Will longer school year help or hurt U.S. students?
Did your kids moan that winter break was way too short as you got them ready for the first day back in school? They might get their wish of more holiday time off under proposals catching on around the country to lengthen the school year.
But there's a catch: a much shorter summer vacation.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a chief proponent of the longer school year, says American students have fallen behind the world academically.
"Whether educators have more time to enrich instruction or students have more time to learn how to play an instrument and write computer code, adding meaningful in-school hours is a critical investment that better prepares children to be successful in the 21st century," he said in December when five states announced they would add at least 300 hours to the academic calendar in some schools beginning this year.
The three-year pilot project will affect about 20,000 students in 40 schools in Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee.
Proponents argue that too much knowledge is lost while American kids wile away the summer months apart from their lessons. The National Summer Learning Association cites decades of research that shows students' test scores are higher in the same subjects at the beginning of the summer than at the end.
"The research is very clear about that," said Charles Ballinger, executive director emeritus of the National Association for Year-Round School in San Diego. "The only ones who don't lose are the upper 10 to 15 percent of the student body. Those tend to be gifted, college-bound, they're natural learners who will learn wherever they are."
Supporters also say a longer school year would give poor children more access to school-provided healthy meals.
Yet the movement has plenty of detractors - so many that Ballinger sometimes feels like the Grinch trying to steal Christmas.
"I had a parent at one meeting say, 'I want my child to lie on his back in the grass watching the clouds in the sky during the day and the moon and stars at night,'" Ballinger recalled. "I thought, 'Oh, my. Most kids do that for two, three, maybe four days, then say, 'What's next?''"
But opponents aren't simply dreamy romantics.
Besides the outdoor opportunities for pent up youngsters, they say families already are beholden to the school calendar for three seasons out of four. Summer breaks, they say, 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. They note that advocates of year-round school cannot point to any evidence that it brings appreciable academic benefits.
"I do believe that if children have not mastered a subject that, within a week, personally, I see a slide in my own child," said Tina Bruno, executive director of the Coalition for a Traditional School Calendar. "That's where the idea of parental involvement and parental responsibility in education comes in, because our children cannot and should not be in school seven days a week, 365 days a year."
Bruno is part of a "Save Our Summers" alliance of parents, grandparents, educational professionals and some summer-time recreation providers fighting year-round school. Local chapters carry names such as Georgians Need Summers, Texans for a Traditional School Year and Save Alabama Summers.
Camps, hoteliers and other summer-specific industries raise red flags about the potential economic effect.
The debate has divided parents and educators.
School days shorter than work days and summer breaks that extend to as many as 12 weeks in some areas run up against increasing political pressure from working households - 30 percent of which are headed by women. These families must fill the gaps with afterschool programs, day care, babysitters and camps.
"Particularly where there are single parents or where both parents are working, they prefer to provide care for three weeks at a time rather than three months at a time," Ballinger said.
The National Center on Time & Learning has estimated that about 1,000 districts have adopted longer school days or years.
Some places that have tried the year-round calendar, including Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and parts of California, have returned to the traditional approach. Strapped budgets and parental dissatisfaction were among reasons.
School years are extended based on three basic models:
• Stretching the traditional 180 days of school across the whole calendar year by lengthening spring and winter breaks and shortening the one in the summer.
• Adding 20 to 30 actual days of instruction to the 180-day calendar.
• Dividing students and staff into groups, typically four, and rotating three through at a time, with one on vacation, throughout the calendar year.
At the heart of the debate is nothing less than the ability of America's workforce to compete globally.
The U.S. remains in the top dozen or so countries in all tested subjects. But even where U.S. student scores have improved, many other nations have improved much faster, leaving American students far behind peers in Asia and Europe.
Still, data are far from clear that more hours behind a desk can help.
A Center for Public Education review found that students in India and China - countries Duncan has pointed to as giving children more classroom time than the U.S. - don't actually spend more time in school than American kids, when disparate data are converted to apples-to-apples comparisons.
The center, an initiative of the National School Boards Association, found 42 U.S. states require more than 800 instructional hours a year for their youngest students, and that's more than India does.
Opponents of extended school point out that states such as Minnesota and Massachusetts steadily shine on standardized achievement tests while preserving their summer break with a post-Labor Day school start.
"It makes sense that more time is going to equate to more learning, but then you have to equate that to more professional development for teachers - will that get more bang for the buck?" said Patte Barth, the center's director. "I look at it, and teachers and instruction are still the most important factor more so than time."
The center's study also found that some nations that outperform the U.S. academically, such as Finland, require less school.
Many schools are experimenting with the less controversial, less costly interim step of lengthening the school day instead of adding days to the school year.
Chicago's public schools extended the school day from 5 hours and 45 minutes to 7 hours last year after a heated offensive by unionized teachers and some parents. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former chief of staff to Duncan's boss, President Barack Obama, initially pushed an even longer school day - a major sticking point in this year's seven-day teachers' strike. He and other proponents argued that having the shortest school day among the nation's 50 largest districts and one of the shortest school years had put Chicago's children at a competitive disadvantage.
Wendy Katten, executive director of Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, said opponents held back a push for a 7.5-hour school day, and got an extra staff person assigned to each school to handle the additional hour and 15 minutes of school time.
In San Diego, year-round school has been a reality since the 1970s.
District spokesman Jack Brandais said the concept was initially intended to relieve crowding, not improve performance test scores. The student body and staff were divided into four groups, with three attending school at any given time.
Through decades of fine-tuning, Brandais said the district now runs both traditional and year-round tracks simultaneously.
A 2007 study by Ohio State University sociologist Paul von Hippel found virtually no difference in the academic gains of students who followed a traditional nine-month school calendar and those educated the same number of days spread across the entire year.
Amid budget cuts and teacher layoffs, San Diego has cut five instructional days from both year-round and traditional schedules since last year.
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But there's a catch: a much shorter summer vacation.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a chief proponent of the longer school year, says American students have fallen behind the world academically.
"Whether educators have more time to enrich instruction or students have more time to learn how to play an instrument and write computer code, adding meaningful in-school hours is a critical investment that better prepares children to be successful in the 21st century," he said in December when five states announced they would add at least 300 hours to the academic calendar in some schools beginning this year.
The three-year pilot project will affect about 20,000 students in 40 schools in Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee.
Proponents argue that too much knowledge is lost while American kids wile away the summer months apart from their lessons. The National Summer Learning Association cites decades of research that shows students' test scores are higher in the same subjects at the beginning of the summer than at the end.
"The research is very clear about that," said Charles Ballinger, executive director emeritus of the National Association for Year-Round School in San Diego. "The only ones who don't lose are the upper 10 to 15 percent of the student body. Those tend to be gifted, college-bound, they're natural learners who will learn wherever they are."
Supporters also say a longer school year would give poor children more access to school-provided healthy meals.
Yet the movement has plenty of detractors - so many that Ballinger sometimes feels like the Grinch trying to steal Christmas.
"I had a parent at one meeting say, 'I want my child to lie on his back in the grass watching the clouds in the sky during the day and the moon and stars at night,'" Ballinger recalled. "I thought, 'Oh, my. Most kids do that for two, three, maybe four days, then say, 'What's next?''"
But opponents aren't simply dreamy romantics.
Besides the outdoor opportunities for pent up youngsters, they say families already are beholden to the school calendar for three seasons out of four. Summer breaks, they say, 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. They note that advocates of year-round school cannot point to any evidence that it brings appreciable academic benefits.
"I do believe that if children have not mastered a subject that, within a week, personally, I see a slide in my own child," said Tina Bruno, executive director of the Coalition for a Traditional School Calendar. "That's where the idea of parental involvement and parental responsibility in education comes in, because our children cannot and should not be in school seven days a week, 365 days a year."
Bruno is part of a "Save Our Summers" alliance of parents, grandparents, educational professionals and some summer-time recreation providers fighting year-round school. Local chapters carry names such as Georgians Need Summers, Texans for a Traditional School Year and Save Alabama Summers.
Camps, hoteliers and other summer-specific industries raise red flags about the potential economic effect.
The debate has divided parents and educators.
School days shorter than work days and summer breaks that extend to as many as 12 weeks in some areas run up against increasing political pressure from working households - 30 percent of which are headed by women. These families must fill the gaps with afterschool programs, day care, babysitters and camps.
"Particularly where there are single parents or where both parents are working, they prefer to provide care for three weeks at a time rather than three months at a time," Ballinger said.
The National Center on Time & Learning has estimated that about 1,000 districts have adopted longer school days or years.
Some places that have tried the year-round calendar, including Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and parts of California, have returned to the traditional approach. Strapped budgets and parental dissatisfaction were among reasons.
School years are extended based on three basic models:
• Stretching the traditional 180 days of school across the whole calendar year by lengthening spring and winter breaks and shortening the one in the summer.
• Adding 20 to 30 actual days of instruction to the 180-day calendar.
• Dividing students and staff into groups, typically four, and rotating three through at a time, with one on vacation, throughout the calendar year.
At the heart of the debate is nothing less than the ability of America's workforce to compete globally.
The U.S. remains in the top dozen or so countries in all tested subjects. But even where U.S. student scores have improved, many other nations have improved much faster, leaving American students far behind peers in Asia and Europe.
Still, data are far from clear that more hours behind a desk can help.
A Center for Public Education review found that students in India and China - countries Duncan has pointed to as giving children more classroom time than the U.S. - don't actually spend more time in school than American kids, when disparate data are converted to apples-to-apples comparisons.
The center, an initiative of the National School Boards Association, found 42 U.S. states require more than 800 instructional hours a year for their youngest students, and that's more than India does.
Opponents of extended school point out that states such as Minnesota and Massachusetts steadily shine on standardized achievement tests while preserving their summer break with a post-Labor Day school start.
"It makes sense that more time is going to equate to more learning, but then you have to equate that to more professional development for teachers - will that get more bang for the buck?" said Patte Barth, the center's director. "I look at it, and teachers and instruction are still the most important factor more so than time."
The center's study also found that some nations that outperform the U.S. academically, such as Finland, require less school.
Many schools are experimenting with the less controversial, less costly interim step of lengthening the school day instead of adding days to the school year.
Chicago's public schools extended the school day from 5 hours and 45 minutes to 7 hours last year after a heated offensive by unionized teachers and some parents. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former chief of staff to Duncan's boss, President Barack Obama, initially pushed an even longer school day - a major sticking point in this year's seven-day teachers' strike. He and other proponents argued that having the shortest school day among the nation's 50 largest districts and one of the shortest school years had put Chicago's children at a competitive disadvantage.
Wendy Katten, executive director of Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education, said opponents held back a push for a 7.5-hour school day, and got an extra staff person assigned to each school to handle the additional hour and 15 minutes of school time.
In San Diego, year-round school has been a reality since the 1970s.
District spokesman Jack Brandais said the concept was initially intended to relieve crowding, not improve performance test scores. The student body and staff were divided into four groups, with three attending school at any given time.
Through decades of fine-tuning, Brandais said the district now runs both traditional and year-round tracks simultaneously.
A 2007 study by Ohio State University sociologist Paul von Hippel found virtually no difference in the academic gains of students who followed a traditional nine-month school calendar and those educated the same number of days spread across the entire year.
Amid budget cuts and teacher layoffs, San Diego has cut five instructional days from both year-round and traditional schedules since last year.
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My son went through school here in Gresham when we had year-round school and it was great. The breaks were just long enough to prevent from boredom setting in (as with all summer off), it was better for the family as a whole in planning vacations and day trips...just when school became "too much", another short break came along. Kids were sent home with a sheet showing the track they were on, and we kept it on the fridge for quick checks on when the next break came. Bring it back!
I am one for extending the school day to make it more of a work day type schedule, but I don't see how year-round school would help. I am sorry but extending the school year will not make kids perform better academically when you have horrible teachers in the schools. Teachers are more worried about student evaluations and appearance than teaching. To be a stickler of a teacher who gives out lots of homework and actually pushes their kids is unheard of these days.
With a picture of Sir Rahm, how could I possibly disagree?
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We need to:
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1. Put discipline back in schools.
2. Take the "progressive" indoctrination out of schools. Singing songs about our great leader is NOT learning.
3. Fire teachers who can't or won't perform.
4. Stop wasting time testing and preparing for testing for each new ill-conceived political program.
5. If the kid isn't ready for next year, hold him/her back. See #3.
6. Put play time back.
7. Put sports back.
8. put arts and music back.
9 Stop trying to pretend the world is fair, doesn't keep score, is free of bullies or that society owes you anything..
10. Teach kids that failure IS their fault but they have the power to fix it next time.
11. Stop catering to the lowest common denominator. If your kid can't keep up or is a distraction in the classroom, we could care less that he/she tested as a genius. He/she belongs somewhere else.
12. If you haven't learned English in two years, you're not going to.
13. Shorten the school day. Are they really learning anything after 7 hours?
14. Year-round school - stagger vacations by district. What little harvesting left in this country is done by machines and immigrants.
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While I'm at it, do we really need to set all the clocks back just for school-kids? If they need a later start time, start them later.
 @ConspiratorÂ
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Wow, not real nice ways of saying things but I agree 100%.
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There is no need if a child has difficulty to keep them with the same cohort. Let them get into one that moves at their speed, or is at their level. It's not punishment, it's being realistic.
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I like how you put play, arts and sports back in. Sport gets kids moving. Moving kids means healthy kids, healthy kids can think better. Art and play breaks kids out of rigorous teaching and into independent thinking. independent thinking is learning. Nothing wrong with classroom time, it is needed (we need MORE), but independent thinking is needed as well. Unstructured play requires imagination. How many great inventions didn't?
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I don't have kids in school, Bu I think 7 hours in a day should be enough. Give teachers prep time, grading time. Teachers who can do prep are better prepared. That means better structured learning and thus better learning.
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And teaching to the test has to go. We have so many "standardized" tests (for the district, for the state for the feds, for funding, for curriculum standards etc) that teachers spend more time testing than teaching.
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And none of this means un-fun. Motivated instructors who know their audience can inspire learners at all ages. I guarantee any one here I could find a person somewhere who could teach you something you âhateâ in such a way as to engage and excite you. We need more of those
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Year arouns school is MUCH better for kids than the liong break we give them.
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The break serves no purpose anymore. It USED to when America was agrarian dominated and we were lucky to get 6 years of education. But anymore the system we have is antiquated.
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Kids don't need "a break". They are kids. If you let them play weekends then they play. It's not like school is work. If you think school is work, then you missed the basic tenant of education.
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Learning is living not work.
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Thus school should be fun and children should (at least for the most part), look forward to it. Like everything they may groan going back, but that's because of change, no one likes change.
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So take the change out. Make school year around and have kids in class more hours of the year.
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The proof is in the understanding. Those places (countries, counties or even individual schools) with children in the class more have more well educated children. And a smart child is a successful child.
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What do you have against your child's success?
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How about year round school for those kids you care so much about, Mr. Emmanuel? Oh, you don't have the city monies to do that? Why is that, Mr. Hypocrite Emmanuel? You just caved and gave your teachers a 15 percent raise over the next four years? Yup. He did. In a recession where teachers should be sending him thank you cards for having jobs - they went on strike and THUG LIKE MADE EMMANUEL CAVE to a raise the city could not and cannot afford.Â
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HOW ABOUT YEAR ROUND SCHOOL, MR. EMMANUEL? Â That's what the entire nation should be doing on behalf of our children - right now.Â
The Government can't leave anything alone! Kids need summer vacation. They will be grown-ups soon enough working every day.
 @Pointblank Summer vacation where the city tax payer will have to PAY EXTRA to have these kids be babysat - because no one expects to be actually TAKING CARE OF THEIR KIDS DURING THE SUMMER. So tell me again, Chicago hypocrite Mayor Emmanuel and parents - why don't you offer your kids YEAR ROUND SCHOOL?Â
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If it is all about what is BEST for the kids? And their education - why not, hypocrite progressives?Â
 @englishdaisy Were you talking to me or the Chicago Mayor?
Try this again when your meds kick in.
You can work with America's children all you want, but until you can educate the parents you don't have a chance.. education begins in the home, and until we get that message across we will have stupidity in America..
The schools have some to do with this, 80% comes from the home..
This is completely stupid in my opinion. Â I don't want my 2 kids having to go to school year round, my 12 year old looks forward to summer all year long, why try to add more time on? Â People need to be able to take vacations and kids need to be able to take time off of school and have some fun in the warm months. Â
 @Dee You realize you are the problem right ?
Whether it helps or not, will still depend upon parents being involved with their children's lives and being role models. Having good teachers is another part of the equation. Otherwise, those kids who skip school will continue to skip and those who don't do homework will continue to not do their homework, only for more days than before.Â
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Quality will trump quantity in something like this.
Better do something we are down to 175 days down here on S. Oregon
'Will longer school year help or hurt U.S. students?' Might help. Then maybe the school system would be able to graduate kids with something more than just an 8th grade reading comprehension level.
 @theobserver Quit telling the truth, damn-it!! These kids are our future and perhaps it is time to move to MT, or WY where learning is still fundamental in the schools...
Until such time as parents teach their children the importance of a good education, and make them stick with the school work, a longer school year is a waste of time and money.
Take away the electronic game consoles, cell phones and make sure the kids actually participate in the learning process.
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As mentioned so many times, other countries are way ahead of the U.S., mainly because their culture wants them to excell and learn.
It could be time to break the cycle of just letting kids go through school and graduate.
Perhaps time to set the goals higher.
 @Just Lookin You know what? You should be calling the shots instead of career politicians that cater to the neo-tards that continue to indoctrinate our kids and yes, they continue to work on my daughter by telling her how to think, feel, act and vote...
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IMHO, a longer school year won't accomplish much if students don't have a change in attitude about the seriousness of their education; so it's no wonder our country is behind some other countries; like, duh!  I also feel the whole school schedule was designed to necessitate the parentsâ work schedules (like farmers harvest times), rather than what was good for the education of students.  Maybe that needs to be addressed and updated with the times? Hmmmmm? :o)
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Few college students can write their term papers with proper grammar and punctuation or know when to use "then" rather than "than", etc.  SWITZERLAND claims to have one of the best education systems, where more individual tailor- made choices can be made. Link: http://www.about.ch/education/index.html
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After all, children might like to become electricians, plumbers, entrepreneurs or business persons, etc., so why not let them concentrate on those education or apprentice tracks?  Then theyâll make better use of their time and be better prepared for their futures.  Life is not all about just having âfunâ, not in todayâs world; âtoo much play and youâll payâ⦠in more ways than one!  Remember the old childrenâs story of the squirrel that gathered and hid nuts so heâd have something to eat during the winter season?  What happened to the other squirrels or forest animals that didnât; maybe some food for thought???  Hmmmmmm?????  :o) Â
WE OWE IT TO OUR CHILDREN TO BE BETTER ROLE MODELS AND ENCOURAGE MORE COMMITMENT TO OUR AND THEIR EDUCATION!  I'm a mom and I approve of this message. :o)
 @Jean Ashby Spot ON!!
 @Jean Ashby ~  I think Germany does much the same thing that Switzerland does... they have pretty much the same basic education for all the kids up to a certain level... then it kind of "splits off" into "academic" (or professional) pursuits, or "trade" pursuits, depending on the student's desires and abilities.   Â
I think school might be a lot more interesting (and therefore, effective) for many kids if we did something like that... Â "One size fits all" doesn't work for kids any better than it works for adults...
My 2 boys were seperated in opposite directions from center - by quite a distance.   Yet they were 'forced' through the same 'system'.   Neither got what he needed at school.  It frustrated me to no end. Â
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Today one is a manager (18 years with the same company) and the other has worked in an industry learning for 15 years, and now co-owns his business doing what he loves.   Both are "just good people" for which I am so thankful - for myself of course, but mostly for them.  They survived growing up, drive-bys, the temptation of drugs, 'less than desireable friends', unplanned parenthood, and the recession.
 @NorthernBlackBear ~ Well, it sounds to me as though your boys had something even more important than "system-schooling"; good parenting...  As a parent, you can only do so much for your kids, but if somehow, you instill some basic values in them, they'll probably be OK, even if they go through some rough patches along the way.  Â
"Just good people" is what we need many more of... I think you can be proud that you provided 2 more of them..! Â Â :-)
I am a teacher and not long ago the district sent out a survey asking parents about several issues, one being year round school. I was taken aback when most parents ( I think they said like 80+% of the surveys came back with parents stating that they did not want year round school. Isn't that interesting? For me, I don't think I have an opinion one way or the other. If they can show me the research that shows good gains, I am for it. I do however agree with most commenting that PARENTS are the key factors in a child's academic success.
I'm sure it will help some......... but  the single biggest factor in a childs sucess in school has to do with parent involvement, I see it helping the most  those who are already helping themselves i.e. parents already involved with their kids eduction.
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 @kramr Parental involvement is definitely a big factor when it comes to a child's success.Â
Problem is funding - how are we going to do this when we're having such funding issues that we're having to cut school days?
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Maybe in the meantime we could look at longer school days. You wouldn't be adding costs such as additional bus trips, additional cafeteria shifts, cooling down or warming up the school at the beginning of the day, etc. As such, you can add on hours to the school day at a much lower cost than adding days.Â
Real education starts at home where the desire to learn is built upon. Not at school having your head crammed with useless generalized information used to achieve only in testing. Â The advent of the Internet made most of our modern educational structure obsolete. Â Most notably at the K-6 grade levels.
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"It does a fool no good to spend money on an education, because he has no common sense."
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The ability to adapt and evolve becomes greatly limited without the desire to learn or are raised by those of the same ilk. Â Education doesn't differ by race for example, but look at those who follow a particular trend and what their popular culture is founded on.
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Longer school years won't help a broken system. Â You'd be amazed at what a home based education can offer these days with a few supplies and some internet access. Â
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From what I can tell from A,Erica's youth, year round school should be mandatory. And then a minimum of teo years national service: Peace Corp, Military, social services etc.
I have 3 kids and I think in Elementary school, they cram a lot in the curriculum while reducing lunch time, recess and PE, so the kids don't have enough time to get some exercise and clear their head.  By middle school, I think they still do a fairly good job on curriculum.  By high school I think they dumb it down in order to graduate as many kids as they can.  Two of my kids have felt bored and unchallenged in high school, even while taking the harder classes.  I think they need to raise the bar on curriculum so that high schoolers have the option to be more challenged, engaged and inspired to go to college and would also help the transition and their Freshman year a little easier.
 @kim11 I actually think they have dumbed down elementary and middle school too.Â
@kim11Â Â Â """""Â By high school I think they dumb it down in order to graduate as many kids as they can.""""
Sadly, that is all too true.
At my kids highschool there is a huge gap between the college prep classes and the normal curriculum. It seems very apparent that even at my kids time in high school the basic (minimum) classes offered have been adjusted to make the statistics look better at the expense of a better education.
They've fallen behind because education is not the focus in American schoolcare - instead, it's subsidized storage for the brats so the parents can work.
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Parents who place a premium on raising children of character who can think for themselves don't use schoolcare.
 @starshadow That's not at all judgmental and seems like it's based on well researched facts, and not the snobbery of your privilege.
I remember the principal at the school my Daughter went to discussing why they started 1 week earlier than most other schools. Â She said "Every week earlier we start can be measured on SAT scores". Â So yes, I think a shorter summer vacation is a good Idea.
In my district we have been on year round calendars with extended daily hours since the mid â80s. The kids/parents loved it. The rural elementary school down the street was a starting point for my family. It was directed entirely by parents in a team effort with a part time supervisor from the district.
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Each classroom required at least one;  but many times two parent volunteers per day were broken up into AM/PM shifts, with both shifts there during lunch breaks, sitting with talking and LISTENING to these âstudentsâ. These "teachers", both parent and staff were required to exhibit the highest of standards in dress and action, to be seen as role models who earned respect, admiration and trust of the students.   Todayâs teachers and staffâ¦..OMG!
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Learning was to become engrained as these childrenâs full responsibility with instructors presenting the topics, often veering from schedule because of heightened interests. THEY, the children were taught that it was their responsibility, their job as a critical lifetime foundational factor to learn. It taught them to be self reliant and to explore areas that interested them.
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Extra time was spent with those at risk or who had challenges with certain subjects, most often reading and math, mentoring them, offering praise and encouragement. Â All classes required hands on approaches to learning, verses a teacher droning on about a topic with no connection with students who today, in many cases are taught to memorize just long enough to pass a test.
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Students were to understand the âcostâ of their education, and how lucky they were to have parent(s) who worked hard to pay for their learning opportunity. Some working parents were paid by employers to be there as a show of their local support for education. (Tax write off) Other parents who could not help were still praised.
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The grounds were used as much as possible by the community which included a year round police substation, fire and rescue (volunteers) across the street. This caliber in "public" school is now rare. It produced far more scholarship students in future years than most.
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Unfortunately the unions, increased staff and teacher pay/benefits, State requirements for Principles, and restrictions on parental involvement have dumbed down the educational levels and childrenâs participation levels to an all time low. I am in favor of longer hours and year round study, with conditions.
And "Daylight Savings" time has been around since WW II and we have not gotten rid of it yet, though we no longer need it. So why anyone believes this s a good dea, msses the point.
The unions love this. It better than a gold mine.
@oczoxvii I'm sure. Teachers will love even more 80 hour weeks for the same salary.
@Ramsesthegreat  """"""""" Teachers will love even more 80 hour weeks for the same salary.""""""""
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I'm sure the unions (with teachers support) will be griping about every single extra day they have to work..... and speaking of work.
I can't help but laugh at the  80hrs a week comment when I can't count the number of teachers at my kids high school  that have already left by the time the schools buses are leaving at the end of the school day. I'd say is like maybe one in fifty that work more than 40hrs a week.
@kramr except that they bring their work home with them in the form of grading papers, setting lesson plans and that sort. Btw, that's all off the clock too.
Schools have turned into daycare centers. Until that changes and parents take school seriously no amount of additional time will fix things.Â
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You rarely see unsuccessful kids when the parents are engaged.Â
@2012 Hope and Change Â
 """"""""You rarely see unsuccessful kids when the parents are engaged.""""""
 Ding Ding Ding Ding.... we have a winner. That is exactly rightly, far and away the single biggest factor in the sucess of a childs eduction is parental involvement. An involved parent will still manage to get a decent education for their kids even out of a crappy school even  if it means the parents working with the child at night to make up for a poor school.
Conversely the single biggest factor in the failure of a childs eduction is the lack of parental involvement.
This is a good idea. Even a cursory check of countries that out preform us academically show a strong correlation between length of school year and performance.
If the original reason for having summer break for school kids was to have them help with the farming, I don't think we need to worry about that anymore. Our borders are open to as many migrant workers as choose to come up, and who don't mind doing farm labor.   Â
 @jpk Now that I didn not know, Perhaps this is the reason why Japan is yielding better students. Hmm Some students still "Farm" . and if you ask me Farming is on hell of a way to learn about Science, Sex, Genetics and Mechanics all rolled in to one.
 @jpk Oh and I almost forgot, the Use of a fire arm is necessary to.
Until the educrats figure out that teaching and learning are mutually exclusive, and that children learn best when we get the hell out of the way and provide them supplies to learn with and room to experiment, we will continue to get the same abysmal 'education' from our bloated, expensive and nearly useless system. The amount of time spent in school isn't the point, as very little actual learning occurs there.
I am all for a longer School year, look at Japan and China, there students are far smarter then ours here. I say go for it. Heck make it year round. then maybe our kids would have a fighting chance at getting good jobs.
 @lee986321 ~  I don't think it's that Asian kids are "far smarter" than our kids; it's more the extremely high value that their cultures place on education... it's a matter of honor with them.
In the mid-'80s, I worked for a while at a law firm in Westminster, CA (aka: "little Saigon"); most of my co-workers in the office were Vietnamese. Â I learned some interesting things about their culture via conversations with the young woman I worked with... Â She had a large family (parents, at least 1 set of grandparents, some brothers and sisters, and so on); and literally EVERYONE in that family, except the grandparents, went to school or worked full-time... and most of them did both..! Â Â
We just don't have that degree of dedication to schooling here anymore... which is very sad, because it is costing us dearly...
 @lee986321Â
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Lee, I don't have a problem with year round school, I just won't assume that it will inherently make kids smarter. I like the idea of keeping them in during the summer, but perhaps at a reduced level so that they and their families can still have some summer fun. In Oregon, where the weather sucks most of the time it's important to give families and kids extended time off. I think there is a good reason to keep idle minds occupied and off the streets causing mischief.
@lee986321 I also believe that their culture of valuing eduction is as important if not more than the longer school year. Generally speaking, Asian students do very well in American schools as well. In fact I've seen some college applications have tougher requirements for asian students.