NE2: Year Round School Act

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I don't agree with this bill.  While I believe wholeheartedly that our education system is in need of reform, I don't think the length of the school year is necessarily a major factor in its quality, but rather the way education itself is structured in our country.  And before there is any discussion over how long or how short our school days are, I think a full reinvention of teaching must be implemented.  I understand that many think lengthening the school year will be better for students because they will be less likely to forget what they learned over a long summer break.  And to those who suggest this, I believe they are looking at this issue the wrong way: education should not be focused on memorization, because most people forget 90% of what they've learned in primary schools long after they've graduated.  Redistributing the amount of breaks students have probably won't fix this, because then teachers will hardly have enough time to get through a unit or topic if there's frequently a nine-day break they have to work around.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

This article might be worth reading for some of you.  As it states, there simply isn't any evidence that longer school years improve student learning, and the major variables differentiating us from Finland, a world leader in education, have nothing to do with instructional time.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Sorry -- I misread the bill.  I thought the bill was allowing for twenty five-day breaks.

The thing is, this bill doesn't reinvent education in spite of its good intentions.  It just makes it longer.  If you have more of a bad thing, you won't get better results.  If we didn't have an education system that was so deeply flawed and memorization-focused, I'd look at the merits of having a longer school year, but even then, I believe students ought to have at least two months of time off from school, and the summer is the most appropriate time for that.

We should focus on ending the "brain drain" long term, for a lifetime, not just until the next test or graduation time.  To do that, we must foster a system that allows students to be creative and find their own path to success, just as so many successful people of this decade have done.  Instead, we look at our students as a sheet of cookie dough for which we can cut out the same shapes and bake the same way.  This bill doesn't address that problem.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I think we should look into Barnes's suggestion, instead.  The way I see it, organization and length are kind of the same thing, and neither of them tackle the underlying issue.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I'm still reluctant to support this... here's another article I found showing that year-round schooling really doesn't impact much.  Some schools may be successful than others, but substance is what matters most, and learning style is what divides good schools from the unsuccessful ones.  Once again, I contend that distribution of vacation days/length of school years just aren't a significant factor, and I'd rather start with Barnes's idea or other approaches and take things from there.

I really can't mess around with this right now, so I'll continue discussion tomorrow.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

And the links I posted say that instruction time won't change the performance of students or make our education system more identical to the successful Finnish model, and often result in the overcrowding of schools.

It appears we have conflicting data here...

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Well, then I suppose I will stick with my data as well, then.

Here are some features of the Finnish education system (source: Washington Post):

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Class instruction time isn't mentioned anywhere on this.  These are, I believe, the goals that we need to work toward.  I agree with the virtues of your Securing Teacher Excellence Act, and I'm much more likely to sign a bill like that.  Even so, however, we should make the effort to prevent the possibility of teacher shortages.  That, unfortunately, may be an obstacle to any education reform effort.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Governor, that's honestly as relevant as saying that this bill doesn't designate chocolate ice cream as our official desert. This bill is not meant to be a wholesale reform. Your Finnish model is great in many ways, but in no way does this bill counteract it or affect its implementation. Your system and this bill are not at odds.

Well, my point to all of this is that I don't believe this bill is necessary because I don't think there's anything wrong with the current distribution of school and vacation days.  Giving students two months in the summer time to spend with their families, thereby giving them and their families more flexibility over where and when to vacation, isn't what's so deteriorating to the education of our youth.  If we're going on the mentality that students should have their days ordered this way just so they can memorize more things, then we clearly need to rethink how we're approaching this issue in the first place, from the bottom up.

To put it simply: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

We are not trying to cram more in their heads, just make sure what we do sticks. And it is very much, broken, governor.

I agree, it is.  The way we order the school calendar is not.

I would argue that parents would have a slightly more difficult time finding vacation days in the summer, since that's when most vacations are taken.  Some families might need longer than a week if they travel far, others might need more available days to book hotels.  It's better to afford them that time of the year to plan those.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Well, obviously, Governor, if we spread out that time, we'd see more vacations taken at other parts of the year, where the wait isn't as long, and additionally all that summer demand would fall, negating the need for longer time to arrange vacations.

Not all vacations are just a week long.  If, for example, a student is going on a European tour, it would be necessary for that to be in the summer when they have more than just a week.  The current calendar still allows students breaks in the winter and sometimes two in the spring, depending on the district.  Those, obviously, would be more appropriate for shorter vacations.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I think it's worth mentioning that there already is "year-round" schooling for students that need it: summer school.

If possible, perhaps we can compromise and work to improve summer school attendance and quality, rather than mandate year-round schooling across the region.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I think it's worth mentioning that there already is "year-round" schooling for students that need it: summer school.

If possible, perhaps we can compromise and work to improve summer school attendance and quality, rather than mandate it across the region.

I doubt the honorable Assemblyman was ever in need of remedial education. Nor was I, I can say, yet I too suffered from a brain drain. You're missing the point.

I am not; I am offering a compromise.  If students show signs of brain drain and can't make up for it with the regular schedule, then summer school can and should be an option.  I'd rather work to expand access to those, and help districts establish them if they don't have them.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Governor, I attended some of this nation's most prestigious and competitive institutions. I do not want to sound pretentious- but we all suffer from a degree of "brain drain". I'm sure you did as well. Unless you want to have summer school for everyone, which totally negates all your other points, you're not offering a viable solution.

I never said I've never forgotten a little here and there, but I was also to regain a lot of what I lost after I came back to school.  Do I remember everything I learned back in freshman year, personally?  No, but a lot of the material was carried onto the next year so that my understanding on the concepts could advance.  A great deal of what is learned in high school won't be remembered twenty years from then, anyway, unless someone specializes in something they learned about.  Even then, you can't retain knowledge about every single thing you learned in adulthood.  I'm skeptical that year-round schooling will make much of a difference long-term for people as adults.

Of course, I am not suggesting that we mandate summer school for everyone.  I'd rather implement a system tailored to individual needs.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Except year-round schooling simply doesn't contribute as much as some think.  I'll admit that there are various studies on this, many of which sadly contradict each other, but this reorganization of the calendars appear to merely spread out this "brain drain" throughout the year, absent a summer vacation.  Average test scores went up by less than 1% for kids who attended year-round colleges compared to those who attended nine-month ones, which leads me to hypothesize that the year-round schooling probably doesn't make much of a difference, but rather, the types of students that attend certain schools and the way the curriculum is structured.  That's why it's so difficult to conduct an accurate, comprehensive study on the impact of such a policy.  Meanwhile, we'll still have to pay these schools more for maintenance issues, and these are dollars that could go to efforts to reform the system from the inside-out.

But, what the hey, I'm about ready to give up on this.  You win.