Dr. Charles Ballinger is the executive director of the National Association for Year-Round School and was quoted in an article by Ann Svensen. He stated,” Students retain more when breaks between instruction are shorter, and teachers don’t need to spend much time on review” (Ballinger in Svensen). Ballinger is saying how the year round school system eliminates the need to have review time which gives students an opportunity to learn more information throughout the year overall. In addition, when schools choose to change to the year round school calendar, they see higher scores on tests and grades in general. This is only possible from the students retaining more and more information from their previous years in the school.
Although parents would like to keep their kids close to them as much as they could, the best option however, is to always think about what would be best for the child, depending on who they would feel more comfortable around. Most people think that going to public school for a public education would be better, statistics show that home schooling is beneficial in more ways. According to Teen Scene, home schooling grows at a rate that is about 11 percent each year. In 1994, it was said that only 340,000 children were being home schooled. In 2001, that number had grown to about 1.7 million.
Students should always feel that they belong to the school for the right reason: getting an education in a safe and friendly environment. A survey carried out by the Department for Education & Skills revealed that 83% of parents are in favor of school uniforms, claiming that they contribute to better school standards and good behavior(Shaw, Michael). The use of school uniforms would tremendously cut down on bullying, lost class time, and intruders. Hundreds of kids come home from school each day with hurt feelings. Their feelings being hurt by fellow students, also know as bullies.
In 1994, Long Beach, California, became the country's first public school district to institute a mandatory uniform policy. The reasons for this new policy were, 1) uniforms will put the students’ emphasis on schoolwork instead of dressing coolly, and 2) the uniform would help to lower school violence. The results of this change were so promising that it led to former president, Bill Clinton’s endorsement of school uniforms in his State of the Union address in 1996. He said: "If it means that the school rooms will be more orderly and more disciplined, and that our young people will learn to evaluate themselves by what they are on the inside, instead of what they're wearing on the outside, then our public schools should be able to require their students to wear uniforms." .
It also can make it easier than in the past for a student who switches schools, because now schools broadly have to follow a similar curriculum. The national curriculum was introduced to enable assessment, which also helped to compile league tables. League tables (1988 education act) are another change that has helped the education system. League tables are used to compare the academic achievements of different institutions and parents can use them to decide which school they want their child(ren) to go to. Using league tables is a good thing as if you want your child to go to a good school, you can chose the one most suitable with good education and exam results.
The Year-Round School Debate Year-round school (YRS) episodically surfaces as a subject of school reform. Interestingly enough this is not a new topic of debate; however, the reasons for implementing the reform have changed some. Year-round schools do not require the children to increase the number of days they attend school, the days are just dispersed more evenly throughout the year. As Hermansen (1971) states the concept of YRS has been around since at least 1840 when many major cities had school years ranging from forty-three to fifty weeks. These mostly industrialized cities had an enormous need for children to learn English.
Or at least they should be, because students go to high school in order to get an education and learn and improve their academic knowledge. While community service is a good experience and volunteers often take away some knowledge from it, it usually doesn’t pertain to the academic curriculum that students learn in school. Community service is also something that is often done off school grounds, and/or after school hours. In order to graduate high school, a student shouldn’t have to complete volunteering activities outside of high school. For example, a very common act of community service is cleaning up trash in local parks.
He believes uniforms help parents as well as the students. The private schools are no longer the only schools requiring the students to wear uniforms. I agree with Kelly’s proclamation that uniforms increase studying and take pressure off of parents. I also believe that uniforms help students to see themselves differently from the inside instead of just the outside. Generally schools require students to wear uniforms for the desire to increase the students’ academic levels.
Democrats feel that this program can help young children to enhance their learning in STEM. This is important because are students show signs of lacking in math and in science over the years. This program will allow teachers to enhance their skills in technology, science, math, engineering so that the students can have a better understanding of the learning and encourage students to go to college to obtain STEM degrees. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/09/16/changing-equation-stem-education ) In conclusion, I discovered that democrats are highly supportive of education in our children’s lives. The Democratic Party feels lowering interest rates of student loans and increase Pell grants, reform the “No Child Left behind Act”, investing in early child hood education, and Prioritize “STEM education” are some of the terms in reshaping our view of education in today’s
The school board probably decided this policy in the beginning of the academic year after hours of tedious analysis and lengthy discussions. If so, then why remove it? The current restrictions pertaining to the homework policy should not be removed because the policy behaves in three ways: it ensures protected time, avoids consequences related to health, and increases student proficiency. First of all, restrictions should not be removed because it ensures the students the minimum amount of protected time. By protected time, it applies to holidays and weekends.