Should Students Go to School Year-Round?

Summer is still a couple of months away, but many American kids are already day­dreaming about how they’ll spend their break: playing sports, visiting relatives, or just relaxing outside. Not all kids, however. About 5 million U.S. students attend year-round public schools—and they’ll be spending most of the summer in class.

That idea might send chills down your spine. Yet an estimated 3,000 schools nationwide now run on a year-round schedule. That means that instead of taking one long summer vacation, students have multiple breaks of three or four weeks throughout the year.

Some educators and parents think spending months away from the classroom is bad for students. They say kids tend to forget what they learned over the long summer break—and that it can take weeks in the fall to get them back on track.

Critics, however, point out that year-round schools don’t add any real teaching time and produce little—if any—improvement in students’ test scores. And the schedules can complicate child care and vacations for many families. At the same time, kids miss out on important summertime benefits, such as going to camp or spending time with friends and family.

Should students go to school year-round? Two experts weigh in.

If you’re like most kids, your first thought when you hear “year-round school” may be “What, no more vacation?” But year-round school isn’t the vacation killer many people think it is. Students get the same amount of instructional time as at traditional schools—about 180 days. It’s just spread more evenly through the year.

Instead of running from September to June, for example, a year-round school might go from mid-July to early June. But after every 45 school days, you’d get 15 days off. (Other such calendars alternate 60 days on, 20 off; or 90 days on, 30 off.)

This helps fix a big problem many traditional schools face: summer slide. That’s when kids forget what they’ve learned over the long summer break. So teachers often spend weeks each fall reviewing past lessons before they can get started on new material.

To ensure that students are prepared for—and can excel at—standardized tests, some traditional schools squeeze in more teaching time by cutting out gym, music classes, or even recess. The mounting pressure can cause students and teachers to burn out well before the end of the school year.

But frequent breaks in the fall, winter, and spring can help relieve some of that pressure. Kids get more chances to relax and refocus. But they aren’t away so long that they forget what they’ve learned.

It’s true that year-round schedules can make it harder to organize sports and other activities, such as family vacations. And some people argue that since there’s no increase in instructional time, year-round schooling isn’t worth the trouble. But when it comes to improving education, the number of hours isn’t the only concern. The quality of those hours counts too.

—Marquita S. Blades
Education consultant and former science teacher, Georgia

Since the 1990s, thousands of schools nationwide have tried year-round calendars, hoping to raise student achievement. But research has shown that such schedules didn’t raise kids’ test scores in many places, including California, North Carolina, Las Vegas, and Oklahoma City.

The reason is simple. Year-round calendars don’t increase the number of days that kids spend in school. Teachers don’t get any more teaching time, so students don’t learn any more.

Year-round calendars can also complicate family schedules. Imagine that your school uses a year-round calendar, but your brother’s or sister’s school uses a traditional calendar. Their school might be out when yours is in, and vice versa.

How would your parents manage? Some can’t. Research has shown that more mothers choose to leave their jobs when their kids’ schools switch to year-round calendars so they can take care of their children. Some families even sell their homes and move to areas where schools use traditional calendars.

Some teachers can’t manage the year-round calendar, either. Imagine that your school used a year-round calendar, but your teachers had kids in traditional schools. Your teachers would have to work and find child care when their kids’ schools were closed. For that reason, teachers often leave year-round schools for schools that use traditional calendars.

The number of schools using year-round calendars has fallen by nearly half in the past 20 years. That’s because many schools have given up on a calendar that disrupts family life with no benefits for student achievement.

—Paul Von Hippel
Associate Professor of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin