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Year Round Schooling
For the most part most public schools these days attend school for 9 months. With the allowed breaks and holidays it averages out to be about 180 days out of the 365 in a given year. Children attend school for approximately half of the year. This schedule is enough to get an average child in and out of school in 13 years. When the phrase/words year round schooling are brought to someone’s attention the problem people usually see is that they think there child is in school for a full year. Actually, year round schooling is more of an organizational change in the schools system rather than a full extension of their learning. Lately there has been debating going on whether children should attend school for half of the year or if children should attend school for a full year. The benefits and downfalls of year round schooling are both very important in deciding whether or not school systems should change or simply just stick to the traditional way of teaching.
Year round schooling has been looked at as a positive change in a school curriculum for an array of different reasons. An important reason that has been brought up is the idea of year round schooling in the form of Multi-track year round schooling. This is when the school is broken up into about four different sections. This includes the students and staff members. These groups are called tracks. While one track is in school the other is usually on a break. This helps put a halt on over crowding. “Implementing a four-track system increases the capacity of a school by 33 percent” (M. McCabe). This is important because school systems will be allowed to cut back there spending money on building larger schools and they can then focus on gett...
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...uth. Things such as this cannot be done as easily in a short break.
The idea of year-round school is becoming a more and more controversial issue with everyday that passes. The benefits and downfalls are all very powerful and each hold strong points. It doesn’t seem that the debate is going to end soon, but with more and more experiments going on with the educational systems, maybe we’ll have a concrete answer soon on which form of the school year is better. But for now the choice is up to you—do you agree with or oppose to the issue of year-round schooling?
Bibliography
McCabe, M. (2004, Jan 27). Year-round schooling. Retrieved March 23, 2004, from www.edweek.com/context/topics/issuespage.cfm?id=109#fta#fta.
"Year-Round School." Scholastic Action 6 May 2002: 4.
McGlynn, Ann. "Districts that School Year-Round." School Administrator Mar. 2002: 34.
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.
Have you ever began a book only to find that after a few chapters into it a more important task comes up that must be given attention to and you don’t make it back to the book for some time. The ensuing matter has been taken care of and now it is time to finish that novel that thought was so great you just couldn’t put it down but, where did you exactly leave off and what character are doing what now? Often it is required to skim a few previous chapters to get a sense of what is going on to give the full focus to the new events taking place. As the summer ends, the leaves begin to change and our school children return to the classroom to begin this very similar task. Instead of rereading a few pages, teachers must review with every student were they are scholastically and every student is very different. Almost a month into the new school year last year’s material is covered and reviewed. Our traditional school calendar may be to blame for our failing schools systems. Can schools attending year round with smaller gaps of time off from learning benefit the student learners? Better retention of material, higher graduation with college enrollment increases and safer downtime alternatives are a few reasons why the traditional education plan should be done away with.
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 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)
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:
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.
When that particular group returns from vacation, another track will go on vacation leaving the other tracks in school and so on. A calendar such as this is implemented in response to overcrowded schools, and allows for more students to attend one school. It has also been suggested that single-track YRS serves well as a transition to multi-track YRS (Shields & Oberg, 2000; Stenvall, 2003; Thomas, 1973). Either way both schedules offer more efficient use of school facilities, which is definitely a positive.
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.
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 are 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. Single track YRE -.. Single-track YRE is simply the reorganization of vacation time; summer break is broken up and distributed to make a more continuous period of instruction. All students and teachers follow the same schedule, and the rescheduled vacation is integrated throughout the school year into periods called intersessions. Intersessions are “usually utilized as instructional time for remediation and enrichment” with both single and multi-track calendars.
Would you consider going to a school where you learn year-round? Maybe this would be your ideal school, but, when would you get to have some time to go to summer camp, or get a summer job, or play a sport with games during the day? Schools with the traditional schedule may actually be a better choice, and not just because kids love summer break. Schools should have a traditional school year schedule instead of a year round schedule because there isn’t a significant difference between the students’ performance, and year round schedules make planning family vacations hard, make the teachers’ job more difficult, and are more expensive. Also, having a summer break allows kids to participate in activities that they would not be able to do on a year round schedule due to the shorter breaks.
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.
Year round schooling sounds rigorous, but in fact it is just a change in schedule. The traditional school year was made with farming families in mind when the families needed their children to help with the crops in the summer. That is why the traditional school year has a three month period where kids are not in school over the summer. In today’s modern world, that does not make any sense because now a days, big huge machines take care of the farms and crops. Also, our economy does not depend on the crops and farms like it did back in the 20th century. The year round school year would still require the same amount of school days as the traditional school year, which is 180 days in the classroom. But instead of a prolonged summer break, it would have a 45-15 plan. 45 days in school and 15 days out of it, which translates to nine weeks in school and three weeks off. The breaks would include three weeks off in fall, winter, spring, and summer. These breaks would be in nine week intervals.
Shortly, we became more industrialized and had more advanced technology which made the summer vacation that was so crucial to the survival of the family now purposeless. With these long summer breaks, it can affect a child’s learning in so many ways. According to the benefits of year-round education article,”As of the 2006-2007 school year, nearly 2,800 U.S. schools were classified as year round.” One essential problem with long summer breaks is lack of retention of learned material and can lead to the student not being able to make progress with their learning in the next school year. In year-round schools, kids don’t waste time on review as opposed to traditional schools who take about three weeks reviewing the information they learned in the
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.
Should school be year round? Well, I say yes because our young people will get done with High School faster. And if school was year round, students will not have a chance to get in a lot of trouble and they will not be able to join a gang or have time to hang on a block because they will not have a long summer break. Somebody needs to bring this problem to the school board to see if they will make the change to save many students’ lives by keeping them off the streets and keeping them in school all year long. If the children were in school longer, they will most likely turn out better, but it’s up to the people of communities to push kids through school. I believe parents need to stand up for their kids’ rights to help them have a better future by helping to make school last all year.