I loved summer vacation as much as the next grade-schooler. It was a time to let loose. I’d spend the day with my friends, go swimming in the evening, and sleep over at someone’s house at night. And then I would repeat that process for the next two-and-a-half months. Occasionally (well, practically every summer day during elementary school) my parents would make me write a book report, and they would still keep me engaged by taking me to the library or putting me in some kind of classes. And I’m sure this was a similar lifestyle to most of y’all in this group. But we were the fortunate ones.
A large number of kids in the U.S. don’t have the opportunity to continue learning during the summer. With parents at work and possibly an unsafe environment in the community, they spend much of their time at home mired in inactivity, boredom, and isolation playing video games or playing outside. And while this too is important as a kid, so is the notion that American kids lose the equivalent of one month of instruction over the course of the summer as measured by grade level equivalents on standardized test scores. The American education system is definitely broken as evidenced by our increasing education budget but decreasing math and science test scores and job entries into STEM fields. Education is one of my passions, so I welcome any discussions about the subject, but right now I’ll only touch on one area of it that I think can be drastically and relatively easily improved. I don’t pretend to know how to fix our education problem, but I think this would be a step in the right direction.
Our summer breaks are too long. Through grade school (the specific time-span that I’m looking at), we generally had about 2 1/2 months off for summer. I see the need for a time to recharge and let loose, but at what cost? Winter break lasts about 2 1/2 weeks, and that is usually enough. Even if we left summer at an entire month, this would still give us a net gain of 1 1/2 months of instructional time. So not only would we be learning more in this time, we would have less time between consecutive school years to forget what we learned the previous semester. For sake of comparison, schools in China typically run from the beginning of September through mid-July (leaving a break of 1 1/2 months), and schools in South Korea run from March through February (split into two semesters, with a 1 month break between each semester).
The reason behind our extensive summer break is debated. Many believe it has to do with the agrarian society America was founded on. Kids were taken out of school for the summer months as farmers needed the extra help around the farm during harvest season. Others believe it was an effort to standardize schooling around the country. Urbanization created the long summer vacation.
Whatever the reasoning was, it is outdated and unsustainable.
I would be hard-pressed to find any adults who disagreed with decreasing the length of summer vacation. Whether this is for educational reasons or monetary (child-care) costs, most parents will be in favor of this proposal. However, the main argument is likely based on funding. And to this I offer a couple of rebuttals. For one, any government spending on education is an investment. What is spent now will lead to better-educated kids which will turn into more capable citizens who will return this investment in the form of innovation and more tangibly taxes. We already outspend the rest of the world on education by ridiculous amounts:
Education Spending
The graph is not per capita, but it still tells the story.
I’m sure there are ways to more effectively utilize this budget. I don’t want to ignore the enormous effect lobbying plays in determining how it is allocated, but ideally the budget could be spent efficiently. Another possible idea is to raise property taxes in proportion to how much longer we make the school year to pay for rising teacher wages. This would definitely cause outrage, but in reality much of it is just siphoning money from increased childcare costs to increased taxes. What many individuals would pay in increased taxes would be saved in daycare and babysitter costs.
When evaluating the U.S. education system, there is not one easy fix to point to. Curriculum, standardized testing, teaching methods and standards, and budget allocation are among the areas that all need to be put under intense scrutiny. However, one obvious fix is to decrease summer break for grade-school students.