School year calendars

[kphoger]

Also, most of Europe requires 220-240 days of school per year. The traditional 180 day calendar is a relic from the days when parents absolutely needed the kids to be off for 3 months in the summer to help on the family farm. The only reason we haven't lengthened the school year is that taxpayers are too stupid to want to pay teachers more for the extra work.

Having grown up in farm country, where parents need their kids to help on the family farm in the summer... ummm... I kind of disagree.

[Max Rockatansky]

Also, most of Europe requires 220-240 days of school per year. The traditional 180 day calendar is a relic from the days when parents absolutely needed the kids to be off for 3 months in the summer to help on the family farm. The only reason we haven't lengthened the school year is that taxpayers are too stupid to want to pay teachers more for the extra work.

Having grown up in farm country, where parents need their kids to help on the family farm in the summer... ummm... I kind of disagree.

My aunt and uncle would disagree also.  They had a conveyor belt of farm labor being churned out with their nine kids.  As far as I know all nine of them turned out fine.

[NWI_Irish96]

Also, most of Europe requires 220-240 days of school per year. The traditional 180 day calendar is a relic from the days when parents absolutely needed the kids to be off for 3 months in the summer to help on the family farm. The only reason we haven't lengthened the school year is that taxpayers are too stupid to want to pay teachers more for the extra work.

Having grown up in farm country, where parents need their kids to help on the family farm in the summer... ummm... I kind of disagree.

You're talking about a much smaller percentage of kids than from 150 years ago. I'd be fine with having some districts where this percentage is higher having some night classes or having longer school days to compensate, but either way we need to have kids in school more regardless of how much their parents need them for other things.

[kphoger]

Personally, I don't care how many days kids are in school.  I'm skeptical about how much learning would improve by adding days to the school calendar, but I also don't think kids (outside of certain specific farm environments) need three months in a row off from class.  If anything, I'd rather shorten the summer break but add more four-day week-ends and full weeks off to compensate.

[Max Rockatansky]

Personally, I don't care how many days kids are in school.  I'm skeptical about how much learning would improve by adding days to the school calendar, but I also don't think kids (outside of certain specific farm environments) need three months in a row off from class.  If anything, I'd rather shorten the summer break but add more four-day week-ends and full weeks off to compensate.

I'm generally skeptical about a lot of things said about education on forums like this. 

That said, I can see something of an angle on proposing more school days as a way of lessening daycare burden.  Most families I know with two working adults often complain about daycare costs, especially during long school breaks.  That of course doesn't mitigate the tax ramifications.

[JayhawkCO]

For the record, today was my wife's first day back to work from summer vacation.

[Rothman]

Pfft.  Get rid of schools and send kids to the farms.  Cargill needs them.

[Scott5114]

I likewise am skeptical of the efficacy of adding more instruction days as opposed to using the ones that are there more efficiently. We could probably improve educational outcomes simply by trying something different than the rigid grades-homework-and-testing model that most teachers insist on, out of apparent lack of exposure to anything else.

Homework in particular is something that I think really needs to go the way of the dodo. I never got a whole lot out of it because either you already learned the material sufficiently in class that it ends up being  perfunctory busy work, or you run into unexpected problems with it that the textbook doesn't provide a useful answer to. Since you can't call the teacher up at home your options are to hope your parents understand the material (mine put in a valiant effort but a lot of the material we covered in math class apparently wasn't part of the curriculum when they were in school) or just take it on the nose because there is no time to get help from the teacher before they collect the homework at the beginning of class. There is also the issue that we know adults need time to rest, physically and mentally, after getting off work, to avoid getting burned out. But by requiring homework we are  pretending that the same is not true of children, who often also have extracurricular activities like sports and clubs that adults don't.

Beyond the salaries of teachers and other faculty like custodians and bus drivers, adding more school days presents additional expenses in the form of utilities. A school that is closed for the summer does not have to have the air conditioners running. The utility cost is apparently great enough that when Oklahoma was running into education funding shortfalls a few years back the emergency solution for some districts was to go to four-day school weeks for a while.

[kphoger]

Homework in particular is something that I think really needs to go the way of the dodo.

Writing a long paper makes sense to do as homework, because it takes a lot of time.  Repetitive practice at something like math problems makes sense to do as homework, because the repetition really does help to understand the material.  But I really bristle when students have to actually learn the material at home to begin with.  Excuse me, but we're paying you, teacher, to do the teaching.  I could buy the book myself and save the tax dollars.  If something is on an exam, then you had better have been the one to teach it to my kid.

[kalvado]

Unless you are wanting to become an administrator, a master's degree is a pointless hoop to make teachers jump through. There's no evidence that an advanced degree makes you a better teacher.

Also, most of Europe requires 220-240 days of school per year. The traditional 180 day calendar is a relic from the days when parents absolutely needed the kids to be off for 3 months in the summer to help on the family farm. The only reason we haven't lengthened the school year is that taxpayers are too stupid to want to pay teachers more for the extra work.

Bachelor degree these days guarantees that a person can read individual words, not necessarily understanding the meaning of a phrase. A bar that high is a tripping hazard.

And I don't see any confirmation for 220-240 class days a year. For one, with 104 weekend days and a 11-13 holidays, that leaves no room for any time off. In Europe, where the concept of vacation still exists...

[Rothman]

I would have joked about sending kids into the mines, but that's exactly what happened to my great uncle after my great-grandfather deserted the family.  My great uncle would always say of my grandfather, his younger brother, that because my great uncle worked in the mines, my grandfather never needed to. 

Both became businessmen -- great uncle had a better knack for it.

[bandit957]

We should really go back to 175.

Remember, several years ago, it was 0 in much of the country, which was the opposite absurd extreme from 220.

[bandit957]

Also, the longer summer break serves a positive purpose for agriculture, recreation, and summer jobs. I was able to have a summer job in my late teens because of it.

It's too bad the media is always demanding year-round school and attacking anyone who dares to oppose it.

[kphoger]

Remember, several years ago, it was 0 in much of the country, which was the opposite absurd extreme from 220.

Online school and no school aren't the same thing—even if my father did once have a student video in from the golf course.

I was able to have a summer job in my late teens because of it.

I hadn't even thought of that.  Yeah, shortening the summer break does undo some opportunity for high schoolers to have any sort of job before graduation.

[kalvado]

I was able to have a summer job in my late teens because of it.

I hadn't even thought of that.  Yeah, shortening the summer break does undo some opportunity for high schoolers to have any sort of job before graduation.

A big question is what the school is primarily for. Academic education? Supervised social interaction? Daycare? Job market entry delay for kids? Union job creation for teachers? Political indoctrination?
Probably all of the above to a different extent, with poor results on most of these.
Prioritizing those goals in a different order may result in significantly different curriculums, calendars, general arrangements of how schools operate.

[jeffandnicole]

Also, most of Europe requires 220-240 days of school per year. The traditional 180 day calendar is a relic from the days when parents absolutely needed the kids to be off for 3 months in the summer to help on the family farm. The only reason we haven't lengthened the school year is that taxpayers are too stupid to want to pay teachers more for the extra work.

This seems to greatly contradict that time length: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18GMDiwj8u/ . In the comments there's some disagreement as to it's accuracy, but it's off by a matter of days.  No one says they're going for 220-240 days.

[elsmere241]

Also, most of Europe requires 220-240 days of school per year. The traditional 180 day calendar is a relic from the days when parents absolutely needed the kids to be off for 3 months in the summer to help on the family farm. The only reason we haven't lengthened the school year is that taxpayers are too stupid to want to pay teachers more for the extra work.

When I was in Italy, school was six days a week but ended in the early afternoon.  As I recall, Germany did something similar.  (The Cold War rhetoric I got in school included the big, bad USSR having school six days a week.)

Sometime around 1989, Japan was kicking around the idea of nine months on, three months off.  I don't know if that actually came about.

[CtrlAltDel]

I calculated the number of school days in France based on the upcoming academic year, and it works out to 174 days.

[kphoger]

I was able to have a summer job in my late teens because of it.

I hadn't even thought of that.  Yeah, shortening the summer break does undo some opportunity for high schoolers to have any sort of job before graduation.

A big question is what the school is primarily for. Academic education? Supervised social interaction? Daycare? Job market entry delay for kids? Union job creation for teachers? Political indoctrination?

Probably all of the above to a different extent, with poor results on most of these.

Prioritizing those goals in a different order may result in significantly different curriculums, calendars, general arrangements of how schools operate.

School is primarily for education.

But that's not the question.  The question is how to balance education against other priorities in life.

Likewise, we could debate what the primary purpose of having a job is, but, whatever our answer, that doesn't necessarily mean longer work hours would be beneficial overall.

[kalvado]

I was able to have a summer job in my late teens because of it.

I hadn't even thought of that.  Yeah, shortening the summer break does undo some opportunity for high schoolers to have any sort of job before graduation.

A big question is what the school is primarily for. Academic education? Supervised social interaction? Daycare? Job market entry delay for kids? Union job creation for teachers? Political indoctrination?

Probably all of the above to a different extent, with poor results on most of these.

Prioritizing those goals in a different order may result in significantly different curriculums, calendars, general arrangements of how schools operate.

School is primarily for education.

But that's not the question.  The question is how to balance education against other priorities in life.

Likewise, we could debate what the primary purpose of having a job is, but, whatever our answer, that doesn't necessarily mean longer work hours would be beneficial overall.

I heavily doubt education is in a real top-3 for schools.
And i certainly agree that you need to do things smarter, not harder. But more school days make more sense for babysitting aspect of it. It would certainly allow to ask for more money. It gets students accustomed to boring adult jobs.. 

[kphoger]

I heavily doubt education is in a real top-3 for schools.

By "real top-3", do you mean what the top three should be, or what parents consider the top three to be, or what school consider the top three to be?

[kalvado]

I heavily doubt education is in a real top-3 for schools.

By "real top-3", do you mean what the top three should be, or what parents consider the top three to be, or what school consider the top three to be?

Top 3 drivers of how schools are being run - which is probably a fifth option, somewhat overlapping with all others.

[kphoger]

Top 3 drivers of how schools are being run - which is probably a fifth option, somewhat overlapping with all others.

Part of the problem is that "indoctrination" is literally part of what education is.  The root of the word indoctrination is, after all, docēre, which means to teach.  So, while it may feel good to fling mud at our schools for indoctrinating our children, it's also wise to remember that that's kind of the whole reason we send them there.

[kalvado]

Top 3 drivers of how schools are being run - which is probably a fifth option, somewhat overlapping with all others.

Part of the problem is that "indoctrination" is literally part of what education is.  The root of the word indoctrination is, after all, docēre, which means to teach.  So, while it may feel good to fling mud at our schools for indoctrinating our children, it's also wise to remember that that's kind of the whole reason we send them there.

Well, there are different concepts to feed. Most people would say that indoctrinating "thou shalt not kill" is great. But remember the fight over evolution vs creationalism?  There was little agreement there.

[kphoger]

Well, there are different concepts to feed. Most people would say that indoctrinating "thou shalt not kill" is great. But remember the fight over evolution vs creationalism?  There was little agreement there.

Right.  Perhaps the question shouldn't be "Should our schools be indoctrinating our children" but rather "What should our schools be indoctrinating our children with?"  Or that we could collapse "indoctrination" and "education" into one purpose of school.