The Board of Education wants to add hours to the school schedule. The problem proposed is American student’ test scores are falling behind counties in Europe and Asia. To see how more time in school will affect students and test scores, schools in Iowa, North Carolina, and California have increased the time some students spend in class. Some parents and faculty members think extending the school year into the summer could help American students compete academically with other countries, but the school year should not be extended because summer is needed for academic respite, the extension will cost millions, and there is not enough evidence to say that it can boost academic achievement.
Ideally, extending the school schedule into the summer equals more learning. Because students are not dedicated to their studies, often they do not retain the information they learned over the school year during summer vacation. According to the article “Will Longer School Year Help or Hurt US Students” Smyth notes that, “Proponents argue that too much knowledge is lost while American kids wile away the summer months apart from their lessons” (Smyth). Smyth argues that students clearly do not retain their lessons over the period of their summer break. However, opponents of the extension of the school schedule say, “summer breaks are needed to provide an academic respite for students’ overwrought minds, and to provide time with family and the flexibility to travel and study favorite subjects in more depth” (Smyth). Smyth’s observation not only protests taking summer away from families but also describes summer as a time needed to rest student’s minds.
Logically an extension to the school schedule would provide the schools with more federal money. Th...
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... with Europe and Asia, the American Board of Education placed project schools around our nation to examine the effect of extended school hours. Extra hours, however, will not contribute to increasing test scores as well as other factors can. Instead, the government should provide our schools with more qualified teachers. Without professional teachers, extending the hours in class cannot possibly help US students.
Works Cited
"Schools Give Extended Class Time a Longer Look." Gannett News Service. 18 Sept. 2006: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
Smyth, Julie Carr. "Will Longer School Year Help or Hurt US Students?" Commercial Appeal. 14 Jan. 2013: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
Viadero, Debra. “Mass Initiative: Does More Time Equal More Learning?.” Education Week 27.15. 12 Dec. 2007: 10-11. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
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.
...on what they have learned by attending more days in school but not getting burned out on a traditional nine month school schedule. A few short breaks allows the mind to rest but not forget everything they have worked hard to achieve educational greatness. American society will achieve great things if the education system takes a step in all schools operating on a year round calendar.
The Disadvantages of Year-Round Schools. (2012, April 1). Dr. Matthew Lynch. Retrieved April 23, 2014, from http://www.drmattlynch.com/1/post/2012/04/-the-disadvantages-of-year-round-schools.html#.U1fVFfldVqV
The founders of the American public school system had a dream that all of America’s youth would have the opportunity to attend school in the best way possible for the times. The educational leaders of today must take up the same mission of providing the best school system imaginable for our modern era. Yearlong education is the solution to many problems that plague teachers, students, and school budgets.
Educational debates are a widespread in today’s society. Currently, one of the largest debates in education is the debate of whether schools should stay with the traditional school calendar or change to a year-round calendar. The main focus of the debate is centered around the idea that using the year-round calendar will provide kids with a more consistent learning schedule, which in turn creates better grades within the school and cuts back on summer learning loss. Year-round calendar and traditional calendar are far different. Traditional school calendar provides ten weeks of summer break and year-round calendar provides a shorter summer break but more frequent breaks throughout the year. The frequent breaks provide families the opportunity to choose what school year would be the best fit for their family and also helps keep children motivated in school. With the information given many believe the year-round calendar will provide a better education by preventing summer learning loss, create a better calendar to fit certain lifestyles, and promote more motivation in school.
"Summer school? Should schools be in session year-round?" Know Your World Extra 18 Apr. 2008. General OneFile. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
Thesis: Most students enjoy summer vacation, but some educators feel that summer break is too long and the students do not retain information as easily when they return in the fall. I personally disagree with summer vacation to be shortened.
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.
Back in the early ages, the idea of year-round school would be thought as completely insane, because the farming families depended on their children to be home during harvest time. Now in modern times, the term year-round school is becoming more and more common in the United States of America. Slowly the schools are changing the way they teach, from giving the students a long three month break to a shorter one month break during the summer. The change of America’s high schools to the year-round schedule benefits both the schools and the students because they still get breaks throughout the school year, the children are less likely to forget information, the children would have more time with the teachers to learn, and the parents would not have to pay for childcare during the long summer break.
For years, parents and educators have debated the advantages and disadvantages of the traditional school calendar, which has long summer vacations for all students.The longer you are away from school, the more you lose what you learned in the previous year. Studies have shown that children who know English as a second language benefit the most from year-round education because during the long summer break, they may not hear English for several months. Long summer breaks is a problem for traditional schools and the solution is to substitute traditional schools for year-round schools.
When people are asked about if school days or years should be longer or shorter, it will be a split between the two. Kids are more likely to say yes to shorter school to spend more time with friends, family, and time to get a better at a certain skill, while parents say their kids should be in school longer to establish their knowledge. Everyone’s focus is pushed towards making school days and school years longer, but why longer school years and days could be bad are never analyzed, such as the budget of a school. School years should be shorter to accommodate us because the budget is not big enough, the time is wasted and we don’t become substantially smarter because of it.
...students academic performance in school actually improved and received higher grades in class. This is thought to be because of the extended class period that allows students to ask questions and teachers to teach without rush. Overall four-day school week brought advantages to the schools that had began the new schedule.
The second reason is kids have after school activities like soccer, cheer, gymnastics, basketball etc. If they extend the school day the kids won’t get to do the activities. It affects with their after school life. Kids need to
If we made the school day longer, it will make students do less. “Extended the school day could also potentially harm student motivation and stamina” (https://classroom.synonym.com/negative-effects-extending-school-Days-15199.html). This shows that if the school day gets longer, students will want to be there less and will make them not want to learn. Another example is that as the day continues, students are less engaged and don’t listen as much. In the article “10 longer School Days Pros and Cons” by Vittana, it says that as the day continues, students get more worn-out which can cause mood swings and make it harder for children to listen and remember the information that they’re told. This means that the later in the day it gets, the less students remember and retain the information that they’re taught. A final example is that if the day gets too long, if can have a negative effect on everyone, not just the students. “A school day that’s too long often leads to frustration, tiredness and disappointment for everyone involved”
In “Extending the School Day or School Year: A Systematic Review of Research” authors Erika Patall, Harris Cooper and Ashley Batts Allen argue reasons why the school year should be longer. The amount of time spent in school directly effects how well students do in school. According to the authors study “Adding time to the school year or school day is at the top of the list of measures that have been hypothesized to improve achievement among U.S. Students”(401). The main reason why the authors believe that the school year should be extended is because there are now more things being taught to students and the extra time is needed in order to academically succeed. The authors state that years ago school years and days were both shorter because children us...