Kids deserve a good long summer

I couldn't agree more! Kids deserve to enjoy the summer. How can we as adult deny kids the joys of a long summer break, when we ourselves enjoy them. Who would want to be inside a hot classroom on a summer day? I hope the school in this story has good A/C, as a classroom can be bad enough in June. I can only guess what July would be like.

Looking forward to reading more-Part 1

I am just about to embark on reading a research paper, "School Reform Proposals: The Research Evidence" published by the Education Policy Research Unit, College of Education, Arizona State University.

From the Executive Summary:

"The contention that the public education system has failed in turn has prompted a wide variety of reform proposals. Some, such as educational vouchers, would radically reorganize the system’s governance. Others, such as universal early childhood education, may demand equal or even greater changes in the educational system’s design and structure, while retaining the central feature of the system that has served public education for more than a century: the common school. Still other reform proposals are far more measured in their scope. Amid the welter of ideas put forth it is often far from clear how to best improve what is not working well without subverting the many successes of American public education.

In the last decade especially, reforms have tended to be justified as necessary to improve the academic achievement of children living in poverty. Moreover, the widespread and intense scrutiny of public school performance has increased the pressure on legislatures to act quickly, even as it has made it more important than ever for them to carefully weigh the benefits and costs of competing reform proposals.

Unfortunately, the research evidence available to policy makers is often non-existent, incomplete, or appears to be contradictory. School reform is, therefore, frequently debated in an environment that is long on emotion and short on hard data. Furthermore, the data supporting proposals to reform public education varies enormously in its quality. It ranges from carefully conducted and rigorously reviewed research to ideologically oriented commentary. Often there are few indicators for policy makers to distinguish one from the other.

In order to clarify what we know about effective public schools, the Education Policy Studies Laboratory (EPSL) at Arizona State University invited a group of distinguished education scholars to review the research on a series of education reform topics."

Part 2 to follow...

Part 2

One of their areas of the review was: "Time for School: Its Duration and Allocation".

In summary the reviewers of the research found,

"Alternative calendars on which the typical 180 days of schooling are offered (e.g., year-round calendars) show no increased benefits for student learning over the traditional 9-months-on/3-months-off calendar. Summer programs for at-risk students are probably effective, though more research is needed."

"Furthermore, changes in the calendar by which those 180 days are delivered are very unlikely to yield higher levels of pupil achievement. In terms of pupil achievement, it matters not at all whether those 180 days are interrupted by one long recess or four short ones."

"Within reason, the productivity of the schools is not a matter of the time allocated to them as much as it is a matter of how they use the time they already have."

My anecdotal contribution:

I lost interest in my own classroom schooling in the later two years of high school. I did not drop-out and performed the necessary requirements to graduate. At no time did I feel the summer vacation hampered the continuity of my schooling. The 8+ weeks were always full of activity with friends without interruption of school bells. A different learning, self-directed learning you could say, was taking place and I was in control of it for the most part.

I remember a fond feeling of starting each school year up until Grade 11 when my interest in formal schooling peaked and my interest in extra-curricular non-school activities become more important, including spending time at the new and exciting university, SFU, and hitchhiking to California and of course more personal relationships with my peers.

Perhaps good teachers have more of a role in students achieving better outcomes than calendar changes. In memory, I learned the most from teachers who were enthusiastic, knowledgeable, patient, considerate and caring.

Part 3

The current Minister of Education, George Abbott, is continuing in his former leaders footprints. Despite the crowning of a new leader of the BC Liberal/Socred coalition we see the same pattern of a lack of public consultation prior to enacting policy and legislation. Mr. Abbott is just another example of consistency.

If anything, the article by Ms. Sagan points to the need for more learning assistants in our schools for the almost 20% of students who are not able for some reason the meet the ministry outcomes for their grade level.

Mr. Abbott, fiddling like a Nero, will not achieve the results he desires while parroting failed studies nor will his "reforms" provide parents with any security that altering the school calendar will guarantee better outcomes for their children.

Perhaps the progressive community of Austin Texas was wrong in dropping their year round education calendar when they cited it was costing more and was not producing academic improvements.

It seems...

...that research suggests that the educational benefits of year round schooling are likely negligible compared to the traditional school calendar. I don't know that I have a strong opinion for or against the idea, but I do wonder about the following:

Many teachers are unable to secure full time employment during the school year. For these teachers, it is imperative to obtain employment during the summer in order to make ends meet. Older students, too claim they benefit from the longer break in order to find work that allows them to begin to save for university tuitions. What impacts would year round schooling have on these groups?

Teachers who are interested in pursuing further education to learn new skills and strategies to improve their teaching practice use summers to go back to school an take university courses. How would year round schooling affect this?

This says a lot

http://xkcd.com/1050/

it's a political feint

sure some kids, especially if from disadvantaged backgrounds, benefit from year-round schooling.

However, all the discussion on year-round schooling distracts the public from the fundamental gutting of public education by the BC Liberal government.

I remember resenting calls to

I remember resenting calls to extend the school year when I was a kid (oh so long ago). My home life and play-time out in nature were too precious to me.

I now believe that I would have quit school at first opportunity if authorities had introduced year-round schooling back then, so mind-numbing was the quality of my class time during the rebel days of my youth.

Perhaps the quality of education has changed and kids no longer need positive interactions with nature and summer holidays with Mom and Dad.

Perhaps what kids need is more time on computers and more time spent with people their own age.

Perhaps I would now be happier, healthier and wealthier if I had come up through an education that kept me from experiencing the distractions of the outside world for twelve months of the year.

But I doubt it.

With environmentalism under government and corporate siege, the last thing we need is for upcoming generations to lose what little sensitivity for nature they already possess.

Wouldn't the Federal Government just love it if young people cared nothing for nature and environmental protest went extinct?

Who would we really be serving by introducing year-round schooling?

Teachers

Teachers should be paid hourly, and schools should be open all year round. Like hospitals class room time has been routinely cut by 50 years of conservative govs. to "save money" and the bad outcomes from this practice are blamed on teachers and nurses. The fact that the teacher union has never had the gumption to demand an hourly wage scale speaks volumes about it's ineffectiveness over the years.

One of Richmond, B.C.'s highest scoring schools?

By whose measure, the Fraser Institute?
If that is the case, the statement is meaningless.
Please specify while I decide whether or not to shred this article.

Speciaous reasoning a gov't that's behind the times

It’s worth noting that a child from a different system (South Africa) found ours a context to “blossom in”.

But the article has wound her success around yr. round schooling; this is specious reasoning.

Our public education system holistically is rated in the top 3, worldwide, being beaten out only by Finland and S. Korea (and Korean families often send kids here to learn ‘creative problem solving’ among other things).

Likely, Kayla would have thrived in almost any Canadian School; though she was fortunate to have landed in BC. BC and ALTA are top spots in for public education in Canada, making our lovely province pretty much top three in the world for public education.

Kayla has likely been the topic of many meetings where professionals gathered to determine how to best serve her needs. She is not unique in this kind of service, service which is ‘under the radar’ when it comes to public knowledge.

Our system, and the professionals in it constantly tailor programs to student needs. The limitation in our public education system is the liberal gov’t. The liberals are an anchor, not an engine.

Re: year round schooling, thoughtful debaters will conclude what teachers generally already know: it benefits some, and harms others.

In a lower income area, year round schooling may be the answer to good summertime care. In an ESL community, it may benefit language acquisition. Good arguments for.

But high school students work summer times, saving up $ for university and other worthwhile endeavours. And beginning teachers especially need that time to work a second job; the wages of beginning teachers are the reason close to 50% of teachers quit in the first handful of years: all that education to make half of what a beginning lawyer makes.

For years, schools could change their schedule, provided they followed a thoughtful process that involves stakeholders and puts kids first.

Abbot’s actions are obfuscation: his vision is past date.

Let’s try to get people in power who actually care about our public institutions for more than a publicity stunt.

Bring on the election.

So why not...

...keep kids in school for 8 hours each day as well as all year round. Let's take all the fun out of growing up. Teach these kids that it is all about keeping your nose to the grindstone. Adult life is sooo great we should rush them into it.

All this is is a deflection from the real issue. You won't save any money.

Why It All Started

Waaaaay back the tradition of keeping kids out of school in the summer, was that was when they were needed on the farm, as the summer is a very busy time. Kids would have been kept out of school anyway.
Today, it is only the case 'because we have always done it that way'.

Fraser Insitute

Habos:
read an interesting article re: fraser institute, in Regina (at the time, no ranking of public institutions was taking place in Regina.)
"Why rank schools?" the fi. rep was asked.
"To undermine public faith in public education," was the answer.
Not to make anything better, just to undermine schools.

One more point: as an educator, when I went through my teaching degree, we had about 50 student teachers graduate. The only ones I knew of who went to private schools were the ones who couldn't get jobs in the public system.
To use this anecdotal knowledge to say that the teachers in private schools weren't good enough for public institutions is an example of specious reasoning, of course. It's just one person's experience.

Second point

The devil is in the details

Has the Minister given any information on how they will conduct government exams? All exams are supposed to be written at the same time on the same day. Will some write in June and some in July? How will they prevent fraud?

Will students who get exam results a month ahead of others get preference in university placement? Will students who write exams in July have to wait a full year to get into university as they won't get results until late in August when application deadlines have passed?

What about schools that are not designed to be used during hot weather? What good learning will happen in a stifling classroom with poor air circulation on a hot July day?

How will students save money for university without those summer jobs? Who will fill those minimum wage jobs that can only be done by those who still live at home?

There are so many questions and so few answers. This is just another example of a two minute sound bite that makes good copy without any substance.

Skywalker...

Are you/were you employed in education, because I sure do admire your thinking! And the WCB issue a few days ago, I wasn't saying what I did for your information, but for the uninformed who think WCB/SOFA is friend of everyone in the school, including students.

I spent some time a couple years ago immersed in a Master's of Educational technology fiasco, and I say fiasco because it was a bunch of silly but-fluff that cost a fortune, all delivered online. But it did lend me an insight into where this wretched gov't is trying to take education. I realized back then the push to privatize education. They are going to try making brick-and-mortar public education as uncomfortable as possible for the average student and/or family. Buying into the year-round calendar (balanced) is a transition into online learning. In my opinion, the student has to touch, see, feel, hear and spill on themselves before they can begin to understand and appreciate what they are learning about. But the private tutors will then be making a killing!
Funny how CClark's kid's application for private school (St George's) isn't to a "balanced" school...

Be Cautious of a Tale with two stories!

It appears the Tyee has fallen for the wave of the Magician's hand trick. Look over at this hand whilst the Liberals pocket the real story with the other. Please do not for one second think the legislation mentioned is about "Year Round Schooling". Balanced Calendars have been an option for every school and every district that were interested in change for years now. The school needed to apply to the district to get the changes, but there was nothing from preventing this from happening. The legislation was all about the online streaming of K to Grade 9 courses.

Is this for the betterment of the children's education? Certainly not. Cost savings pure and simple. Does anyone think putting a child in front of a computer for their Reading/Math/Social Studies/Science/Art/PE will be an improvement over face to face teach/student lessons? Don't focus too much on the Liberals right hand, the left is where the "magic" happens.

The Tyee readers deserve better than this!

@ psosp

Yes I did for a time. I thought I was pretty good at it as my reports showed as did the feedback I got. The problem was that I got tired of the straight-jacket and the political football that education had become. Education is a pain in the political butt of every government. They would like to put it at arms length (Privatize it) as none of the political leaders know what they doing or how to keep control. That way the wealthy get a better education because they can afford it and they don't have to rub shoulders with the offspring of the working class. Throw in a bit of mind-numbing religious dogma and you have a predictable malleable product.

I mean really, we keep kids in school year round, remove any responsibility from parents get them to graduate early so they can look for a job and maybe make more money for the man and become consumers. Problem is there are fewer jobs to go around.

You can't teach kids how to think critically. You do that and you too political. You can't talk about real issues because they might question the political orientation of their parents. Just teach them the three R's so you score well on the standardized tests the Fraser Institute wingnuts think are the true measure of an educated person.

And people wonder why the world is so &@#%ed up.

Public policy can't be anecdotal

We can't base public policy on anecdotes, it needs good research. A story about how well a few students did with year round school doesn't mean that all students will.

If the small about of research done does show that inner city students do well with year round schooling, it doesn't surprise me. Kids from more wealthy families probably do more structured things through the summer, such as summer camps, organized sports and competitions, visits to museums, visits to historical sites, hikes in the wilderness, trips to cultural sites in other countries, boy and girl scouts etc.

All of these are valuable experiences which contribute to a child's education, something that an inner city child often misses. Education doesn't only happen within the four walls within a school year. Indeed, some of the best education happens outside this confinement. (And this said by a high school teacher)

If we are really committed to raising well rounded, smart, well educated good citizens then we should start building up these types of extra curricular programs for inner city and disadvantaged students. And start paying well qualified people to run these types of programs.

school calendars

Skywalker, are you or were you in education? You see the picture clearly (on most everything, not just education). BTW, the blurb about WCB/SOFA the other day was not to be directed at you, but for genereal readership that doesn't realize there are no such regs for students. And, as you imply, teachers don't seem to matter either...

Does it tell us something that CClark has applied to admit her kid to St George's, a private, "unbalanced" (I love using that term, although we all know it to be tongue-in-cheek) non-faith based school? The rest of us can go to hell. The schools can now run their own timetables, or not, charge fees, or not, provide online learning, or not. I was involved in an online Master's of Educational Technology program a few years ago. At that time the writing on the wall to privatize schools became evident. Our superintendents sign off "CEO, District XX". CEO! IN a public school! NOt even a crown corporation! The more ad hoc rules and mayhem directing the schools, the more parents will pull their kids out to private schools, or online learning. Online learning - homeschooling via a usb cable (the poor man's private school)...

one link to CC's appl'n to St Geos, point 8...
http://alexgtsakumis.com/2012/03/15/what-a-week-well-done-premier-christy-clark-sinking-her-own-ship/

The last thing the privileged class want...

.. to see is a good, adequately funded public school system giving ever kid an equal opportunity to be successful. The privileged would prefer to keep their privilege and if privatizing the system allows them to buy a better opportunity for their kids, that's just peachy.

Also "well rounded, smart, well educated good citizens" are a threat to the status quo.

trade schools

I especially like it when the liberals declared we have a skilled labour shortage looming.
When I taught a technical school (highschool grad for those obtaining a ticket in a trade), one of the first things they did was cancel our funding, as well shut down the program promoting these trade schools.
Struggling with finance and attracting students, the school shut down w/i 3 years
Surprise, surprise not enough carpenters in BC.
And the solution?
Don't train local kids - bring in international workers.
Doesn't that reduce the opportunities for BC kids? I guess that doesn't matter.
One wonders whether a person desperate enough to emigrate for a job will be a little more willing to accept sub standard working conditions.
Perhaps the motivation is to bring in a dislocated worker without a voice.

YES! Kids need summer off!

It is annoying that always those make policies and rules who has the least amount of understanding of the topic.

Year round school - STUPID! I can't find any other way to describe it.

There is a reason why the majority of people take vacation in summer. It is usually hot and we like to take our break from work in warmer seasons. Now the kids stuck in school all year round.

Who comes up with these idiotic ideas?

So how will the absence be calculated when a family goes on for a 3 week vacation?

This government brings all sort of issues to the front, renovate this, mask that, reform whatever - so the dismantling and underfunding public education will never have to be dealt with as long as they can cover it up with other issues.

Disgusting. Thanks God I have no school age kids who would need to suffer through year round schooling.

We need ONE system!

All Neo-cons love to shift decision making to a lower level, so they cannot be blamed.
If local school boards are to decide when their schools are open, we will run into situations where kids who for whatever reason are transferred can wind up in a different system that perhaps give them twice the "vacation"perhaps no vacation?
Likewise the curriculum needs to be standardized so if kids switch, they get the entire program and not for inatance one part of it repeated again!
This is all a part of the trend to decentralize, and the ultimate decentralization is when we seperate each province from the country!

What A Pile of Fear-Mongering

People don't quite understand. It's not year-round schooling. School districts will set their own calendars. One mentioned option would be three months on, one month off. The number of instructional days would remain the same.
My son and many of his friends, say summer holidays are too long. By Week Six he's ready to go back. Boredom has set in. And like many of his peers, the first three to four weeks back at school are spent reviewing what was previously learned.
Come on people -- why is such a common-sense change met with such childish misunderstanding? Remember, not everyone can afford to send their kids to camp, on fancy holidays, to summer school.
Everything isn't a conspiracy but I know a certain element out there that doesn't want to loose its beloved 10 weeks off will continue to spread misinformation.

Who said it was a conspiracy?

It is just a stupid idea. Why would they advance a stupid idea now? Well?

Furthermore.

Ten more weeks of work mean ten more weeks of pay. Or did you think teachers would work an extra ten weeks for nothing? Maybe think before you post.

Year-round schooling would

Year-round schooling would help students adjust to the work-a-day world, where 2 month holidays are not the norm (if you're lucky enough to find regular employment)!

Also, in this day and age, there are lots of interesting things to do in the non-summer months.

The same number of days in session

There are currently about 195 school days in a school year, and this would be the same with year round schooling. Teachers would not be paid more with year round schooling.

I am not fundamentally opposed to this. I just don't want to jump into something without thinking it through carefully and studying the issue.

What do we do with students who take 6 weeks of summer school for remedial study?
How do we help teachers who work through the summer to supplement their income?
Will this affect the enrollment of our lucrative and burgeoning international student population?
Will siblings in different schools get different holidays?
Will this limit summer jobs for our older students?

Give me a break.

You take a set number of students. Spread their education over 12 months instead of 10. There are no extra kids to fill the classrooms for the summer, they come from the pool that exists. You are spreading the "service" over 12 months instead of 10 for the same number of kids. Twelve months of busing, 12 months of school janitorial, 12 months of paying teachers. Probably fewer kids in each class. This from a government that can't find the dollars to fund the system now? Some school district offer remedial courses for kids that need it now.

A kid is bored over the summer so schools provide day care service?

This notion was peddled by Christy and Abbott because their think tank is on E.

year round schooling

As a teacher I like it. The energy levels would be much more balanced. It certainly wouldn't hurt the children's learning. I suspect the govt. is doing it to make it harder for teachers to coordinate any job action. Christy has certainly never done anything for the benefit of students before. It seems unlikely that she'd start now.

Those kids don't need summers

Those kids don't need summers off. Most of them are destined to work in a Chinese sweat shop.

This is a "global economy", we must compete with the other third world countries in a desperate bid for corporate scraps.

Send them to school 6 days a week and on the seventh day they can do piece-work. It worked for the Chinese dictatorship, it can work for us.

First one to the bottom wins!

@ Skywalker

Oh boy oh boy! I just added your name to my bucket list of hands of amazing people I want to shake! Sorry I double posted but I didn't think the first one was successful.

"The last thing the privileged class want...

.. to see is a good, adequately funded public school system giving ever kid an equal opportunity to be successful. The privileged would prefer to keep their privilege and if privatizing the system allows them to buy a better opportunity for their kids, that's just peachy.

Also "well rounded, smart, well educated good citizens" are a threat to the status quo."

This says it all in a nutshell. With your permission, I will hang it on my office wall
beside the Kreiger cartoon of CClark holding a baby over a crocodile pit (2004, when she was transferred from education to family and social services). Hell, I'm radical enough to hang it on the outside of my door! May I?

Single Dad perspective

One advantage of the current system is that it gives kids enough time in the summer to visit relatives (the grandmas in my situation) for a week or two, as well as giving Mom and Dad, who aren't a couple, the opportunity to take a little vacation time to spend with their kids.

Kids need sunshine and exercise a lot more than they need to succumb to a 52 week process of training them to be assembly line workers (the original purpose of schools - ie teach people basic literacy and how to show up on time for their shift). If the problem is lack of childcare for parents, perhaps the real solution is to join the rest of the civilized world such as Germany and Australia and increase the mandatory paid vacation time available to employees?

@ psosp

Feel free.