Year-Round Schooling: the Answer to Academic Success

776 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Agriculture and industrialization

Year round schooling is becoming increasingly popular in the United States, and has shown positive academic benefits for students enrolled in year round schools. Many countries implement year round schooling, and academic ability of their students greatly surpasses those of the United States. Year round schooling, as well as increase in school days should be implemented in schools nationwide in the United States. The need for long summer vacations is non-existent, as society has become industrialized. Implementing year-round schooling, and increasing the number of school days will allow the United States to invest more time into education in order to grow and build academic success.
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...

... middle of paper ...

...t a damper on academic growth. The United States should view the academic success of other countries, question the reasons for their success, and use that information to our advantage.

Works Cited
Barber, R Jerry. “Year-Round Schooling Really Works.” The Education Digest. Web. 1 Apr. 2014 “
“Best Education In The World: Finland, South Korea Top Country Rankings, U.S. Rated Average.” Huffington Post. 27 Nov. 2012. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.
Feldman, Mitchell. “Year round school improves retention.” The Courier. Web. 2 Apr. 2014
“Know the Facts,” National Summer Learning Association. 2009. Web. 1 Apr. 2014
“Research Spotlight on Year-Round Education.” NEA. National Education Association. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
"Summer school? Should schools be in session year-round?" Know Your World Extra 18 Apr. 2008. General OneFile. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.

Show More
Related

  • The Possibility of Year-Round Schooling vs. The Traditional School Calendar

    1813 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Year Round Schooling: Should It Be Implemented?

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Benefits of Year-Round Education

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Year-Round Schooling Offers Many Benefits

    878 Words  | 2 Pages

    Attending a year round school will help students retain the information they are taught with greater ease due to the shortness in breaks between times they attend school. An Indianapolis fourth-grade school teacher says, “In this calendar, my goodness, (it takes) two weeks at most.”, referring to the six weeks it normally takes to review the previous year’s lesson to get the students up to speed from the summer break (Johnson). If you are to add twenty days to t...

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Year-Round School

    1243 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • How Year Round Schools Work

    2563 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Year Round Schooling Benefits Teachers and Students Alike

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    Year round school or the modified school year is a rearrangement of the traditional school year to provide the students with continuous learning throughout the school year. Students receive the same amount of instructional time as a traditional school. In year round schools, the instructional time is balanced without of school time more evenly. (Winter, 2005) The National Association for Year Round Schooling defines it as “a schedule which contains no break lasting longer than eight weeks-schools are able to keep their students in constant learning mode, and are able to use the intersessions between periods of schooling to address the problems of students who are falling behind.” (St. Gerard, 2007, pg. 57) There are three common tracks of year round schooling. They are the single track, multitrack, and extended year. The single track is scheduled throughput the year into intersessions which allow time for enrichment or red-mediation. The multitrack is used to help schools reduce overcrowding. The school divides the teachers and students into groups of an equal size. Each group has its own schedule. One group is on intercession while the other is in school. The extended year increases the amount of time spent in schools from 180 days to as many as 240 days a year. (McGlynn, 2002)

    Read More

  • History of the Traditional School Calendar

    3024 Words  | 7 Pages

    Saunders, M. (2004, September 7). Try year-round school: The lazy days of summer may hurt children who struggle in school the rest of the time. Atlanta Journal-Constitution, pp. 14A, Retrieved November 6, 2004, from Lexus-Nexus.

    Read More

  • School Year Round

    989 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Year-round school

    1230 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although year-round school is not something that most Americans are used to, it is much more beneficial than the original nine-month schooling. Nine-month schooling has been around for a very long time, but it is also out dated. Nine-month schooling was a way to help farmers keep their children at home for extra help during the summer months. Now, more and more people are living in town, and farmers have advanced equipment. Year-round school is a great way to give students and teachers more frequent breaks throughout the school year so they do not get burnt out. It will also shorten the review time each year, and allow teachers to teach more throughout the school year. The multi-tracking system allows

    Read More

  • Year Round Education: A New Perspective

    2535 Words  | 6 Pages

    Traditional school-year calendars usually begin the day after Labor Day and end early in the summer, with a Christmas break, selective holidays, and a three-month summer vacation. It is also known as the agrarian calendar because school’s needed to revolve around the same time as the harvesting and planting of crops. The calendar was made this way to allow for children to be available to the family for farming during the months of summer. Although farming has declined, the traditional calendar has now been in effect for over a century and with the suggestions of Year-Round Schooling (YRS) educators are trying to update this “old” system of schooling.

    Read More

  • Essay On Year Round Education

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    The article "Year-Round Education: Is Summer Vacation over...Forever?" an article in The Week Magazine, "The students learning and experience during the summer after school is over" ("Year-Round"). Year round education (YRE) is a traditional school schedule in the United States of America provides nine-months of instruction and three month summer vacation. YRE has been present in society since the early 1900's (Bussard). At the end of the 180 day, the teachers and students have enjoyed a relaxing vacation during three month long summer breaks. Schools will continue to follow 180 days system on the calendar; yet, these will have a shorter every term. The traditional calendar is simply changing the instruction and summer vacation that all the all students and staff are in school or vacation at the same time. Many people thought YRE is a good idea for students to improve academic achievement; but there are several reasons why going to school all year round is a bad idea against YRE because the family tradition, work experience, and air conditioning.

    Read More

  • Essay On Year Round School

    906 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Year-Round Model

    549 Words  | 2 Pages

    Summer is known as the time where one can relax and escape from the hard work they have accomplished from the school year that has just past them. However, it is now being debated whether a “year-round” model would be a more appropriate choice for schooling. The year-round model allows students to have breaks more often, just for a shorter period of time; this meaning that the two-month long summer break would shorten and spread throughout the course of the year. Several just do not see the positive impact this change could have on them. The year-round model should be put into effect as it increases the student’s academic knowledge, it allows for students/ teachers to “recharge” and finally it makes transitions through school easier.

    Read More

  • year long school

    628 Words  | 2 Pages

    3..2..1.. summer the yearlong torturer of another school year is over and summer has begun but what do we forget during our break, students traditionally return to school to repeat the process of acclimating to new teachers, new classmates, and a new classroom. Students struggle to remember lessons and assignments they have not been taught for months. The summer learning loss, many schools have implemented year-round schooling. The Association for Year-Round Education reported that in 2007 that 3,000 year-round schools enrolled more than 2 million students in the United States. But does the research show that year-round schooling really pays off? Students in year-round schools do as well or slightly better in terms of achievements than students in traditional schools.

    Read More

More about Year-Round Schooling: the Answer to Academic Success

Open Document