Year Round School Research Paper

Year-Round schooling

“Children hate summer vacation, they just love school so much,” said no one ever. Summer vacations are notorious for a time to relax, unwind, and have fun. Children look forward to no school and playing outside. “Currently the summer holiday is viewed by many Americans as the backbone of our country’s school system” (Pedersen, n.d.). Having no school and doing whatever a child desires may sound good, but in the course of summer vacation, it effects their memory. The regular school year calendar disturbs children’s learning ability (Ballinger, 2008). Students lose 2.6 months of lessons over the summer (Bennecke, 2012).Schools ought to change their school year because it would benefit the children and teachers. The regular

Summer breaks are way too long and children forget a lot of information throughout the summer break. A lot of that valuable time teachers spent is lost in only a few months. Not only is the teachers time lost but also the child’s, during the fall teachers spend time reviewing from the previous year (Nair, n.d.). Educationalists noted that during a modified or year-long school year students are expected to forget less the information they acquired because they experience not as many interruptions. Children may not experience loss of knowledge with a year-long school year. The year-long school calendar in fact, has the same amount of school days than a regular school calendar, but the breaks are spread out throughout the year. Therefore, when the breaks are spread out the children and teachers experience less burnout from school. These breaks are called intercessions (Ballinger, 2008). Kids have 4-6 weeks off of school during the summer instead of 2-3 months and the findings are positive (Bennecke, 2010). There are three different options for a year-long school calendar. The first option is a 45-15 calendar, 45 days of instruction followed by 15 days of vacation/ intercession. The second option is the 60-20 calendar, 60 days in school followed by 20 days’ vacation/ intercession. Finally, the third option is the 45-10 calendar, 45 days of instruction followed by 10 days of vacation/ intersession

Countries all around us are receiving better test scores. Out of 22 countries we were ranked 19th in math and science. While 9th graders were behind in 27 countries for a math and science test. Not only are we behind in math and science we are also behind in reading levels. Two thirds of the U.S. fourth grade read below grade level. 40% of American 10 year olds cannot pass a basic reading test. We are also lagging behind in the professional viewpoint. In 2010 90% of all Ph.D. physical scientists and engineers in the world will be Asian living in Asia. Our nation is severely lacking behind and obviously the system we are currently using is not working (Hodges, 2010). Our current system is not working, American schools are in session for 180 days per year, while the world’s average school year is 200 days per year. American schools are lacking behind in 10 percent fewer school hours per year than students in other nations. In Finland, students are scoring near the top in international comparisons of achievement, actually spends 600 hours in school while American schools are spending around 800 hours in school (Bickford, 2009). What is wrong with our school system? Why can’t Americans excel in national evaluation reports when we spend more hours in school than the top ranking countries? Sindhu Nair (n.d.) stated that the idea of the year round school calendar didn’t come really popular until the