We tend to think that academic calendars exist the way they do, with a long summer break and a smaller break during the holidays, as a result of America’s pre-industrial heavily-agrarian origins. This just isn’t the case. A cursory study in history or at least some simple critical thinking proves otherwise. Harvests and plantings occur in autumn and spring, not summer and winter. Regardless, the perpetuation of this system is utterly silly and harmful to American students. It should be scrapped for a tougher, year-round schedule.
Though there’s some debate on the specific origins of this ‘agrarian’ calendar, it is generally agreed school breaks were created in this manner to accommodate an industrial society’s need to both comply with child labor laws (rural school children spent far less time in school than industrial city children by about 100 days,) as well as concern over children remaining locked up in hellishly warm or freezing buildings with no air conditioning or central heating. There is also belief that the long summer vacation was a response to an increasingly mobile society’s desire to vacation. At any rate, the September-summer calendar became regularized by about 1920, the same time local governance began to mandate school attendance for children. Before this time, children were in school from May-August and November-March, months which do correspond logically to an agrarian calendar.
The harsh effects of this woefully outdated system have been extensively documented and debated. According to Harris Cooper, Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri, on average, children’s tests scores were at least one month lower when they returned to school in fall than scores were when students left in spring.” Further, that a month out of school resulted in a loss of 2.6 months in mathematics. The length of our school calendar contrasts drastically with that of other countries, most specifically Japan, where students spend on average 240 days in class.
Concern over the deleterious nature of long summer breaks is hardly new, however. The now-infamous 1983 “A Nation at Risk” report pleaded for a longer, tougher school schedule, including the teaching of foreign languages beginning in elementary school, a seven-hour school day, an increase of school days to at least 200-220 and far more stringent academic standards across the board. It also advocated tougher standards of acceptance for colleges. “A Nation at Risk” takes a hardline stance, but not flippantly, its research found much the same as Cooper’s research.
At the present moment, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is pushing for a longer school year and longer school days, but isn’t finding much support. Parents worry about daycare costs, family time, and at the very core, they see fit to blame teachers for wasting school time instead of utilizing the school day more effectively. This argument is not wholly without merit. According to Cooper’s research, a 5 or 6 day increase only represents 3% increase in school time, but does address the reformation of curricula needed within the school system. What is argued as necessary is a substantial increase in school days, as well as an adjustment of curricula. There is also growing support for a shorter school week, just four days, which has shown an increase in student productivity and attendance. The shorter school week was begun mostly as a cost-saving measure that yielded unexpectedly positive results. This point in particular seems the most striking and salient, almost slapping Duncan’s conclusions in the face.
For all the swagger these arguments hold, particularly the last, they do not seem to effectively address the problem at hand; that interrupted learning is corrosive toward student performance. The argument that whole curricula must be addressed is of course, vastly important, but if we hold uninterrupted learning as our initial goal, perhaps a synthesis of longer school calendars with shorter weeks could sustain student interest, lessen the financial burden of school districts, while retaining a grasp on a school year with greater continuity so that students aren’t struggling to catch up at the beginning of every year.
