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
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.
... Year-Round Schools. Ed. Adriane Ruggiero. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 May 2014.
adaptations need to be made back to the year-round school. If society has continuously adapted
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Students who are enrolled in a year-round school attend school for 180 days, the same number of days as students on a traditional calendar schedule. A year-round school calendar is formulated into nine-week quarters. Each quarter is separated by a three-week break called an intersession. There is still a summer vacation , but at four or five weeks, it is less than half that of a traditional school summer break, and does not provide enough time for students to completely forget what they learned all year. This solution actually reduces the problem. This school system has been proven to have positive effects on student achievement, especially for students with learning disabilities. The goal of year-round schooling is to create continuous or extended learning by adding hours to the days and days to the year. According to the benefits of year round education article, “Fifty years ago, most American households were supported by a working father, while mothers were expected to stay at home. However, the women’s movement of the 1970’s combined with the rise in divorce rate and the high cost of living, lead to a decline of stay at home mothers.”First, The shorter vacations implemented by year-round education and intersession are helpful to today’s working parents because it is a less expensive alternative to daycare or summer camps. Also, parents and teachers can schedule vacations
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:
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.
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
Day or School Year: A Systematic Review of Research." Sage 80.3 (2010): 401- 36. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.