Testing Obsession Boosts Year-Round Schooling

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

SHORTER BREAKS HELP KIDS RECALL LESSONS

Associated press -- September 1, 2007
by Nancy Zuckerbrod

Arlington, VA -- While it's the start of the school year for most U.S. 
students, children at Barcroft Elementary have been at their desks for 
nearly a month - and they're fine with that.

The suburban Washington school is among 3,000 across the nation that 
have tossed aside the traditional calendar for one with a shorter summer 
break and more time off during the rest of the year. The goal: 
preventing kids from forgetting what they have learned.

Barcroft's principal, Miriam Hughey-Guy, pushed for the new calendar in 
hopes of boosting student achievement. She had read studies showing the 
toll a long summer break takes on what students remember, and she 
figured that shorter breaks also would help the school's many immigrants 
keep up their English skills.

Tests given to kids in the spring and fall show children generally slide 
in math and reading during the traditional summer break lasting 10 to 12 
weeks, says Harris Cooper, director of the education program at Duke 
University. Both poor students and their wealthier counterparts lose 
math skills, and kids from low-income families also decline in reading. 
More than half of Barcroft's students are poor.

There hasn't been rigorous research into whether students at schools 
where summer breaks are short do better than kids attending other 
schools. But existing comparisons suggest the modified calendars have a 
small positive effect on student achievement. The impact appears to be 
somewhat bigger for low-income children.

Ron Fairchild, executive director of the Center for Summer Learning at 
Johns Hopkins University, says reconfiguring the school calendar simply 
makes sense.

``You would expect an athlete or a musician's performance to suffer if 
they didn't practice,'' said Fairchild, whose organization advocates for 
educational summertime opportunities for kids.

There are about 3,000 U.S. schools using alternate calendars like the 
one at Barcroft, where July is the only full month off, according to the 
National Association For Year-Round Education.

The number of schools on modified calendars with shorter summer breaks 
more than doubled in the last 15 years. Today, 46 states have schools 
operating on these calendars - up from 23 states in 1992. The entire 
Hawaiian school system recently moved to a nontraditional calendar with 
a seven-week summer break.

A goal of the federal No Child Left Behind law is to get all students 
reading and doing math at their grade level by 2014. That has placed 
enormous pressure on schools to try new things, including reconfiguring 
calendars and schedules.

Teachers typically spend time at the beginning of each year reviewing 
the previous year's lessons. Schools that have fewer weeks off in the 
summer may need to do less of that.

It's mostly elementary schools using the modified calendars; For older 
students, that could make it hard to get summer jobs or participate in 
competitive sports programs.

In Auburn, Ala., a push to move to a year-round calendar created an 
outcry and ultimately failed, partly because of high-school athletics.

``It would have put a vacation in the middle of the football season,'' 
said Chris Newland, a father of two who fought the change and a 
psychology professor at Auburn University. ``You don't touch football 
here.''

Newland said parents didn't like the idea of putting the younger kids on 
a modified schedule and leaving the older ones on the traditional 
calendar. That would make it hard to take family vacations and would be 
especially problematic in a university town, where families often spend 
entire summers off together, he said.

Schools that have a calendar like Barcroft's typically offer educational 
programs during the fall, winter and spring breaks. At Barcroft, about 
80 percent of kids participate. The courses offered are often aimed at 
giving remedial help to those who need it, a common purpose of 
traditional summer school.

Many teachers at year-round schools believe providing remedial help 
after nine weeks of coursework is an improvement over the traditional 
model in which kids wait until summer school to get extensive help, says 
Duke University's Cooper.

In addition to helping struggling kids, the breaks at Barcroft include 
fun electives that aren't typically offered during regular school periods.

One recent program was devoted to wetlands, which second-grader Anthony 
Merica described with glee. ``We made clay things,'' he said 
breathlessly. ``We made clay turtles and lily pads for frogs. It was fun!''

Not all schools go to a year-round schedule to boost student 
achievement. Some do it because they have more kids than they can 
accommodate in a building. By extending the school year, they can rotate 
more kids through a building by giving them different schedules.

The traditional school calendar dates to a period when children were 
more likely to be needed on family farms in the summer, and before air 
conditioning made school buildings hospitable during hot months.

It took Hughey-Guy two years to implement the change at Barcroft. She 
said parents were skeptical at first, but most backed the change after 
they learned more about it.

All of Barcroft's teachers decided to stay, and in some cases the 
calendar has even been a recruiting tool.

``I was definitely excited about the calendar. I didn't want 
two-and-a-half months off with nothing to do,'' said new first-grade 
teacher Caitlin Miller. She says the longer breaks during the year have 
improved her teaching, ``They are a chance to reevaluate how the year is 
going - to stop, collect my thoughts and plan.''