School Bokeh originally uploaded by Ryan M.
According to this opinion piece on CNN.com, United States students are lagging behind other countries not only because of poor education funding, poor educators kept in place by broken systems, and simply lack of drive but mainly because we have a three month long summer vacation. The suggested solution? A longer school, up to 220 days and no more summers off.
From the article:
Then there’s this: Harris Cooper, a summer-learning expert at Duke University, pored over a century’s worth of data and found that each summer, our kids lose about a month of progress in math and that low-income students lose as much as three months’ worth of reading comprehension.
Again, that’s each summer.
While the article notes that historically the reasoning for our summers off matched up well with our agrarian roots, now that the majority of children in the US spend their summer vacation playing video games and watching TV instead the author suggests that we have a lot of work to do in order to compete on a global scale.
But would moving to year round schooling really fix the problems the schools are having properly educating our children? We’re apparently spending, on average, $30,000 more per student than any other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country and yet we’re ranked 25 out of 34 within that group. Would moving to year round schooling really help the situation that much?
The biggest issue impeding this supposedly necessary change is simply American’s reluctance to permit change. The desire to keep summer vacations alive simply because we’ve been doing it seemingly forever. However, people have spent their lives planning around school and it’s unlikely that many will take kindly to the idea that their summer plans have to change because we’re unable to properly educate our children for less money. Am I really supposed to give up my three week long vacation this summer so that Johnny and Suzie can avoid being usurped by children in other countries who are held to a much higher educational standard than we are? Will adding 40 more days to the school calendar really help save our children from a system based on poor standards and low expectations?
What do you think about the idea of moving to year-round schooling? Do you agree that it will be the single biggest thing which could work to save our failing educational system? Would you be upset if the school year went year-round and eliminated your ability to vacation at length without yanking your children out of school for weeks at a time? Are you fearful that the big dollars we’re spending on education is not providing our children with the educations they need to be competitive on a global scale? What suggestions do you have which could fix the problems we’re facing? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear what you have to say.
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May 16th, 2011 at 8:20 am
I would vote no for this option if I had kids.
Our education has worked well with it’s current system up until recent. I got a solid education with summer vacation, as did my parents, etc.
Instead of re-inventing the wheel, we need to examine why we get a flat spot on the bottom, and remedy that issue. Get rid of ineffective teachers, stop pandering to the lowest denominator and throw some healthy competition back into the routine vs. this numbed down ‘everyone is great’ philosophy.
We didn’t built a great country from a bunch of ‘average’ kids who were all taught to whine and cry about not everything being fair. We got where we are overall, because you had individuals that excelled, were above the rest in one manner or another, and made their mark in history.
May 16th, 2011 at 8:51 am
My son is in 2nd grade and I keep hearing that school isn’t like when we were kids. Maybe that is part of the problem. Maybe we should go back to the way things were. There is so much more pressure to know how to read while in Kindergarten. Perhaps too many kids are falling behind as they haven’t gotten the chance to socialize appropriately in Kindergarten.
May 16th, 2011 at 8:52 am
I could read before I got to Kindergarten but I still socialized just the same as any kid *shrug*.
May 16th, 2011 at 9:06 am
Where would the money come from? You’d have to raise teacher salaries by 20-25% if you’re adding on 20-25% of their school year, not to mention all the other costs.
Research also shows that a student can maintain reading levels, if not gain them, by reading six grade-level books over the summer. A summer reading program would probably be a lot cheaper. Free even, if parents utilize libraries. Maybe what we really need are more neighborhood libraries promoting summer reading programs within communities.
May 16th, 2011 at 9:43 am
1) We go to full year schools
b. There is nobody to detassle the corn
iii) The corn dies
D- The cows die from nothing to eat
5. All the humans die because there is no beef or corn.
I think this is a bad idea.
May 16th, 2011 at 9:49 am
I don’t see it happening for a variety of reasons (everything from cost to tradition to business pressures). I also don’t think it’s needed, since there are other ways to maintain educational performance over the summer. Of course, that requires the parents to care.
May 16th, 2011 at 9:52 am
The problem really is parental involvement.
There are a lot of parents who just don’t care that Johnny and Suzie are losing their math and reading skills over the summer and have little involvement with their education during the school year too. Year-round school could help kids in situations like that.
Year-round school could also help the kids who have involved parents at home, but those kids were probably going to succeed anyway because their parents weren’t going to let them be lost in the school system. For a family who reads together and makes sure that Johnny understands his multiplication and how many quarters make a dollar, 40 days isn’t going to make that much difference.
May 16th, 2011 at 11:25 am
When I was a kid, the local library had great reading programs & contest that my brother & I participated in. We read more books during the summer than we ever did in school. Maybe we can extend today’s kids learning by rediscovering (and supporting) our library system.
May 16th, 2011 at 11:27 am
I think Ramy’s should offer a Book-It like program this summer. Win win! I’d be teaching The Rooster to read for that.
May 16th, 2011 at 11:57 am
1. Parental involvement is a huge issue.
2. There are some bad teachers that need to leave.
3. The educational system currently has low expectations built into it. When we start expecting more, that’s what we will get. Everyone is NOT the same and life ISN’T fair. Stop dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator so that everyone can have a shallow sense of worthiness that will collapse and leave them with a deep sense of unworthiness.
4. The teachers have to deal with multiple languages/cultures. There is a group of immigrants here in Burnsville whom we have worked with who consistently teach ZERO self-control/discipline to their children. Just not part of their culture – ? Very frustrating to deal with.
5. A summer reading program is always a great idea. Even better if the parents tell their children that reading is fun. Going to the library regularly is a great adventure!
6. Kids need their summers off from school. They are not machines. Our schools are not daycare centers.
May 16th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
McD and Sandy hit the nail on the head with parental involvement. There was a great study done in Baltimore that show kids that continued education over the summer had improved test scores (they tested before break and after). While those that just sat around were dumber after the break. The kids who got smarter had involved parents that put them in camps, modeled and encouraged reading, and supported curiosity. Given these results, year round school might be nice in some districts, but likely not in the suburbs.
As far as the other countries, sure we can’t compete with them on academics, but we kick their ass in creativity and innovation. That is hard (impossible?) to measure with a test. I say throw the tests out!
May 16th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Summer vacation isn’t just for the students and the teachers – not having to hound my teenager about doing his homework for 3 months of the year is a welcome break for this guy.
Kids don’t need more time in school – the admission requirements for college are still 3 years of HS math and the degree requirements for say a business mgmt degree from any MnSCU is not much more that intro to calc… Sounds about the same was when I was in college in the mid-90′s.
Also, haven’t we been lagging behind for decades?
May 16th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Matt G, I’m not sure how your examples do anything but say we should be keeping our kids in longer.
When I worked for two of MnSCU’s community colleges, it was astounding the number of people who didn’t even test into 1000 level courses and had to perform remedial work in order to get up to speed. While I realize that, in general, community colleges are tailored to meet the needs of exactly that sort of student, it’s just a little crazy for me to think that people find that totally acceptable.
May 16th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Lots of good comments here and I agree a lot with Sandy above (although I do think that year-round school is a good idea). I keep hearing that schools are failing and that kids today aren’t learning and on and on, but as a dad of a middle-schooler and an elementary schooler in the Minneapolis public schools, that’s not my experience. My kids do great in school, and they aren’t unique. Almost all the kids at my daughters’ schools do well, and even the ones that struggle are struggling in the same way that some kids struggled when I was in elementary school 35 years ago.
And it isn’t just at my daughters’ schools — they participate in lots of activities with kids at other Minneapolis public schools, and most of those kids seem to do well and be normal kids. We just participated in a middle-school car design competition (what I called a Pinewood derby when I was a kid) and there were hundreds of kids from about 30 Minneapolis public schools, as well as a few charter schools and a couple of private schools. The kids socialized, they read the rules, they competed, and they had a lot of fun while learning. It reminded me a lot of when I was that age.
It’s not the politically correct thing to say, but I actually do NOT see the schools as being the failure point. The primary, secondary and tertiary reasons why kids fail in school is poor parenting. Teachers teach, and while the quality level varies in teachers (as it does in any field), I have yet to encounter a teacher that was wholly unqualified to do the job. Yes, some I have liked better than others, but it isn’t about LIKING a teacher, it’s about whether they have the skills and desire to teach well. Most do. A few don’t (usually it’s a lack of desire rather than lack of skill – they burn out or lose interest). Again, that’s similar to any other job in the world.
But the kids who do poorly and the kids who are disruptive and the kids who don’t succeed in general have one thing in common with each other: lack of parental involvement and guidance.
One person above mentioned not teaching to the lowest common denominator, but the problem is that you have these kids and you have to teach them along with the other kids who have parents that DO provide involvement and guidance. What’s the answer? I don’t know, but from my experience, the problem isn’t the teachers, it’s the poor parenting.
May 16th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Fund your schools! Stop cutting budgets! Vote for free spending liberal socialists ;-)
May 16th, 2011 at 9:02 pm
I feel that we need a much more dramatic change to really improve education in America.
I’d like to see us go to full year school. I’d like to see public education structured in a way that it is able to work with the widely varying pace that different children learn, (girls vs boys, children with invested parents, children with uninvolved parents, kids that get it, those that don’t) I’d rather students that need extra time in an area be able to get extra help in an area without there being concern of them being held behind. We continue to try and do the same thing over and over, throwing more and more money at it and achievement is just not growing. We need to do something, other than just spending money, to materially improve achievement of our students.
May 16th, 2011 at 9:33 pm
“other than just spending money…”
Yes. Improving education may well cost money, but I remember a comic from long ago that went like this…
A car had a flat tire. A man had his wallet open and was tossing money at it. The caption read, “A democrat throwing money at a problem.”
Made an impression on me. The word “democrat” could probably be replaced with any number of other words these days.
May 16th, 2011 at 11:52 pm
I loved summer vacation with my kids. We’d go join the library summer reading programs, build tents and read in them, read at lakes. I’d take them to museums and festivals. The schools had their educational guidelines, I had mine. I think parents are overworked, overstressed, and too worn out to be good parents nowadays, and they’re feeling guilty about it. Guilt makes for lousy parenting skills.
I wasn’t the greatest parent myself, but I do have some thoughts about parenting and education:
1. Don’t count down. Your kid already knows how far they can push you, and I have YET to see a parent who counts down stand by their word. Also, the kid knows you are giving him a chance because you don’t WANT to change your plans. The secret is blitzkrieg. The kid acts up once, give up your schedule and take them HOME.
2. Kids need to know there are boundaries and consequences to passing those boundaries. Have them tell you what they know you expect beforehand in any social situation. That way, you can go straight to blitzkrieg.
3. Instead of shopping constantly, take your kid to something educational. They need to know there is a world outside the checkout lane.
4. Read to your child. Make it a daily thing. Also, watch tv WITH your child. It’s a great tool for talking about ideas.
5. Accept the fact that your child is capable of ANYTHING. If the teacher calls about an issue, give up the defensive posture. By all means, be in your child’s corner, but remember pretending he/she is an angel when he’s only human, is NOT being in their corner.
6. This is heresy, but parents spend too much time dragging their kids around to sporting events. Your kid is likely not going to be the next Brett Favre. Team sports are useful, but what are you doing to your lives? When did parenting stop being fun?
May 17th, 2011 at 1:45 am
Aren’t schools already short on money?
How will schools pay for AC? Many schools are not even equipped for AC, especially in the inner-city.
How will schools pay more money to staff?
How will schools pay more transportation costs?
Just a few of the logistics…
May 17th, 2011 at 11:23 am
I have always been in favor of full year schools, will it solve all the problems of education?, no, but it wouldnt hurt, and likely would help some.
I believe right now Finland rates very high in educational scores… with Sweden not far behind, neither of these countries would score high in terms of governance and policy as judged by the Wall Street Journal or the Cato institute. they are both high tax , “welfare” states … the other common denominator among the high outcome nations is that teachers are treated with a high value in the society…. china, Japan, singapore, Taiwan for instance.
the other thing they all have in common is year round schools.
May 17th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Tell me that you need more money because you are going to be doing something new which will empowers educators, and provide guidance and incentive for students to achieve by setting the bar high. I’ll be the first to whip out my check book.
Tell me you need more money to fund the exact same thing we’ve been funding all along, and I’ll fight the schools every step of the way.
January 17th, 2013 at 10:44 pm
http://www.mintpress.net/will-a-longer-school-year-help-or-hurt-us-students/