Debate: Year-round school

Should year round schools be accepted for the public school system?

Background and Context of Debate:

Year-round schools educational institutions are based on a schedule that has school throughout most of the calendar year, as opposed to having no school in summer. A motivation is that higher student throughput is accomplished via more effective scheduling of school resources. Year round schedules deliver the same number of total days of classroom education and vacation as traditional calendars, distributed differently throughout the year. Funding considerations favor multi-tracking students, which allows more students to use the same number of classrooms, instead of constructing entirely new schools. In addition to these systems, students enrolled in year-round classes often claim that their calendar schedule is more balanced. Advocates claim that year-round calendars help students achieve higher and allow teachers to provide more effective education. Reports from the California State Department Of Education show that standardized test scores increased an average of 9.5% in Grade 3 with an average increase of 13.3% in reading scores. Conversely, opponents insist that year-round education is detrimental to student learning. Some school board officials and studies indicate negative impacts of schedule changes and year-round education. Lawsuits have even been filed against various school districts, citing year-round schools as being "harmful to students."

From Wikipedia:Year-round school; used under the GFDL.

"Summer learning loss": Is this a real problem?

Yes

• Summer breaks result in "summer learning loss". Experts frequently speak about "summer learning loss" as a major problem for North American students. The theory is that, during summer break from school, students set aside learning entirely, fall behind educationally and mentally in those three months, and come back to school behind where they left off. Year-round schooling counters "summer learning loss".

Martin Davey. "The case for year-round schooling". Star.com. 14 July 2008 - "Recent studies suggest that, when fall comes around, teachers waste weeks reviewing last year's work because our kids forgot what they learned in the spring."

• "Summer learning loss" hits poor kids with illiterate homes the worst. Martin Davey. "The case for year-round schooling". Star.com. 14 July 2008 - "Summer learning loss also widens the gap between rich and poor children because disadvantaged kids are less likely to have books at home to help maintain skills and knowledge."

No

There is no difference in learning loss

Instead of a summer break, year round schools have many shorter breaks throughout the year. This results in the learning loss happening more frequently, but not as severely, resulting in no difference compared to summer's learning loss.

[url http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070811151449.htm Paul von Hippel, ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2007)] “We found that students in year-round schools learn more during the summer, when others are on vacation, but they seem to learn less than other children during the rest of the year,”

Will the loss of summer vacation be a problem?

Yes

• Summer is the peak time for the tourism industry. With this blow to tourism, many companies will not survive.

No

• The summer camp industry will not be hurt. Summer camps will have the same amount of time to operate, only spread throughout the year. This may actually help the industry due to the ability to diversify into other seasonal activities, such as skiing.

Are there financial benefits to not using year round schooling?

Yes

No

Pro/con resources

Yes

• "The case for year-round schooling". Star.com. 14 July 2008
• Year round schools - Advantages

No

• Year-round Schools Don't Boost Learning, Study Finds - Science Daily

References:

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