Benefits of Year-Round Schooling

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Recommended: is year round schooling better than traditional

Year-round schooling has an academic advantage over traditional schooling. Year-round schools will have class for a set number of days or weeks then have an intermission lasting a few weeks during which they do not attend school totaling a number of 180 days. “A year-round calendar offers the same 180 days as a traditional calendar” (Pros and Cons). Traditional schools will have 180 days of class with special breaks in between and a three month summer break where the kids do not return to school until fall. They were first established when America was an agricultural society (Lynch) to ensure the kids were home to help their parents harvest crops (Pros and Cons). Now that society is beginning to come out of the agricultural era, the kids needing to be home to help harvest crops have lowered. This began the formation of a different schooling system; year-round schools. “Students in year-round schools do as well or slightly better in terms of academic achievement than students in traditional schools” (Huebner).
“The first schools that went against traditional schooling were in urban areas” (Lynch). Urban area schools did not have to worry about agriculture so the idea of year-round schools was considered. “Two districts in San Diego were the first to establish year-round school with one in 1971 and the other in 1974. Thirteen more in California followed in their footsteps. Soon four-fifth of all year-round schools happened in the Western states, over half of them on California. Over 2 million US students attend year-round schedules in around 3,000 schools in 46 states as of 2007” (Lynch). As the population of big cities in the U.S. begins to rise, the schools also needed a way to prevent congestion. “Schools in fast growing areas t...

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...st HuffingtonPost.com, 20 March 2014. Web. 2 April 2014.

Norton, John. “Five Schools to Move to Year-Round Calendar: East Side Principals Hope Change Will Improve Test Scores.” The Pueblo Chieftain 20 May 2010. Print.

Patall, Erika A., Harris Cooper, Ashley Batts Allen. “Extending the School Day or School Year: A Systematic Review of Research (1985-2009).” Review of Educational Research 80. 3(2010):401-436. Print

Scholastic Staff. “The Pros and Cons of Year-Round Schools.” Scholastic Scholastic.com, Web. 2 April 2014 http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/choosing-schools-programs/pros-and-cons-year-round-schools

Scullard, Gabrielle. “All Day, Every Day: The Pros and Cons of Year-Round School.” The Prospect TheProspect.net, 11 December 2013. Web. 7 April 2014. http://www.theprospect.net/all-day-every-day-the-pros-and-cons-of-year-round-schools-12111

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