times for some students. First of all, many kids with disabilities or elementary school would have a hard time focusing that long of a time without their traditional three month summer break. Second, the more breaks students have might make it harder to focus before and after breaks. Before breaks many kids would be excited to
The traditional School schedule is set up so students go to school for 9 months and then have a 3-month summer Vacation. This system dates back to a time when most people's lively hood was farming; therefore, the educational schedule was built around the times of harvest and planting. But in modern day, with so little farmers this schedule is severely out dated. The long break in the summer encourages students to forget knowledge that they learned that previous year, forcing teachers to review information for 4-6 weeks, time that could be well used teaching students new and enriching things. This schedule also isn't very cost effective, for three months schools stand empty and unused, which is ridicules due to how over crowded the educational system is. Does it really make sense to use an outdated schedule when with every other aspect of our lives we want the newest and the best?