Is Year-Round School a Good Idea?

December 13, 2021

The tradition of summer vacation grew out of a push in the late 19th century by education reformers to standardize school schedules. Before that, urban and rural schools often ran on completely different calendars. In the days before air-conditioning, many schools were sweltering in the summer, so time off then made sense. More than a century later, the tradition of a two-month summer vacation persists.

In the past year, more schools have begun considering a switch to a year-round schedule as a way to counter Covid-related learning loss. This doesn’t mean more days in school; it just distributes them differently across the year. Two education experts square off about whether schools should change their calendars.

About 96 percent of all K-12 students in the U.S. attend schools that use the traditional school calendar, beginning each year around Labor Day and ending close to Memorial Day. But there is a better way: The “balanced school calendar” adjusts the 180-day school calendar to keep the learning process continuous throughout the calendar year.

In this form of year-round school, students have periodic, shorter breaks rather than one long summer intermission. The length of summer vacation is reduced from approximately 12 weeks to 6 weeks, and learning is designed around frequent breaks from school throughout the year.

One of the benefits of year-round school is that students have continuous access to learning, academic support, library books, and food. Without long breaks during which students forget material, there’s less need for reteaching topics that have already been covered. The balanced school calendar also allows for real-time remediation if a student falls behind: Students can use the scheduled breaks to complete unfinished assignments and get extra help.

Without long breaks, there’s less need for reteaching forgotten material.

Opponents often cite high school athletics, summer employment for staff and students, cost, and family traditions as barriers to changing the school calendar. But what we think of as the traditional school calendar was only adopted in the 1890s; before that, many schools operated essentially year-round.

Year-round school is actually more flexible and more in line with current lifestyles. Considering all the ways education has changed over the past 130 years, I continue to wonder why Americans have held on so tightly to the traditional school calendar. Perhaps it’s the love of long, lazy summer days or a fear of change. But those of us who’ve experienced the balanced school calendar—both educators and students—have come to love it.

—DAVID HORNAK

Executive Director National Association for Year-Round Education

Since the 1990s, thousands of schools nationwide have tried year-round calendars, hoping to raise student achievement. But research in many places—including school systems in California, Nevada, and North Carolina—has shown that such schedules didn’t raise kids’ test scores.

The reason is simple. Year-round calendars don’t increase the number of days that kids spend in school. Teachers don’t get any more teaching time, so students don’t learn any more.

Year-round calendars can also complicate family schedules. Imagine that your school uses a year-round calendar, but your brother’s or sister’s school uses a traditional calendar. Their school might be out when yours is in, and vice versa.

These scheduling complications can make it very hard for parents to cope. Research has shown that fewer mothers work outside the home when their kids’ schools switch to year-round calendars; instead, more mothers stay home so they can manage their children’s schedules. Some families even end up selling their homes and moving to areas where schools use traditional calendars. And this has been shown to cause a decrease in property values near schools that switch to a year-round calendar.

Year-round calendars don’t increase the number of days students are in class.

Some teachers can’t manage the year-round calendar either. Imagine that your school used a year-round calendar, but your teachers had kids in traditional schools. Your teachers would have to work and find child care when their kids’ schools were closed. For that reason, teachers often leave year-round schools for schools that use traditional calendars. This higher teacher turnover has a negative ripple effect on the quality of teaching because year-round schools end up with fewer experienced teachers.

The number of schools using year-round calendars has fallen by nearly half in the past 20 years. That’s because many schools have given up on a calendar that disrupts family life with no benefits for student achievement

—PAUL VON HIPPEL

Professor of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Austin