Is year-round school a good idea?
The Washington Post had a story about year-round schooling in its Outlook section this weekend. Everyone once in a while, that question pops into my head: Is year-round school a good idea? The Post had a Q&A today with the reporter who wrote the story.
I haven't heard much discussion locally about converting to year-round schools. What do you think? Is it something schools should consider?
I haven't heard much discussion locally about converting to year-round schools. What do you think? Is it something schools should consider?
Labels: Year-round school
posted by Dawn Keller at
3:16 PM
7 Comments:
Big negative on year round school.
I'll give a thumbs up on year-round schooling... A guy that I collaborate with on some projects has a daughter who goes to a year-round school in North Carolina... It's an awesome setup they have there.
What people don't understand about year-round schooling is that there is time off. Most "year-round" schools break the year down into semesters. There may be, say, five in a year and you attend four. Your time off can be in the fall, winter or spring.
Two questions popped up when I read the article on year-round school: what about extracirricular activites such as athletics and band? And what happens if your time off interferes with your required academic programs?
It's hard to be at band camp or football camp when classes are in session. And if you are working on a project that deals with the outdoors, it's pretty hard to accomplish in a snow storm.
Also, what about the summer programs many schools offer that are not feasible at other times of the year? I guess that's three questions.
Maybe Huck Finn laid around all summer but he probably ended up working at a place where they asked, "Do you want fries with that?"
Yeah, the girl I was referring to has 3 three-week breaks in between tri-mesters...
It breaks up the monotony without allowing kids to shed too much information.
All the research I've read shows that kids lose some of their knowledge by being off for three months in the summer unless their parents make sure they keep up with summer work. That leads to teachers reviewing information for the first few weeks of the year.
So, my question is: Would it be better educationally to have breaks throughout the year instead of having a three-month break? If teachers didn't have to review for weeks, would there be time to teach more?
Or is that just something that sounds good ... and in reality, teachers would review a little bit after each shorter break so the review time would add up to the same when the year is done?
I don't have any stats on this... but I would assume that the retention deficit is not a smoothly sliding scale... for example, the amount of knowledge forgotten over the course of 7 days is probably more than 7 times as much as is forgotten day to day... similarly, the amount lost over 3 weeks is probably not 3 times as much as is lost in 7 days... I would assume that if it were graphed, the knowledge lost would start off level, spike, level off, and spike again (possible another repetition or two of that cycle) so that the effect is that after 3 months, you are reviewing for a period not equal to the multiple reviews after a three week break... whether it is "not equal" on the high side or the low side is what is important...
Another reasonable argument is that the school year is effectively <180 days because the amount of new information presented in the final weeks of school is not equal to the amount of new information that is presented in other weeks. I assume that some teachers effective stop teaching new material in advance of final exams... and relatively little actual learning occurs in the last week of school... if there isn't that mental "finish line" to the school year, it would seem reasonable that the pace of teaching would remain more constant.
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