Abstract
Better Education: The ardent supporters of the system argue that year round schooling ensures better education and retention among the kids or students since the schedule is quite continuous and the breaks are less and shorter. The interruption to education is far less when compared to the normal systems and this definitely upholds high standard of education and better learning. “Summer Learning Loss” as often been termed as one of the biggest problem for American kids, since students tend to forget whatever they learned in schools during 3 months long break. This phenomenon has adverse effect on learning and hence the efficiency of 9-month schooling is often questioned. Year round schooling has come up as a potent solution to the issue since there are shorter but consistent breaks. Thus year round schooling is indeed capable of providing and ensuring better education and retention for students when compared to normal schooling.
Boon for At-Risk Students: This is perhaps the most noisy and vociferous point in the support of year end schooling. Year end schooling benefits disadvantaged or poor students. It has often been contended that summer learning loss widens gap between rich and poor students since poor students do not have adequate resources like Intellectual simulation, enrichment and/or reinforcement to help maintain their knowledge and skills acquired during the school session. Year round schooling as an alternative grants students with learning disadvantages academic benefits. It has been found that the academic score of such students improve when attending year round schools (cde 2013). This quite clearly explains that year round schooling indeed benefits all sections of students regardless of their social or economic background. It ensures better retention and education for all.
Economically Viable: Schooling is indeed a costly affair and off late many states and indeed many countries have found it hard to come up with enough schools to ensure quality education for all. Multi-Track system, a sub type of year round schooling, has turned up as an effective and intelligent alternative. Multi-Track system divides the entire student and staff into different tracks, usually four. In such case while, three out of four tracks are attending classes, the fourth is on vacations. The system considerably improves and expands the seating facility in schools. This means that with same infrastructure and staff, more children are taught and educated. This not only saves public exchequer millions of dollars, but also ensures education for as many as possible.
Though year round schooling offers all such advantages, they aren’t enough for its detractors to do away with the 9-month system and switch on to it. They come up with many points to prove that year end schooling suffers from some serious issues and flaws as an education system and that the 9 month conventional education system still pretty much scores over it. Some of the most important disadvantages that are talked about in context of year end schooling are as listed below:
Puts Undue Pressure on Kids: Many argue that year end schooling is simply “too much” for the kids and students too bear. According to them this system robs them off the classic three months summer breaks, which are used by students for plenty of purposes. While many use this long break to relax and rejuvenate by spending time with their families or going out on holidays with their friends or family members, the economically weaker use it to work and earn money for their schools. An year round school is capable of taking a toll on the social and emotional health and behaviors of students since they hardly get enough time to relax and enjoy sue to shorter breaks.
Minimum Time for Extracurricular activities: Extracurricular activities are important for overall development of a kid. Extended summer vacations allow students to pursue their extracurricular interests. The students have enough time to devote to activities like sports, music, dancing etc. and this gives them an opportunity to develop different aspects of their personality. Year round schooling system with shorter vacations is definitely not a healthy and effective substitute to this practice since it doesn’t allow students to get into extracurricular activities.
Though there might be some cons associated to year end schooling, they are simply not enough to overshadow the benefits that the system has to offer. It ensures better education, removes the inherent risks for economically disadvantaged students and increases school capacities and enrollments with minimal spending. The growing popularity and acceptance of the system signifies that it is more advantageous. According to the latest data by California State department of Education, standardized test scores for year end schooling kids increased an average of 9.5% in grade 3 with an average increase of 13.3% in reading scores (idebate 2013). More such data has come to light from various states which have shifted to year end schooling system and this clearly establishes that such schools provide better education and consistency to their students than the conventional ones. The popularity of this system has also been on increase among the teachers. Different surveys across the districts that have year round schools have indicated that between 60 and 90% teachers prefer it. Expect from increased and improved education and retention, these schools are also providing remediation and enrichment for students during the breaks so that students have opportunities to relearn material, practice skills, catch up, or experience nonacademic enrichment activities continuously throughout the year (McMillen, 2001). Moreover the economic benefits of this setup are simply too much to ignore and due to this more and more schools have been shifting to this system.
Thus it can be safely concluded that Year end schools are a better and more efficient alternative to the conventional schools. They indeed fulfill the main motto or purpose of schools i.e. to ensure more learning and retention. They provide value additions to the kids and fight disparities. Year end schooling as a system has found support from some unexpected quarters off late with the current American President Barack Obama speaking in favor of it and rightly so.
References
CDE (2013). Year-Round Education Program Guide.
California Department of Education, Retrieved April 26, 2013, from
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/fa/yr/guide.asp
iDebate (2013). Year-Round Schools.
iDebate, Retrieved April 26, 2013, from
http://dbp.idebate.org/en/index.php/Debate:_Year-round_school
McMillen, B. J. (2001). A statewide evaluation of academic achievement in year-round
schools. The Journal of Educational Research, 95(2), 67–74.
