The Traditional School Calendar and The Introduction of a Year-Round Education

As long as most people can remember, school education is based on a 10 month calendar. It was established for the agricultural society, but it is still very common in today's urban society. Although introducing education throughout the year is obviously more meaningful for today's students, it is still a relatively new concept, so much speculation is necessary. The idea of ​​some people who oppose to do it on a wider scale is a mystery due to improvements, higher risks and benefits such as ESL student opportunities, economic benefits and more structure / stability.

Educational discussions are widespread in today's society. Currently, one of the biggest educational debates is whether schools should keep the calendars of traditional schools or convert to calendar of the full year. The main focus of discussion is the idea that using a full-year calendar provides a more consistent learning plan for children, thereby improving school performance and reducing learning loss in the summer. The year-round calendar is quite different from the conventional calendar.

A full year calendar is not a new idea. The national annual education association promoting the annual calendar was founded in 1972. Since the 1990's thousands of schools have been experimenting with the calendar year round. These promises are not fulfilled. In California, the calendar was changed in about 1000 schools between 1998 and 2005, the score of the test did not increase in the school changed to a full-year calendar, and the score did not decrease even in the school that switched to the conventional calendar It was. In the most populous state in the United States, in the late 1990's, one of five schools uses the annual calendar and now only uses one of the calendars for 20 years.

Perhaps the main reason why educational supporters shifted from traditional calendars throughout the year is that they believe school education can provide better education for students throughout the year. Educator Susan Morse (1992) argues that the longer the student takes a vacation, the less the materials they hold. She added that year-round education can improve the academic performance of students who do not rely on home care. This seems logical, but Morse did not provide backing evidence that education throughout the year actually improved student academic performance. Indeed, Teresa Greenfield (1994) discovered that teachers and parents may have observed some improvement, but the results of standardized tests did not show such improvements. Furthermore, Dr. Gary Peltier (1991) pointed out that there is no big difference when comparing the student's score throughout the year with the student's score of a conventional calendar year.