You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
San Francisco school board voting to elimate summer school due to budget
- Thread starter 62t
- Start date
perdition(troy
CAGiversary!
- Feedback
- 7 (89%)
so they are forcing kids to learn during the school year, and are still providing school to special needs children and seniors trying to graduate? seems to me the only people losing are parents who stick their kids in summer school as a day care.
Not good news when the US school year is already too short relative to other nations. But at the same time it's not like most kids are going to summer school anyway. And as long as they're keeping the classes for the kids who need remedial classes etc. then it's not missing out on much from the normal situation.
[quote name='dmaul1114']Not good news when the US school year is already too short relative to other nations. But at the same time it's not like most kids are going to summer school anyway. And as long as they're keeping the classes for the kids who need remedial classes etc. then it's not missing out on much from the normal situation.[/QUOTE]
I don't really understand the argument of our school year being "too short". All of us (or at least most of us) came from an era where we'd have summer vacation, February vacation, April vacation, and all State / Federal holidays off, and even in some locations many religious ones as well. Once you throw in weather cancellations and the two weeks at the beginning and end of the school year where nothing meaningful gets accomplished anyway, we were probably all out of school and / or not learning more frequently than not.
Not only did we have school schedules like this, but our parents did as well. Heck, only as far back as our grandparents generation, a lot of people didn't even make it to high school, let alone college. Despite all this, we all seem to be doing all right. We're not a generation of complete morons wandering the streets like ignorant zombies because we didn't spend every waking moment of our day going to school and studying.
I will be the first to admit that our education system is broken, and public education on the whole, sucks, and sucks badly, but what would extending school hours, or increasing the number of school days really accomplish?
I don't really understand the argument of our school year being "too short". All of us (or at least most of us) came from an era where we'd have summer vacation, February vacation, April vacation, and all State / Federal holidays off, and even in some locations many religious ones as well. Once you throw in weather cancellations and the two weeks at the beginning and end of the school year where nothing meaningful gets accomplished anyway, we were probably all out of school and / or not learning more frequently than not.
Not only did we have school schedules like this, but our parents did as well. Heck, only as far back as our grandparents generation, a lot of people didn't even make it to high school, let alone college. Despite all this, we all seem to be doing all right. We're not a generation of complete morons wandering the streets like ignorant zombies because we didn't spend every waking moment of our day going to school and studying.
I will be the first to admit that our education system is broken, and public education on the whole, sucks, and sucks badly, but what would extending school hours, or increasing the number of school days really accomplish?
[quote name='spmahn']
I will be the first to admit that our education system is broken, and public education on the whole, sucks, and sucks badly, but what would extending school hours, or increasing the number of school days really accomplish?[/QUOTE]
There's some studies out there that suggest that the long summer break in the US relative to other countries is part of the reason the US is falling behind. I'm not expert on it, and haven't read the actual studies. Just stuff referencing them like The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell which talks about it a bit.
Kids lose a lot of what they learned over the summer, forcing more time the next year to be on remediation of re-teaching skills they learned and forgot over the summer etc.
It especially seems to matter for kids from lower class families who on average do less reading over the summer, are less likely to get put in summer classes, summer camps, less likely to have parents work with them on reading and other learning activities over the summer etc. vs. middle and upper class families (again per Gladwell's book).
It's a hold over from when kids were needed on the farm at planting and harvest time, and it leads to the US falling behind much of the rest of the industrialized world in education as many other countries have longer school days. It's not the only cause, Gladwell speaks to broader social differences like the work ethic instilled in asian families from parents and grandparents who had to work very hard on rice paddies to get buy etc. that leads them to have longer school days and school years, study harder, be more involved in their kids education etc.
But longer school years is part of it due to the time wasted over the summer not learning anything, and the knowledge that's lost when it's not used over the summer.
I will be the first to admit that our education system is broken, and public education on the whole, sucks, and sucks badly, but what would extending school hours, or increasing the number of school days really accomplish?[/QUOTE]
There's some studies out there that suggest that the long summer break in the US relative to other countries is part of the reason the US is falling behind. I'm not expert on it, and haven't read the actual studies. Just stuff referencing them like The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell which talks about it a bit.
Kids lose a lot of what they learned over the summer, forcing more time the next year to be on remediation of re-teaching skills they learned and forgot over the summer etc.
It especially seems to matter for kids from lower class families who on average do less reading over the summer, are less likely to get put in summer classes, summer camps, less likely to have parents work with them on reading and other learning activities over the summer etc. vs. middle and upper class families (again per Gladwell's book).
It's a hold over from when kids were needed on the farm at planting and harvest time, and it leads to the US falling behind much of the rest of the industrialized world in education as many other countries have longer school days. It's not the only cause, Gladwell speaks to broader social differences like the work ethic instilled in asian families from parents and grandparents who had to work very hard on rice paddies to get buy etc. that leads them to have longer school days and school years, study harder, be more involved in their kids education etc.
But longer school years is part of it due to the time wasted over the summer not learning anything, and the knowledge that's lost when it's not used over the summer.
bread's done