Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

Year-Round Schooling Speech

Satisfactory Essays
688 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Year-Round Schooling Speech
Informative Speech Manuscript
Close your eyes and picture a bright, sunny, 75-degree day in July. Now imagine that you’re in school, sitting at a desk, on that very same day. How would you like to be in school during the typical summer months? Many students experience this situation when they attend year-round schools. The all-year school calendar is trending around the country, and many schools are transitioning to it. First, I will discuss the growing popularity of year round schools and the causes. Second, I will talk about the difference in test scores between the year-round schools versus the traditional nine-month schools. And finally, I will discuss another option instead of year-round schooling, which is the option of a four-day school week with longer school days.
First of all, the year-round calendar is becoming more and more popular around the United States. According to Emily Johns of the Star Tribune Twin Cities, there are at least 26 year-round schools in Minnesota alone. The growing popularity of year-round schools is because of less regression at the end of the summer. Students enjoy the alternate calendar’s breaks. As you can see in the pie charts, the breaks for all-year schools are more spread out compared to the nine-month calendar’s breaks. Teachers like the year-round calendar because they don’t have to re-teach as much information as other schools. Also, some year-round schools use the short breaks for enrichment remediation, which helps the struggling students stay on track throughout the year, instead of going to summer school.
Secondly, the test scores of the nine-month schools versus the year-round schools had varying results. Test results from a four-year pilot study, conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, show that children who have only a one-month summer break do better in math, retain more of their lessons, and also need less time for review the following year. According to ‘The Globe and Mail’, 90% of students met or exceeded provincial standards in Canada compared to the 70% in the traditional nine-month schools. Keep in mind the year-round schools have the same curriculum and equal instruction time as students in the traditional calendar. On the other hand, over a twelve-month period, average test score gains were less than 1% larger in year-round compared to nine-month schools.
And finally, another option instead of year-round schooling would be to transition to a four-day school week, with longer school days. Don Kordosky, the superintendent for Oakridge School District in Oregon, went to a four-day plan in 2009. According to Kordosky, this plan improved test scores, helps lower the amount of days absent, and even improved school building maintenance. The Register Guard newspaper averaged the amount of districts that applied the four-day week was around 120. Of the 120, Oregon alone supplies 64 districts with the alternative. The National Conference of State Legislatures, or NCSL, says that 21 states currently have districts operating with a four-day week. With longer class periods, teachers can be more productive and effective during class. Kordosky believes that the hours of learning are important, not the amount of days in class. This means an average school day would be about 7 ½ hours. Along with that, saving money has been just another sweet addition to the four-day week. One of the districts in Oregon estimated a saving of $141,000 in the first year alone. Students have also shown improvement in test scores and overall grades. With the Monday through Thursday school week, Friday has been open as a “catch-up day” for students struggling with classes, or who have lower grades in those specific classes. This calendar change has mostly been applied to smaller districts, while larger districts hold off. Many believe it is because of more people having to be persuaded, with more disagreement from the community. This is caused by fewer people understanding what the alternate schedule can do, and focusing on the negatives. Year-round schools are inclining in popularity throughout the United States, and people need to look into the options for the alternate calendar to seek the benefits and negatives of it. Consider the opportunities these alternate calendars present, and focus on the positives for learning, not the negatives.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Comm Arts Reaserch Paper

    • 377 Words
    • 2 Pages

    First, if you get lots of breaks during the year, Why not do year-round school? It also helps you because with summer when you get back to school after summer you are still in the summer mood so your not getting the things done that you usually would and that leads to bad grades on testes and quizzes witch ultimately leads to having bad grades on your report card and what people are trying to do is to have that not happen to you by having year-round school.…

    • 377 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The traditional schedule for school is outdated because in the old days, it allowed for children to help harvest crops during the summer. Now, the long summer just enables kids to be lazy and easily forget what they learned at the end of the previous school year. If a year round school year were to be implemented, kids would not be able to be as lazy and breaks would not be so long as to let kids forget a whole bunch of their school curriculum.…

    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. "The challenges of the new century demand more time in the classroom." (Research Spotlight on Year-Round Education).…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The students “A real plus not practical with a year-round schedule is students can use traditional summer breaks to gain work experience, to take specialized courses or remedial tutoring, to learn swimming, practice music, study the arts or just for family time and vacations, all of which shape a student's character.” (Jensen) Instead of extending the school year, educators should concentrate more on improving the quality of time now being spent in school.…

    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    were satisfied with their child’s school experiences (Shields 9). For over 100 years, most schools have adhered to a traditional summer vacation schedule which stemmed from our primitive technological resources and advancements. However, as technological growth was made schooling throughout the year became more practical and thus the concept of a year-round schedule was introduced. With year-round schedules now becoming ever more prevalent and traditional schedules becoming slowly obsolete, a debate has sparked between the merits of the two. This debate has involved comparing the different advantages and disadvantages of the two schedules. While a traditional summer vacation may…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Frequent breaks in the school year allow students and teachers to recharge themselves, be more active in class, and have higher academic achievement. Students and teachers can get tired if they have ongoing class for ten months without a break big enough to recharge. Some of the illnesses that people could have fought off when they were fully rested could make them sick and make more people absent (edweek.org). Absences due to illnesses can be sustained by year round school because of the time to recharge and can raise their academic achievement by having more time in class than when they would usually be sick. Although summer vacation may be fun, having frequent breaks in the school year can help students retain their knowledge and have higher academic achievement (nea.org). Retaining knowledge because of shorter summer breaks…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the major benefits of year-round school is that it aids students in a way that they can increase their overall grade. Students are less likely to forget what they have previously learned in school due to the lack of large breaks in the school year. Most importantly, there is more time. More time for school means more time can be devoted to each unit or section of material a teacher is covering. Less pressure to learn information in two weeks or even a month can help students apply their new knowledge to the long-term memory and gives more time for student to comprehend ideas in a more complex manor.…

    • 209 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Year Round Schools Essay

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The three month summer vacation between school years that students have become so fond of, was originally created to allow students to help with the harvesting of that year’s crops. However, the harvest season no longer interferes with education as the massive increase of urbanization and various technological advances have eased the workload of farming families. As a result, there is now a major need to transition from a traditional school setup to a more effective system of education. As of now, more than 90% of America’s states have implemented at least one year round school system (Nat'l Ass'n, “Year-Round Schooling, Calendar Reform Statistics: Schools, Districts”). Year round schools, although they may decrease some the benefits that come with summer break,…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Teachers that work for the year round schedule have said that their students grades have been good but there is no proof that they are better. Having the same grades as a 9 month school isn't a benefit. Both school types teach the same lessons and lectures, so there isn't a difference in what the students learn. Students who would need to take advantage of summer school don't get that opportunity because of the small time in the summer break. Teachers believe that because there is no three month summer vacation their students remember the text better. What is the point of that if their grades are gonna be the same as if they had a 3 month summer.Students that attend school year round get 11 fewer days to review for the STAAR test because of vacation setups. The STARR test is a big test of the year that needs as much review time possible .Year round school does make it easier for the students to remember what they are taught, but there's no actual guarantee that their improving…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Some schools around the country are going to, or are already, year-round schools. I can see that this is beneficial to student, but I can also see that there are some things that don’t sound too appealing. While year-round schooling is good and all, it still has people that don't like it and wouldn’t use it. Year-round school is debated back and forth for a couple of reasons. There are nice things about it, and not so nice things about it. Some people like year-round school, while some people don’t.…

    • 362 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Year Round School

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages

    According to Districts Weigh Pros and Cons of Year-Round Schools by Luke Towler, “One of the main reasons for switching to year-round schools is to improve retention rates, there is no concrete proof that students improve academically” (Towler 2). This means that most change to year round schooling to have more time to learn and remember, but there is no proof that year round schooling helps students academically. Also, according to Districts Weigh Pros and Cons of Year Round Schools by Luke Towler, “Students really do forget or unlearn things they have learned when too much time off is given between classroom sessions” (Towler 3). This is trying to explain that students in year round schooling forget more during the frequent vacations. Lastly, according to Districts Weigh Pros and Cons of Year Round Schools by Luke Towler, “A study released in 2007 by The Ohio State University, however, found that there are really no differences in learning between students who attend school year round, and those who are on a traditional schedule” (Towler 3). Likewise, kids who have your round schooling do not get a better education but the same type as those who go to traditional…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    previously learned? Teachers isn’t frustrating to have to waste precious class time re-teaching and reviews things that students have already learned, but forgot? Year- Round school will be simple, yet beneficial solutions to these problems. For many reasons, a year rounded school schedule would be a great leap forward for education systems of America which are lacking compared to schools across the world year- round. Year-Round education would improve student retention, ease transition, refresh students and help them achieve better, address students individual needs, create benefits for teachers improve family life and give back to society. Students…

    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The National Summer Learning Association often cites decades of research that support the claim that students really do forget or unlearn things they have learned when too much time off is given between classroom sessions.Also studies say that 27% of students lose what they have gained all year. “A long-time thorn in the side of K-12 educators has been the "summer slide," or the theory that knowledge is lost when students get so much time off (like in the summer months) from academic pursuits” (Matthew Lynch). But, A sociologist at Ohio State University found that, over a full year, math and reading test scores improved about the same amount for children in year-round schools as they did for students whose schools followed a traditional nine-month calendar (Ohio state). “Also The problem with year-round schools may be that they don't actually add more school days to the 180 typically required”, That is what Von Hippel said (ohio…

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Year-Round School

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages

    First of all, people might assume that since the summer vacation is shorter, it cannot possibly be better than the summer vacation that they already have. However, there are multiple reasons why year-long school summer vacations are better than regular vacations. First off, students do not get as bored over the summer of year-round school. Speaking from personal experience, regular summer vacation can almost seem too long. When it gets close to the month of August, summer seems like it has drug on forever. Students start to get bored of summer, and they want the interaction with their peers, that they cannot always get over summer. They want to see their friends again, especially the ones that they did not get to see over the summer. With year-round school, this happens less. The summers are shorter, but it allows students to see their friends sooner. It also gives a faster relief of the boredom that many kids suffer after the long months of doing almost nothing at home. Another benefit provided by year-round school is that students do not forget all of their material over summer vacation. Again, summer is long, and students forget almost everything they learned the past year over the vacation. With a shorter summer, like the one provided by year-round school, students will be likely to forget less of the material they learned over the course of the school year. If students forget less of the material that they learned, then they can start at a more advanced spot when they return. If students start more advanced, they will ultimately be able to learn more throughout the course of the year, which further benefits their education. Overall, even summers can be improved by changing to a year-round school…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Year Long School Year

    • 557 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As modern society advances at astonishing rates, it is a common occurrence that many mandated policies are rarely reviewed, and often become outdated. One of the best instances of this could be depicted by the modern school year. The school year was optimized for a different time, and as such, needs to be changed. The change to an all year school would allow for improved learning, greater knowledge, and an increased number of breaks throughout the school year. The need for change in the school calendar is very crucial, and be beneficial for multiple purposes.…

    • 557 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics