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Do Kids Need a Summer Vacation?Why our schoolchildren get to take three months off.
By Juliet LapidosPosted Wednesday, July 11, 2007, at 4:09 PM ET
Most American school kids are about three weeks in to their three-month summer vacation. Yet working adults (the Explainer included) spend the better part of June, July, and August toiling away as usual. Why do kids enjoy such generous summer breaks?
Fiscal limitations, century-old developmental theories, and outdated medical concerns. The now-standard 180-day academic calendar with a long summer holiday didn't come about until the early 20th century. Previously, urban schools operated year-round with short breaks between quarters. In 1842, Detroit's academic year lasted approximately 260 days, New York's 245, and Chicago's 240. But since education wasn't mandatory in most states until the 1870s, attendance was low. Despite the official schedule, many kids ended up spending the same amount oftime in school back then as they do now. Brooklyn school officials, for example, reported in 1850 that more than half their students showed up just six months a year.
Poor attendance got some people wondering if such a long academic calendar was worthwhile. Why keep schools open year-round if most kids don't even go? Reformers also warned that goody-goodies who did show up every day might burn out. Many physicians at the time felt that students were too frail, both in mind and body, for so many days at their desk. Too much education, they argued, could impair a child's health.
City school officials began listening to reformers around the turn of the century. Gradually, they shortened the school year by about 60 days and eliminated the summer quarter. Reformers could have instituted a long break in winter, or spring, but they picked summer for three main reasons. 1) Poorly ventilated school buildings were nearly unbearable during heat waves. 2) Community leaders fretted that hot, crowded environments facilitated the spread of disease. 3) Wealthy urbanites traditionally vacationed during the hottest months, and middle-class school administrators were following in their footsteps.
Meanwhile, the school districts outside cities had quite different academic calendars. In the 19th century, rural kids spent just five or six months in school—two to three months in summer and the same in winter—and the rest of the year laboring on farms. So while urban educators worried that children were overtaxed by their busy schedule, officials in rural areas thought their students were mentally undertaxed. By the early 20th century, public-school officials in many farm states had lengthened the academic year and introduced a summer break to bring agrarian districts into line with urban ones.
Physicians no longer believe that children are too feeble for year-round instruction, and most school buildings now have effective ventilation systems. So why don't we go back to having school in the summertime? For one thing, it's expensive to keep schools open, just like it was in the late 1800s. But some nonprofit organizations argue that the long breaks hinder the learning process. According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Summer Learning, kids score worse on standardized tests in early September than in late June. Plus, students in other industrialized countries have more instructional time. The Israeli academic year lasts 216 days, and kids in Japan plug away for a whopping 243 days per annum.
Explainer thanks Ken Gold of the College of Staten Island and Philo Hutcheson of Georgia State University.
Do Kids Need a Summer Vacation?:Why our schoolchildren get to take three months off.
Juliet Lapidos is a Slate assistant editor.
Photograph of kids playing by Mario Tama/Getty Images.
COMMENTS
Remarks from the Fray:
How would all those students who are not successful during the school year keep up if we had all year school? They wouldn't be able to attend summer school.
In Las Vegas, NV, many of the Clark County School District schools are considered 'year-round'. They are put on rotating schedules to have weeks off at different times of the year. This can be a disaster for the parent that has children in different grades and on different schedules.
The kids old enough to be on the streets are a plague when not in school. The population of persons on our cul-de-sac triples after class when school is in secession and all day long during the summer break. The parents have jobs or something and cannot be home to look after them. The labor laws have prevented the older ones from getting jobs.
I would gladly pay my increased school board assessment to keep the little brats locked up a few more hours and a few more days.
I don't know where the author gets his information about schools being comfortable during the summer, but I teach in 3 different schools during the school year, and in 2 others during summer school, and none of them are air-conditioned. Last week it was 95 degrees every day, making the rooms as unbearable as they were in the early 1900's. Until air conditioning becomes a requirement, year round school should not be allowed.
Several have made the argument that workers don't get the time off that students do. So? When you enter the work force, you choose a field that has at least some interest to you. In school, you study whatever the state says you are going to study. If you hate your job, you can search for a new one and leave. If you hate some element of your school, you have no choice but to deal with it.
Of course test scores are lower in September than in May. That doesn't mean the students have un-learned. They just need refreshed. And isn't that how the real world operates anyway? When you get a new job, you have to refresh your memory about material you learned as a freshman in college (or high school!). A good teacher can take care of that in a week or so.
Think about the kids. Stop being so selfish and cynical. Just because your life sucks doesn't mean kids should suffer the same. Their lives will suck soon enough.
As a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools I must put in my two cents. During the school year I am at school 12 hours a day. I leave my house at 4:30 am, and do not return to it until 6:30 or 7:00 pm, later if there is a performance by the school band, choir, theater department, or if one of the three sports I coach has a week day game or meet. In addition I am at school on Saturdays for games or meets which due to the disorganization of CPS sports also mean a 12 hour day for me. I love teaching, I love coaching, but if I had to do it year round I would quit and do something else, as would a lot of teachers. Good teachers. Because the effort level that must be put in to be a great teacher cannot be sustained week after week year round. You would have massive teacher burnout.
For the last several years I taught six classes but with five daily preparations. That is quite taxing as the school district wants you to look up the appropriate state standards and incorporate in your lesson plans.
I get one 40-minute planning period to plan five different lessons each day. When do I correct tests? Whenever I assign homework, I check each answer myself. When do I prepare the assignments for the suspended or ill students? When do I contact the parents? When do I get to go to the bathroom?
As both a teacher and parent, I am an opponent of year-round school without some changes to how American schools function. What most people outside the education field do not realize is how intense school is for kids and teachers when it is in session. At the middle school where I work, kids sit in class from 8:00 until 3:00 with only 20 minutes for lunch, most of which is spent in line. Since we are a rural area, most also ride the bus for over an hour each way. The teachers also have a 20 minute lunch in addition to a planning period of 45 minutes which is so chock full of things that have to be done that it is never long enough. I typically do not leave school each day until 4:30 or 5:00 after arriving at 7:30. At previous jobs I had a hour lunch break and times during the day that I could spend a few minutes on a break with co-workers. School does not allow that for students or teachers. After 185 days of the frantic pace, teachers and students are worn out.
I particularly remember when my son was in early elementary school, he would fall asleep on the way home towards the end of the year. While the 10 weeks my district takes off for the summer may be a bit long, I am not an advocate of getting rid of it all together unless we slow the pace of school a bit for students with longer lunch and recess to allow for important social time and for the brain to "rest". As the old saying goes, the brain can only absorb what the butt can endure. How many of you could sit for virtually 7 hours straight and absorb new information every day of the year?
Most American school kids are about three weeks in to their three-month summer vacation. Yet working adults (the Explainer included) spend the better part of June, July, and August toiling away as usual. Why do kids enjoy such generous summer breaks?
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Remarks from the Fray:
How would all those students who are not successful during the school year keep up if we had all year school? They wouldn't be able to attend summer school.
--mmartin
(To reply, click here.)
In Las Vegas, NV, many of the Clark County School District schools are considered 'year-round'. They are put on rotating schedules to have weeks off at different times of the year. This can be a disaster for the parent that has children in different grades and on different schedules.
--ms_ann_c
(To reply, click here.)
The kids old enough to be on the streets are a plague when not in school. The population of persons on our cul-de-sac triples after class when school is in secession and all day long during the summer break. The parents have jobs or something and cannot be home to look after them. The labor laws have prevented the older ones from getting jobs.
I would gladly pay my increased school board assessment to keep the little brats locked up a few more hours and a few more days.
--janeslogin
(To reply, click here.)
I don't know where the author gets his information about schools being comfortable during the summer, but I teach in 3 different schools during the school year, and in 2 others during summer school, and none of them are air-conditioned. Last week it was 95 degrees every day, making the rooms as unbearable as they were in the early 1900's. Until air conditioning becomes a requirement, year round school should not be allowed.
--ofcol
(To reply, click here.)
Several have made the argument that workers don't get the time off that students do. So? When you enter the work force, you choose a field that has at least some interest to you. In school, you study whatever the state says you are going to study. If you hate your job, you can search for a new one and leave. If you hate some element of your school, you have no choice but to deal with it.
--newgrad
(To reply, click here.)
Of course test scores are lower in September than in May. That doesn't mean the students have un-learned. They just need refreshed. And isn't that how the real world operates anyway? When you get a new job, you have to refresh your memory about material you learned as a freshman in college (or high school!). A good teacher can take care of that in a week or so.
Think about the kids. Stop being so selfish and cynical. Just because your life sucks doesn't mean kids should suffer the same. Their lives will suck soon enough.
--baftime
(To reply, click here.)
As a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools I must put in my two cents. During the school year I am at school 12 hours a day. I leave my house at 4:30 am, and do not return to it until 6:30 or 7:00 pm, later if there is a performance by the school band, choir, theater department, or if one of the three sports I coach has a week day game or meet. In addition I am at school on Saturdays for games or meets which due to the disorganization of CPS sports also mean a 12 hour day for me. I love teaching, I love coaching, but if I had to do it year round I would quit and do something else, as would a lot of teachers. Good teachers. Because the effort level that must be put in to be a great teacher cannot be sustained week after week year round. You would have massive teacher burnout.
--teacherCPS
(To reply, click here.)
For the last several years I taught six classes but with five daily preparations. That is quite taxing as the school district wants you to look up the appropriate state standards and incorporate in your lesson plans.
I get one 40-minute planning period to plan five different lessons each day. When do I correct tests? Whenever I assign homework, I check each answer myself. When do I prepare the assignments for the suspended or ill students? When do I contact the parents? When do I get to go to the bathroom?
--Garry
(To reply, click here.)
As both a teacher and parent, I am an opponent of year-round school without some changes to how American schools function. What most people outside the education field do not realize is how intense school is for kids and teachers when it is in session. At the middle school where I work, kids sit in class from 8:00 until 3:00 with only 20 minutes for lunch, most of which is spent in line. Since we are a rural area, most also ride the bus for over an hour each way. The teachers also have a 20 minute lunch in addition to a planning period of 45 minutes which is so chock full of things that have to be done that it is never long enough. I typically do not leave school each day until 4:30 or 5:00 after arriving at 7:30. At previous jobs I had a hour lunch break and times during the day that I could spend a few minutes on a break with co-workers. School does not allow that for students or teachers. After 185 days of the frantic pace, teachers and students are worn out.
I particularly remember when my son was in early elementary school, he would fall asleep on the way home towards the end of the year. While the 10 weeks my district takes off for the summer may be a bit long, I am not an advocate of getting rid of it all together unless we slow the pace of school a bit for students with longer lunch and recess to allow for important social time and for the brain to "rest". As the old saying goes, the brain can only absorb what the butt can endure. How many of you could sit for virtually 7 hours straight and absorb new information every day of the year?
--KYTeach
(To reply, click here.)
(7/14)