Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of becoming a teacher? We all come back to education land because we want to have summers off for the rest of our lives, right?

JK...kind of.

Before we get into the pros and cons of extending the school year, we need to talk about Kevin—er, the various ways in which school years can be extended.

Model #1: Goodbye, Summer (Partly)

This model sticks with the current requirement of 180 student days per year, but stretches those days out over the full calendar year. That means a shorter summer break, but—bear with us—longer breaks at other times of the year. In general, what you see is nine weeks on, three weeks off year round, with regular holiday breaks still built in. In some school systems, optional intersessions are offered, allowing students to continue to attend school during breaks to study a particular topic in greater depth, complete an intensive, or work on a special project.

The Chandler United District in Arizona is currently using a year-round schedule of this type, in which students attend school for nine weeks (45 student days) followed by two-week breaks. Summer break is about eight weeks long. So, in 2015-16, students begin the school year on July 20th and have breaks September 28th-October 9th, December 21st-January 1st, and March 7th-18th. The last student day is on May 24th, and students start up again on July 25th for the 2016-17 school year.

Doesn't sound too brutal, unless you're a Wet Hot American Summer type.

Intersessions are noted on the Chandler United District calendar, but not all schools in the district offer them. Basha High School, for example, discontinued their intersession classes early on because of low attendance. But if you want more to do, it's your lucky day: they still hold study sessions for advanced-placement classes during breaks, since those have been utilized by many students.

Are you a convert? Or clinging to your longer summers? Well, might as well check out another version while you're on here.

Model #2: Goodbye, Vacation (Mostly)

This option is a bit more serious. It would add 20-30 student days to the current 180-day requirement. Sound intimidating? Don't worry: you're not likely to get a job at such a place. Why? Because we couldn't actually find any U.S. schools that are currently using this method.

Kansas requires the most student days of any state (186) as well as one of the highest amounts of instructional time (1116 hours for grades 1-11). Still, most states require 180 student days, and thus, that is what most schools are working with, even if there are some that futz with the time of year. So if that seems too extreme, count your blessings—you won't get sucked in just yet.

Model #3: Hello, Constant Summer (Kind Of)

Back to basics.

A third model maintains the current requirement of 180 student days, but fiddles with groups of students instead of times of year. So a school population gets divided into say, four groups, and those groups are rotated through a year-round schedule. That means that at any given time, three groups are attending school and 1 group is on break. This model is primarily used to allow schools to enroll more students than a building would normally hold.

Schools in the San Diego area have been using this model of year-round education since the 1970s, and now run both a traditional 10-month calendar and the year-round calendar simultaneously. It sounds like a scheduling nightmare, but apparently they have it down. And hey, it's San Diego, so they don't really have to worry about anyone getting cheated out of summer.

So Where's the Argument?

School districts across the nation already approach the school calendar in a variety of ways, and many have, in fact, already implemented a year-round schedule. So what's the big stink about?

When you boil it all down, the biggest areas of disagreement fall into two categories:

1. Whether or not we need to add more student days (above the currently accepted 180 used as a benchmark for most states) to the school calendar.

AND

2. How student days should be organized throughout a calendar year.

The Magic Number

Proponents of increasing the number of student days required per school year argue that many other countries already require their students to attend more than 180 days per year, and since the U.S. appears to be falling behind in student performance, we should follow suit.

Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a Congressional hearing that "Our students today are competing against children in India and China. Those students are going to school 25 to 30 percent longer than we are. Our students, I think, are at a competitive disadvantage. I think we're doing them a disservice" (source). That guy means business.

Critics of adding student days above the current 180, however, think Duncan is full of hot air. Sure, it may be true that India, for example, requires more student days than the U.S. (between 200 and 220 depending on grade level, to be precise), but the actual amount of instructional time, in hours, is not actually greater. Specifically, according to the Center for Public Education, India requires between 800 and 1,000 hours of instruction per year for students depending on grade level, while the majority of U.S. states require at least that amount and often more.

Want to brush up on your trivia? (That is, important statistics about our country's education system.) You can see a listing of the number of days and hours of instruction that are required by state by checking the school calendar listing from the Educational Commission of the States.

The Magic Schedule

Onto argument #2. The main reason behind tweaking school schedules—so that school feels like more of a year-round proposition, even without adding days—is to avoid summer loss. No, not the loss of summer itself—the loss of brain cells (or at least, knowledge) during the summer.

In other words, proponents of the year-round schedule argue that after an extended break with no in-school instruction, many students forget information learned in the previous school year and have to spend way too much time in the fall reviewing and regaining that lost information.

Advocates also argue that even with summer break getting the short end of the stick, teachers and students still get longer breaks at other times during the year. And having regular opportunities to refresh and rejuvenate can be better than having to "survive" until June.

Critics of the year-round schedule, however, point to the numerous problems they believe would be caused by doing away with the extended break:

• The summer camp industry would flounder and students would lose the opportunity to pursue extended activities such as summer camps or family vacations. (See: our comment about Wet Hot American Summer.)
• Teachers pursuing advanced degrees would lose the ability to attend summer courses and instead have to juggle their teaching schedules with professional development courses.
• Both teachers and students (of appropriate age) would lose the opportunity to pursue summer jobs.
• Students wouldn't have time to "get bored" with the extended break and look forward to going back to school, which may decrease productivity and engagement year round.

So What's the Verdict?

Ha. Yeah right.

The prevailing wisdom seems to be, "it depends."

In a 2007 study, Ohio State University sociologist Paul Von Hippel 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" (source). Great. Real helpful in settling that dispute.

Meanwhile, a Duke University article states that "new information points to a slight though growing academic advantage for all children who attend year-round schools, most notably for those children from low socioeconomic households" (source). Different studies with different outcomes? Whodathunk?

As for the more-days argument, there aren't really any good case studies in the U.S. at present, and, as mentioned above, while there are other countries that require more student days, actual student instructional time does not vary greatly. So it's difficult to fully understand the correlation.

Sigh.

It's likely that in years to come this issue will be studied more extensively, and as school districts across the country continue to play with their schedules, some best practices may emerge. For now, however, the debate promises to rage on.

And lucky you get to spend your breaks reading up on it until anything gets resolved.