The case for changing the school calendar
Summer is long.
And hot.
Especially in Tennessee.
And then there’s the issue of “lost” learning – kids needing to catch up and rebuild skills when they return from a summer break that is 10 weeks or longer.
Thus, a renewed argument for a year-round school calendar – one with a shorter summer break and more breaks throughout the year.
Another argument against summer break is that while it may not have emerged to meet the needs of the bygone agricultural era, our economic and social structures have indeed changed dramatically and made summer less practical than it once was.
And:
Brookings Institution’s Megan Kuhfeld and Karyn Lewis analyzed summer slide research in 2023, finding that “a long line of research on learning and cognition has shown that procedural skills and those that involve a number of steps tend to rapidly deteriorate in the absence of practice or other reinforcement.” They note that learning loss is especially detectable in the span from 3rd grade through 8th grade.
What do you think? Should long summer breaks be eliminated from the school calendar?
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