Posted on 09/08/2004 12:58:27 PM PDT by madprof98
The lazy days of summer may hurt children who struggle in school the rest of the time.
Most Georgia families aren't growing corn in the back yard and don't have an okra crop waiting to be picked. So why are schools still clinging to a calendar designed for farm families who needed their children home during the summer to work in the fields?
Today's nine-month school calendar is a remnant of the old agricultural economy. The family farms disappeared, but the agrarian-based calendar lingers, forcing parents to scramble to occupy their kids for 11 weeks of the summer.
Under a banner of saving summer and helping the tourism industry, state Reps. Mark Burkhalter (R-Alpharetta) and Joe Wilkinson (R-Sandy Springs) joined a group of parents last week to push for a later start to the school year. They prefer the longer, lazier summers of old, when the school break would end after Labor Day and students would resume classes today.
Given the present-day working families and single-parent households, that nostalgia seems out of step. If any tweaking is done to school calendars, systems should look at year-round schedules that better fit the realities of the modern American family and today's students.
At the same time, more Georgia schools should also consider going beyond the standard six hours a day of classes and the 180 days a year of school. While neither a longer year nor a longer day guarantees academic success, research does suggest that at-risk students benefit from more time on task.
Although the 3,000-plus year-round schools in this country follow varied schedules, a lot of them opt for a six-week abbreviated summer and shorter breaks throughout the rest of the year. Combined, year-round schools serve 2.3 million students, according to the National Association for Year-Round Education.
The traditional calendar is often preferred by parents who have the time and money to create enriching summers for their children, enrolling them in space camps and escorting them to museums. But parents with fewer resources are often forced to leave their kids home alone in front of the television.
"In modern American families, the large majority of kids go home to single families or households where both parents work outside the home, so the traditional notion of summer vacation doesn't really map onto their experience," says Harris Cooper, a Duke University professor who leads the national research on year-round schools.
Cooper's research is cited both by people in favor of and opposed to year-round schools. That's because he's found only a slight improvement in academics from the change, except among low-income and struggling students. For them, Cooper says the academic gains appear more significant.
Year-round schools should be decided on a system-by-system basis. Affluent suburban districts --- with high student achievement --- should be perfectly free to keep or even lengthen their summer breaks, if that's what parents prefer.
Year-round schools seem an ideal fit for districts with large numbers of children who don't speak English and go home to families where they don't have opportunities to practice their English during the summer. The schedule may also help impoverished rural counties where the summer camp pickings are few, and children lack meaningful activities.
Teachers in those low-income communities can testify to Cooper's finding that students on average lose one month of learning over the summer break. Students in year-round schools lose only about half that much, says Cooper.
In communities that have adopted year-round schools, parents and teachers often overcome their initial misgivings and become fans, says Cooper. "Teachers recognize that they are not being asked to teach more and that the multiple shorter breaks may assist in recharging their own batteries and help keep their kids on task and allow them to give their kids timely remediation."
Not surprisingly, the strongest opposition to year-round schools comes from the tourism industries, which benefit from a protracted summer. The best interests of children have to determine the school calendar, not the best interests of amusement parks.
That damn moonbat disagrees with just about every facet of normalcy in society. Yeesh.
We tried "year-round school" in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and it was a disaster. Kids were off for four week stretches, twice a year. Everybody hated it, so the practice was ditched.
I think we should have school choice and year-round school. Unless and until we get school choice (real choice meaning religious schools are included) then I am for as little public school time as possible. As long as the kids are spending time with liberals, it's a bad thing. But that doesn't mean I think kids shouldn't be studying year-round. I do. My child has always done it.
We both work (yes, I am a horrible working mother who sent her kids to YMCA summer camp), so what I discovered is, you still have to send them to day camp if you work...wither for the full summer, or for three weeks at a time each quarter. There are no savings in having them have the breaks every couple of months.
wither=whether
Year around socialist training camp. Wonderful!
This makes sense. With a nine month school calendar it currently takes teachers up until right after Halloween to undo what the kids learned from their three months away from school.
Teachers get full-time pay for part-time work and kids get into a lot of trouble during those idle summer months. I do not see them as necessary.
it's another attempt at turning schools into 24/7 daycare facilities. Would you have wanted to lose your summer vacations when you were in school?
leave the kids alone. if they didn't spend so much time in social conditioning, they could teach the kids plenty. Heck my father's generation had to learn far more and worse stuff than I ever did in the same time. time isn't the issue - what they do with it is.
leave summer vacation alone.
That's what worries me. I'm for it only if we can be sure it doesn't become that.
I think they would have to air-condition the schools if this idea is to take off. If not, it would be a terrific boost for home-schooling.
It is actually a good idea. The first six weeks in most schools are used to get kids bak up to where they were before the break. I read of a district that instead of taking one 3 month break took three one month breaks. Thanksgiving to Christmas, March, and August off.
I am in the North East...our school started on Sept. 1st...I along with many other families in our very small private (about 200 students K5 through 12) Christian school did not send our children before the Labor Day holiday because of previous vacation plans.
I also spoke with the principle and told him that our family time with our children is a precious thing...so I will NEVER send my children back to school before Labor Day. With the school being small and private, the parents have more say in the everyday happenings.
This new "year round" schooling is just some more NEA, liberal, European, crap. Trying to once again wrestle children away from parents, because the govenment knows best.
March = April
Dayton Public Schools are trying it in Ohio without air conditioning. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. On top of that they complain because kids are too fat and don't exercise. Then why do they want to keep the kids in a hot building sitting on their bottoms during the best outdoor play weather. Idiots!!!!
I agree.Why should everyone have to jump because of poor performers a.k.a.underacheivers,who will not study, whose conduct penalizes good students,whose parents pay little scool tax and do not discipline them or help with their studies.
Public schools suck, kids need two months at home to recover.
SCHOOL TAX
My wife is Japanese; they have year round/6 days/week schooling mandatory only till the 9th grade. In my discussions with other Japanese I have found no glaring weakness in my education after age 20. Prior to 20, there was some difference with the Japanese having the advantage. I grant this lead, but feel it is mostly due to the cram schools (2-3 hrs/day after normal hours) that are almost a necessity to obtain college admissions.
Our children just went back on the 1st of sep (idiot plan if you ask me with Labor day just around the bend) and will get out in June. I grew up in Indiana started in mid/late august and got out in May.
I prefer the Indiana schedule - with the added work that my wife and I add during the summer. Lots of library trips, daily journal writing (In Japanese), lots of sports, and a lemonade stand 2-3 times/summer. They are keeping their minds and bodies active, focusing on key skills - reading, writing, arithmatic -,learning the value of a days work and treating others with proper manners.
My girls are 5 and 7.
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