Extended School Year
Minnesota superintendents recently voted to increase the
school year length of Minnesota schools to 200 days per year,
from the 170-175 days per year that Minnesota students now
spend in school. This has been proposed so that students
would theoretically be better prepared to compete in a global
economy. According to an article in the Pioneer Press (AP
News Break : State superintendents seek longer school year
, 12/7/05), students in counties such as India, Australia,
Japan, England, and China all spend 200 or more days in school
per year. Also, 32 states have school years with 280 or more
days. It has been initially proposed that most of these extra
days be cut from the summer vacation time.
There are several glaring holes in the logic presented by
the spokes-person for the Minnesota Association of School
Administrators. First and foremost, the only comparisons
that they present is that between number of days spent in
class per year. They do not present comparisons between hours
spent class, how vacations are dispersed throughout the school
year, and the most telling of all, what the curriculum is
in these schools. It seems that to better compete with these
foreign students, we should €rst know what they are studying
at what ages and try and match that, rather than be able
to claim victory because we spend just as many days in school
as they do. Also, it’s important to examine what sort
of time these kids spend in school per day. A general high
school year in Australia consists of a 6 hour school day
, with a 20 minute morning tea and a long lunch break(45-50
minutes), a 6-8 week summer vacation, and 2 week breaks at
the end of every 10 week term. That’s nothing like
a school day or a school year here, something which is not
acknowledged in the press statements given by the spokesperson
for the superintendents.
Also, as previously stated, the initial proposal is that
time is taken out of summer vacation, reducing it from 12
weeks to 7 weeks. There are other options that can and should
be explored. Certainly winter break could cut down the number
of random days off we get per semester. Both of these solutions
could reduce the drastic cut to the traditional summer vacation,
which could, in turn, reduce the protest by students.
There are many sides to this issue that need to be explore
before a deci-sion should be made . What it seems like from
the press releases is that the superintendents are considering
one piece of the puzzle and not examin-ing the issue of quality.
What are we being taught, at what ages, and how is the quality
being monitored besides test scores? We really don’t
need more standardized tests that can cut into learning time
even more, while seeming to not really conclusively analyze
the level of learning. While yes, Minnesota and United states
need to start picking up the pace to be able to compete in
an increasingly global society, it should start not with
more days of learning, but also with a higher level and pace
of learning. |
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St.
Paul Public School System, District #625