One Percent Education

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<p>There is a very compelling argument for year-round schooling. The idea of breaks was developed back when educational reformers believed that too much schooling would overtax students and ultimately prevent them from being successful. Yet we see in countries where students are more successful than in the US, such as China and Japan, they spend much more during a day and many more days a year in school than US students. </p>

<p>There was a study by a sociologist named Karl Alexander that found that looking at scores on a standardized reading test administered at the beginning and end of each school year, broken up into lower, middle, and upper class students, that students across all classes were gaining similarly during the school year. However, the lower class students were either regressing slightly or remaining the same from one year to the next, while middle and upper class students showed gains over the summer. It may not be entirely that the school system is failing a certain subset of students, because it seems that there are gains across the board. It’s just that certain groups are falling behind in the summer while their high SES counterparts are using enriching environments at home to pull ahead. Over a lifetime of summers, it all adds up to a big difference.</p>