Argument: Year-round schooling does not improve overall teaching programs

Support

“Stop Year-round School in Auburn”. A report to the Auburn City Schools Board of Education. 7 Nov. 1998 – 4.4 Overall Academic Improvement

One reason given for adopting some form of YRS is that it can increase the aca-demic performance of all students. The literature distributed by Auburn City Schools and others does not support academic improvement due to changing the calendar. Dr. Freeman, from Auburn City Schools, echoed this at the Dean Road PTA meeting on year round school, 15 Oct 1998, and at the Ogletree PTA meeting, 26 Oct 1998, when she said:

“You can change the calendar and it won’t improve a thing.”

This statement is supported by several recently published articles made available to the public by the Auburn City Schools. For example:

Overall, findings from year round schooling studies have been inconclusive; Thus, no body of solid empirical evidence exists to support the proposition that year round schooling improves achievement” (Frazier et al., 1998, pp. 495-496).

“Analysis of a number of student outcomes (basic skills gains, absences, promotion rates, number of books read, and reading levels) found no significant differences in favor of the year-round students (Campbell, 1994, p. 24).

“Yet practitioners moving toward year-round education have little basis to expect that in and of itself YRE will significantly accelerate achievement unless a dedicated movement to educational reform, including factors such as utilization of the intersession for remediation and curricula changes is accomplished.” (Kneese, 1996, p. 71).