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7/7/2020 Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints - Document - The Traditional School Calendar Can Continue to Work in the Future

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The Traditional School Calendar Can Continue to Work in the Future Author: Robin Lockett Carter Editor: Adriane Ruggiero Date: 2008 From: Year-Round Schools Publisher: Greenhaven Press Series: At Issue Document Type: Viewpoint essay Length: 2,030 words Content Level: (Level 4) Lexile Measure: 1240L

Full Text: Article Commentary

Robin Lockett Carter, Year-Round School: Not the Solution for Failing Schools, Huntsville, AL: University of Alabama in Huntsville, 1999. Reproduced by permission. http://schoolyear.info/res_academic.html Robin Lockett Carter contributed research papers while a graduate student at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Changing the school calendar from a traditional one to a year-round schedule will do little to raise achievement levels for students. Student performance rests on many variables including the quality of the teachers, the involvement and support of parents, and who the students are as individuals. In addition, changing the school calendar to eliminate summer "learning loss" will not solve the problem of students not learning to remember. Studies show that it is very difficult to gauge student retention but many experts believe that students (and many adults) have trouble remembering in the short- term. Creative teachers can develop strategies for combating this problem and do so regardless of what the calendar says. One approach is to teach higher-level thinking skills rather than rote memorization. There is no concrete proof that year-round schooling raises student test scores of ability to retain information. If teachers, administrators, and communities agree on giving high priority to education, there will be no need for the "quick fix" of changing the school calendar. The traditional school calendar worked in the past and can continue to work in the future. The sources and material used for this article are from 1999, and may not accurately reflect current statistical trends in the United States school system.

When I was in high school during the early 1990s, our school system was considering making a change from the traditional school calendar to that of a year-round calendar. I remember being intrigued by the prospect of attending school throughout the year. I was always one of those students who bored easily, whether it was with school or vacation. Year-round schooling sounded like the perfect answer. I felt that by shortening both school and vacation times into sections, it would be a great solution to my short attention span problem. However, I was in the minority. Many of my friends disliked the idea citing summer jobs, summer camps, spring training for various sports as things they would miss out on if a year-round school program were to be implemented at our school. We were not basing our opinions on test score statistical data or on financial spreadsheets; we just knew what sounded good to us at the time.

Not a Solution to Learning Loss

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As I look back on those years, I am glad a year-round calendar was never implemented. I now know that my boredom could have been solved with more extracurricular academic activities during the school year and with a job during the vacation periods. I cannot say for sure that a change in the calendar would not have made a difference in how much or how well I learned as a student. However, I feel that my performance, as well as many of my friends' performances, depended more on our parents, our teachers and most importantly on who we were as individual students. This idea, however, is not what the proponents for a year-round calendar would have you believe. It is my contention that a change in the school calendar and increased retention are not related by causation. Year-round schooling cannot eliminate the problem of students not learning to remember. The purpose of this paper is to address both the advantages and disadvantages associated with year- round school calendars in hopes of showing that a calendar change is not the solution to a failing academic program.

The fundamental reason for the transition [from a traditional calendar to a year-round calendar] in most schools appears to be financial.

Before inundating the reader with the specifics of year-round schooling, it would be beneficial to discuss terminology. The term year-round school (YRS) is not synonymous with extended school. A year-round school program does not lengthen the academic calendar, it merely breaks it up into segments.... YRS can be strictly defined as a reorganization of the school year because it is designed to utilize the school facility during all four seasons. There are also many forms of year-round schooling. A school that adopts a YRS calendar also has the option of creating different tracks. Multi- tracking refers to the practice where there are two to four groups of students attending the same school, but at any one time during the school year, a different group would be on vacation.... This essentially creates different schools within the same building.

Arguments for YRS There are many arguments for the implementation of year-round schooling. The basis for the decision by most schools to make the change to YRS is to alleviate overcrowding.... Multi-tracking can increase a school's capacity by as much as twenty-five percent because there would always be one-fourth of the student population on vacation. Therefore, the fundamental reason for the transition in most schools appears to be financial. However, it remains to be seen as to whether or not YRS can save money. In fact, a single-track YRS program can actually cost more than the traditional program. Single-track plans do not accommodate more students, there is more strain placed on the facilities because there is no true off-time and the school must stay in operation during one of the most expensive seasons of the year.... Using the school building during summer months adds another cost not usually incurred by traditional schools. It has been reported that the largest cost associated with preparing existing facilities for YRS is that of installing air conditioning.... Schools in Los Angeles recently voted to return to the traditional calendar after only three years of YRS, citing unbearable summer temperatures as one of the main reasons for their displeasure with the program....

Retention is a difficult problem to gauge ...

Costs of YRS Increases in utilities cost are only one increase that should be expected, however. Additional costs in the form of extra staff, increased operating costs, maintenance downtime, increased teacher salaries, building upgrades, and additional transportation have all been reported by school systems that originally adopted YRS in hopes of saving money.... For example, Houston, Texas schools abandoned the YRS program after eight years because of the added expenses and no true relief from overcrowding or improvements in achievement. The predicted savings from reinstating the traditional calendar reached approximately seven million dollars.... One must wonder with all the extra expenses

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that would be incurred from implementing a YRS program if it would not be more feasible to build an entirely new school building. Over time, a new building may actually be a more cost-effective alternative for school systems seeking to relieve overcrowded buildings....

Year-round schooling is not only touted to be a solution for overcrowding, but also a means for increasing student academic performance. While the majority of the schools making the transition to YRS admit that the driving force is to increase school capacity, an alternative claim has been that it decreases learning losses experienced over the long summer vacations.... The reduction in learning loss would, in theory, decrease the amount of review time needed at the beginning of each school year.... However, statistics to support this claim are inconclusive. One study that involved third and sixth grade students in San Diego, California, shows that students who attended school year-round outscored their traditional school counterparts in seventeen of twenty-seven areas on a basic skills test.... There are other schools like those in San Diego that report similar results and yet year-round education has not been consistently proven to have a positive or negative effect on academic retention or achievement....

Short-Term Learning Loss Retention is a difficult problem to gauge because assessments cannot separate retention from learning. It is an extremely arduous task to evaluate what students learn in a unit of time. Regardless of how retention is measured, many studies show that the greatest loss incurred by students, and adults alike, is that of short-term learning. It has been shown that a substantial loss occurs within an hour of instruction and the majority occurs within two or three weeks.... As a result, it seems only logical that by increasing the number of breaks throughout a school year, as YRS does, it would actually promote learning loss. As one Vermont middle school teacher commented, "Check out what happens to students' memories in the one week between Christmas and the New Year. Kids forget things every time school's out."... This would also tend to increase the amount of time needed to review because teachers would essentially have to restart the school year several times throughout the year.... However, the use of teaching strategies by capable teachers can decrease short-term learning loss regardless of the calendar. By teaching higher level thinking skills instead of inundating students with details, they could retain information long after their test taking days are over.

With no concrete evidence to show the contrary, implementing a year-round educational program seems to be a very expensive gamble.

Another argument in favor of year-round schooling is that it helps students whose first language is not English or otherwise at risk students. The apparent reason that a YRS program would aid these individuals is that the students would receive constant scholastic reinforcement throughout the school year. This reinforcement would probably not be received otherwise at home during the longer summer breaks associated with the traditional calendar.... While it is a valid point that returning English as a Second Language (ESL) students to their homes where they could possibly be bombarded with their native languages..., the question of aiding the minority at the expense of the majority remains. Perhaps voluntary, no-cost programs specializing in continual education for ESL students and their families could be implemented by communities that show a need for improvement in this area.

Teacher and Student Burnout Opponents of year-round education can use some of the same studies and reports heralded by proponents to further their cause as well. Statistics can be molded to suit either side of the argument; however, there are some considerations that cannot be reflected with test scores and, as a result, are often over looked. Teacher and administrator burnout, for example, is a rampant occurrence in school systems that practice year-round school....

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Many administrators find that they lose opportunities for self and teacher evaluation and planning. In multi-track YRS systems, there are usually only two weeks per year, as opposed to two months, where there are no students in school.... Other factors include the effects YRS could have on band or sports programs ..., internal communication and course scheduling.... Less crucial, but still very valid problems could also arise as a result of YRS. Scheduling family vacations, summer employment for students and teachers who may need to supplement family income, arranging day care, dress codes for students attending school in the summer, and perhaps even seasonal tourist industries could all be greatly affected....

Learning Is Complicated The National Educational Commission on Time and Learning conducted research on the amount of time spent in school in the early 1990s. Their research alludes to the fact that learning is a complicated concept that is only partially attributed to time. While the commission recognized that American school children spend less time in classrooms than many other countries, they were unable to show a direct correlation between time and learning.... With no concrete evidence to show the contrary, implementing a year-round educational program seems to be a very expensive gamble. A calendar change could cause more turmoil than improvements in most situations. As with any program, complete dedication and solid communication is needed to make it a success. The existing school calendar has worked in the past and can continue to work in the future.

Until politicians, administrators, teachers, parents and students decide to make improving education a priority, there will always be alternative "quick fixes" that give the appearance of being a solution to the overall problem. We must get to the core of the problem in our schools by re-training teachers, involving parents and community leaders, and providing the best educational experience we can offer. This is a plan must be followed, regardless of the calendar.

Books

David Elkind The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children. New York: De Capo Lifelong Press, 2007. Patricia Gandara The Dimensions of Time and the Challenge of School Reform. Albany NY: SUNY Press, 2000. K.M. Gold School's In: The History of Summer Education in American Public Schools. New York: Peter Lang. Sarah H. Huyvaert Time Is of the Essence: Learning in Schools. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1998. Etta Kralovec Schools That Do Too Much: Wasting Time and Money in Schools and What We Can All Do About It. Boston: Beacon Press, 2003. Carolyn Shields and Steven Lynn Oberg Year-Round Schooling: Promises and Pitfalls. Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, 2000.

Periodicals

Ronald Brownstein "Chicago Turns Summer into Student Saving Time," Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2001. Milton Chen "Back to School: A Time to Rethink Time," Edutopia, October 19, 2006, www.edutopia.org. Contra Costa Times "Year-Round Schools Are an Experiment Worth Trying," April 5, 2007. Don Heinzman "Year-Round School Has Educational Advantages," www.hometownsource.com. Duke Helfand "Year-Round Discontent at Hollywood High," Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2000. Michael Janofsky "As More Schools Open Earlier, Parents Seek to Reclaim Summer," New York Times, August 6, 2005.

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Louisville Courier-Journal "Teachers See Benefits in Year-Round Schools," July 17, 2006. Jay Mathews "As Push for Longer Hours Forms, Intriguing Models Arise in D.C.," Washington Post, February 5, 2007. Jean Merl and Erika Hayasaki "L.A. Cuts Back Year-Round Schools," Los Angeles Times, September 6, 2005. Jennifer Mrozowski "Year-Round School Gets Early Start," Cincinnati Enquirer, August 6, 2002. National Education Commission on Time and Learning "Prisoners of Time," April 1994 www.ed.gov/pubs/PrisonersOfTime/Prisoners.html. Hilary Pennington "Expanding Learning Time in High Schools," Center for American Progress, October 2006, www.americanprogress.org. Paul S. Piper "Year-Round Schools: The Star of the Sea Model," Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, www.prel.org. Mark Pothier "School's Out: Is It Time We Went to Year-Round Schooling?" Boston Globe, August 29, 2004. Joel Rubin "More Schools Ditching Multitrack Schedules," Los Angeles Times, July 11, 2004. Teacher Magazine "Talkback: The End of Summer?" 2007, www.teachermagazine.org. Charles Whittle "We Can Pay Teachers More; It's a Matter of Redesigning the Schools," Washington Post, September 15, 2005. Jodi Wilgoren "Calls for Change in the Scheduling of the School Day," New York Times, January 10, 2001.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2008 Greenhaven Press, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) Carter, Robin Lockett. "The Traditional School Calendar Can Continue to Work in the Future." Year-

Round Schools, edited by Adriane Ruggiero, Greenhaven Press, 2008. At Issue. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ3010473204/OVIC? u=tel_a_scollege&sid=OVIC&xid=020c393d. Accessed 7 July 2020. Originally published in Year- Round School: Not the Solution for Failing Schools, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 1999.

Gale Document Number: GALE|EJ3010473204