Year-Round Education

Year-Round Education

(1) For many years students, parents, and teachers have relied on a traditional school calendar. Originally, the American school calendar was designed so that children would have time off to help their parents with farm work during the summer. Although most communities no longer depend on agriculture, our society continues to follow the same school calendar implemented more than 100 years ago for agricultural purposes (Warrick-Harris, 1995). However, in spite of the long tradition, many schools have turned to the idea of year-round education as a means to a better education. And other schools, such as the Lake Central School Corporation, are studying the feasibility of a new calendar (Murzyn, 1998). According to…show more content…
Morse (1992) believes that the longer students are on vacation, the less material they retain. She further states that year-round education can improve the academic performance of students who cannot depend on their home care to help them with learning. This sounds logical, but Morse gives no supporting evidence that year-round education actually improves students' academic performance. In fact, Greenfield (1994) found that although teachers and parents may have observed some improvement, the results of standardized tests showed no such improvement. In addition, Peltier (1991) notes that when the scores of year-round school students were compared to those of traditional calendar students, no significant difference was seen. So, if year-round education does not appear to enhance students' academic performance, why would one consider implementing it in a school system? Instead of extending the school year, educators should concentrate more on improving the quality of time now being spend in school. Until the quality of time spent in schools is raised, increasing the number of days will not do much…show more content…
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Murzyn, L. (1998, January 25). Year-round school concept catching on. The Times, p. B9.
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