Extending the School Year: What Possible Good will come of More of the Same?
August 9, 2012 by Paul W. Bennett
On Thursday August 2, hundreds of Calgary Catholic school students cut short their carefree summer vacation and headed back for the first day of class. While most students could look forward to a month more of summer holidays, students and teachers at Monsignor Neville Anderson School in Sandstone, AB, returned to school during one of the most glorious Calgary summers in recent memory. Yet a feature story in the Calgary Herald (August 1, 2012) painted a very positive picture, carrying the message that teachers found their “pupils” returning early far “more eager” than those on traditional September to June school calendars. http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Summer+ends+early+Calgary+Catholic+year+round+students/7026505/story.html
The glowing endorsement of Year Round Schools running on the so-called Modified School Year (MSY) Calendar flew in the face of most of the accumulating evidence. Extending the School Year, by simply spreading out the holidays, once considered a means to improve student performance and to reduce classroom overcrowding, has produced mixed results since the advent of the MSY concept in the early 1990s. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/debate-over-yearround-ver_n_1668482.html
Over the past two decades, only about
100 public schools across all of Canada have adopted and implemented the
Modified School Year Calendar, reducing the length of the 9-week summer break and spreading the 180 to 185 instructional days more evenly throughout the year.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/does-year-round-schooling-make-the-grade/article4261901/ The first of those was the
Calgary Board of Education’s Terry Fox Public School in Falconridge, initiated in 1995. Today the original pilot school still runs on a modified calendar, with students due to return in mid-August on a 45 days on, 15 day break schedule. In the Toronto region,
Roberta Bondar Public School, Peel Region District Board, Brampton, enjoys similar notoriety. South of the border, some school districts that adopted the extended schedule, like
Las Vegas and
Salt Lake City, have actually turned back to traditional school calendars.
Modified School Year supporters claim that extending the school year directly addresses what is termed “summer learning loss.” Reducing the summer holidays from 9-weeks to 5-weeks or less, they believe prevents students from falling behind academically and keeps troubled kids off the streets. Some of the more reliable U.S. research has also shown that students in high-needs districts and students with special needs tend to do better in schools with extended calendars.
Rick Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, remains unconvinced. Appearing recently on Fox-TV News with Dr. Peter Gray of Boston College, he insisted that extending the school year was “not for everyone” and without significant improvements in teaching, such a move might make little difference for student learning. “We want to extend the school year for kids for whom it would benefit them and for kids who are attending schools where we’re confident the time’s going be used well and it’s going to be used effectively.” http://video.foxnews.com/v/1775447053001/
A strong case can be made to offer the choice of a Modified School Year schedule, particularly if it is targeted for children and families in lower socio-economic communities Less educated, low income families, according to Hess, are more likely to experience summer learning loss, but mandating a longer calendar for all students will not prove beneficial. “Even when children start school at age six in more or less the same space, kids from low income or less educated families are a few years behind by the time they get to high school,” Hess said. “I think we owe it to those kids to do something about it.”
Expanding actual teaching time may well make a difference. The U.S. National Center on Time and Learning reports that more than 170 schools around the United States have extended their school year to more than 190 days, including at least two schools in the state of Missouri. Both schools in Missouri and the majority of schools across the United States that are opting for longer days or longer years are charter schools.
The renowned national charter network
Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) lists “more time” as one of their strategies for delivering a high-quality education to their students.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVi07IxmVkg Students at
KIPP Inspire Academy in Saint Louis attend school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every other Saturday. Additionally, students are required to attend summer school. Their efforts to improve education outcomes for disadvantaged students are now attracting widespread attention and even imitations, like the
Citizen Schools. Ardent supporters of KIPP schools will tell you that it’s as much about
what is actually taught in school as it is
the length of the school year. Extending the School Year is not popular with students and parents for lots of reasons and a sound case has to be made that there will be real gains in terms of student learning and performance. Why is the Modified School Year producing such mixed results? Will simply dividing-up the year differently make much of a difference? What really explains the remarkable success of the KIPP schools in the United States? What’s stopping Canadian provinces and school boards from extending learning time and building more flexibility into the school day and annual schedule?
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The glowing endorsement of Year Round Schools running on the so-called Modified School Year (MSY) Calendar flew in the face of most of the accumulating evidence. Extending the School Year, by simply spreading out the holidays, once considered a means to improve student performance and to reduce classroom overcrowding, has produced mixed results since the advent of the MSY concept in the early 1990s. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/debate-over-yearround-ver_n_1668482.html
IMHO rejigging the school year with the same total of days and hours is of little help. Instead of a ‘summer learning loss’ there are more holidays and more learning loss opportunities. Increasing the total days/hours has some potential in a co-operative environment with teachers it is possible for students to have a longer day but not teachers if scheduled well. Some teachers come in earlier and leave earlier, some come in later and leave later. This allows expanded hours without teachers demanding compensation.
In my own opinion this should be aimed at low achieving schools (poor schools to me but not to many of you). I am fine if you define by achievement rather than SES since it amounts to the same schools, perhaps 20% of the schools.
Cutting into the summer? Well go ahead and try but Tory minister Snobelen, under Harris got a big surprise and an ear full when he tried to take one week from the summer and the entire tourism industry and every parent with a cottage landed on his head.
Naturally, my ideas of more time on task revolve around ECE and full day kindergarten and JK. I would (and society will) eventually expand it downwards to 3 year olds.
Expanding Learning time is finally on the Canadian public policy agenda. Former Quebec Education Minister Francois Legault’s Coalition Avenir Quebec is proposing a 9 to 5 high school day. The Quebec teacher unions were quick off the mark to reject the plan. What a surprise!
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/would+make+high+school/7064129/story.html
CAQ leader Francois Legault is making a lot of sense. Why is he proposing to extend the school day to 5 pm?
His answer: “To put an end to adolescents going home in the middle of the afternoon and playing video games alone in the house.”
http://www.montrealgazette.com/mobile/news/national-news/Quebecs+Francois+Legault+wants+kids+stay+school+until/7063972/story.html
It’s a vitally important issue in Quebec, the province with the highest high school drop-out rate in Canada. Instead of watching buses leave schools and students saunter home at 3:30 pm, he’s proposing to introduce extended day programs, including sports, arts, and community activities. Sounds a lot like the KIPP program to me!
Legault’s proposal is not bad when you consider it closely. No war with the teachers because extra time (3:30-5???) Is voluntary.
They need to find good use for the time for remediation or it will become “crafts” time.
Teachers will not oppose since it is like an “overtime” opportunity which is exactly what they support. Some will want it others will not. Some will want to work extra 5 day some 2-3 days others zero.
There ARE some proposals out there that both reformers and teachers can support.
I think the choice of a year-round school for disadvantaged students is the right thing to do. I wonder, however, how many students/parents would take up the offer? Longer school years without significant changes in HOW we teach kids or even structure school days isn’t the answer, in my opinion.
It is not the length of the school year that counts its the quality of the teaching and the curriculum. A minority of Canadian schools don’t teach historyand if you don’t understand that history repeats itself you won’t understand what is going on in the world around you or that the human race has created the same problems many times over.Glory, power, wealth and religions create wars and countries. Not enough students are warned about the need of math by grade ten if they want to have a wide range of university programs.
The correct attitude to school reform can be summed up as this.
WDFD
(What does Finland do?).
Now, do that.
I don’t see any reason to have school all through the year.
We already have our kids in too many hours of school as it is. What would be more useful is to have kids in real educational programs such as youth oriented work experience as my older boy is engaged in (summer job) or family oriented programs such as wilderness type treks by ordinary families to our national parks (Jasper/Yoho/Waterton National Parks are gems).
When I was a kid, we had our short school days and the summer was completely at our disposal. We got bored and we learned to entertain ourselves. We read books when we had nothing else to do. My mother had five kids and as soon as we were bored during the summer holidays in Kuwait she sent us to the beach on our bikes. Would I trade that childhood for year round schooling? Nope. I’d like to have more summer holidays and not less. What our kids learn in school is to be obedient citizens. What they learn out of school is to be questioning human beings. Far better for them to learn to question than to simply agree.
I also had the whole summer to our disposal. A hundred acres to roam around play war, built forts, tree houses, make a pit stop to weed the vegetable garden as one of our chores, and yes the whole neighborhood of farm kids, were sent packing to travelling on our bikes, with sandwiches and kool-aid in our knapsacks approximately 5 miles to enjoy the river and the park. Boy, we sure were hungry when we got home. During the summer, I learned how to build a fort, and these days one needs a permit. I can well imagine what the police would do seeing 25 bikes travelling in a pack with youngsters as old as 6 years old in today’s world. Nothing too good, I will assume. Believe it or not, most of the kids had a little bit of summer school work to do before we could go out to play. Nothing serious, a little bit of grammar, other writing lessons, and some math. that lasted no more than ten minutes of the day. Our forts were equipped with all kinds of inexpensive reading material – 10 cents to 25 cents comic books, Nancy Drew and the Harvey Boys mystery books, and whatever inexpensive material like colouring books. If anything, us kids learned in building forts, make it leak proof, so our stuff would not get destroy. Oh another thing, not good to build a fort where the chicken coop use to be, as we learned and packed up and build another fort this time in the wooded lot that belong to another farmer. All materials were what they call the recycle stuff, and whatever could be scrounged from the farms. Farmers been doing the recycling bit for years and years, and today, one would think it was just recently discovered, especially in schools.
In the summer, the older kids and sometimes parents would pick up the kids for a hike in the Niagara Gorge and other places like the Devil’s Hole. One summer hike, we met up with some Mississauga rattlers, and we screamed all the way up, where the parents were setting up the picnic. The parents didn’t get upset, but asked us to take them down where we saw the snakes. Did not find any, but my father located a cave, and we came walking back up to the top, imagining who and what lived in the cave.
My point is that what is missing in 2012 compared to the 1960s and 1970s for children, is the lost of inexpensive reading material, libraries open 6 to 7 days a week for 8 hours daily, inexpensive educational materials and relatively plentiful supply found in near-by stores, swimming pools, boy scouts and girl guides, plus a bit of organized sports. In my community it was baseball. Today, organized sports is so expensive, as well as other day camps, the cost of admission to the swimming pools, to other things that I took for granted in the 1960s. The lost of freedom for children, and is one of the top three reasons why I moved the family to NL, so my youngest child would know what it is to be free to roam around a small town, and the ocean as the backdrop.
I highly doubt having schools with longer hours. all year-around or the ones spread out still using the 200 days model, are the answer. Wouldn’t it better spent on effective teaching, rather than impose a 9 to 5 model where the main problem be, are kids who don’t want to be there. An 8 hour day is too much, especially when the education laws makes it compulsory. I can well imagine students being charged with truancy, leaving the school after the 3:00 window.
I took the time to figure out the number of days available for schools. A year has 365 days, minus the weekend days, to which that brings a total of 260 days or so. Take off the statutory holidays – to a total of 250 days – throw in the provincial holidays and the days for teachers where there is no classes for the students – depending on what province it brings it down to about 245 days.
Given the days of instruction are anywhere between 180 to 200 days of instruction., 65 to 45 days is the margin left Given that schools cannot be the replacement for the the cut hours and closed public libraries, the ever climbing rate of fees and gate prices for things such as pools, camps, and even parks, and the lack of places to go to in some communities especially for the inner-city lower income communities, can a school provide what is missing in the communities and the homes of the students beyond the academic? School is much more than the academic, part, and adding more hours just to improve academic achievement is kind of crazy and expensive?
Watching the closing ceremonies of the summer Olympics, year around schooling will posed much difficulties in producing the athletes, the musicians, the inventors and the other creative souls who spent a great deal of time pursuing their interests, It is even highly more unlikely, that a 9 to 5 school would improve achievement – “The extra hour would be for compulsory after-school activities including tutoring, sports and cultural activities. It would give teenagers alternatives to “playing Nintendo, Xbox or just vegging, as they say,” Legault said.”
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/High+school+study+become+under+Coalition+Avenir+Qu%c3%a9bec+government/7064129/story.html#ixzz23N3xeCNr
Legault, needs to get out more. Vegging out to a teenager and do they say the term anymore, could mean a lot of different things other than sticking their nose in a school book. Make the after school activities compulsory, there is not a school that would be successful, especially when after-school activities are too diverse and when the school activities are of no interest to the students. As for tutoring, which is a given for most high schools after school, how much tutoring can take place given that an increase in tutoring takes place usually before tests and exams? The third reason, a 9 to 5 puts students in the daily ritual of the 5:00 rush hour in the cities, meaning increasing the odds of students being in road accidents, and at the very least going home in the dark.
Kids need to veg out – to take a break – to get the creative juices working. More school and more compulsory hours will not end the student from vegging out at home, and it will just be at a later hour than customary. Back to the games, strumming a few tunes on the guitar, a few laps in the pool, a toss of a football, and face time chatting to their friends. Anything else, but doing their homework..
A Summer School program in Providence Rhode Island was featured in a recent PBS report by John Merrow of PBS’s Learning Matters. Here’s the video:
Are programs like this scalable? Is this a viable antidote to “Summer Learning Loss” in under-performing schools?