Hawaii adopts year-round school schedule

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Link

The situation stems from the state Department of Education?s changeover from a traditional school year to a year-round schedule for 2006-07, which has classes starting on July 27 instead of mid-August.

The new year-round schedule was required by a legislative mandate to the DOE to establish a single calendar for all schools statewide ? with breaks set for one week in the fall, three weeks in December and two weeks in the spring. Exceptions to the calendar starting July 27 for students and ending June 8 are allowed only for charter schools.

Maui District educational specialist Stephen Kim said there hasn?t been any firm decision yet on summer school, in part because of the challenges the department is facing in getting commitments from teachers and from hosting sites.

Some Oahu school officials have already announced they will not hold summer school at all. Part of the reason has been because of difficulty in recruiting enough teachers because many instructors don?t want to lose any more summer vacation. The lack of summer school as an option could pose a problem for high schoolers needing to make up course credits or wanting to take certain classes in the summer to allow them to take others during the regular school year.

The article itself is primarily concerned about a lack of summer school with a year 'round school schedule but it seems like a good idea to me. Most countries that are currently kicking our collective asses in education use this kind of system. It'll be interesting to see how Hawaii performs over the next few years.

 

[1EZduzit]

It's a bad idea. I can see possibly lengthening the school year, but not eliminating summer vacation altogether.

 

[dmcowen674]

Unless they've increased Teacher salaries a lot, there goes the incentive to be a Teacher.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Unless they've increased Teacher salaries a lot, there goes the incentive to be a Teacher.

Last time I checked, teachers weren't motivated by money. Otherwise they would take their degree and do something else with it.

Besides, these are your democrats in action!

 

[BarneyFife]

We had the same thing going on at my former elementary school like 10 years ago. It was the 200 day school year as opposed to the current 180 day year. Fortunately, they cut it after a year because it was a big problem. Since they get weekly breaks at odd times of the year, parents have to come up with a daycare solution and also family vacation plans were ruined. This thing will not last more than a year.

 

[newmachineoverlord]

This would be a good idea if it came with federal funding to provide air conditioning for all schools, as well as reducing the number of students per teacher. Holding school during the summer without air conditioning is a waste of time and money, and eliminating summers will drastically reduce available planning time for teachers to design their curriculum.

Air conditioning is one of the most obvious advantages that rich school districts have over the poor.

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: newmachineoverlord

Air conditioning is one of the most obvious advantages that rich school districts have over the poor.

There go you leftists with your whining and moaning again. Kids need to stop being coddled and learn to tough it out in the heat if they're going to be prepared to fight in the ME when they graduate.

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Unless they've increased Teacher salaries a lot, there goes the incentive to be a Teacher.

Last time I checked, teachers weren't motivated by money. Otherwise they would take their degree and do something else with it.

Besides, these are your democrats in action!

Please point out in the article where their political leaning was stated.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

If your schools are any good, kids should be in them year round.

If your schools sux, then its irrelevant.

The notion of "summer vacation" has limited utility in education. In fact, the students that need school the most tend to pay the most significant penalty for the long summer break.

Actually by the OP, they still get 7 weeks of summer break (June 8 - July 27). That's plenty of time for family vacations. I would assume teachers will have 3-4 of those weeks off as well.

The breaks aren't odd just possibly a little long. Fall break will probably be a little wacky, though. Christmas break should probably be two weeks instead of three, but one of those weeks is probably teacher/school planning/training time. The spring break should probably be a week at Easter instead of two but again that extra week is probably for the teachers/school to retool.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: catnap1972

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Unless they've increased Teacher salaries a lot, there goes the incentive to be a Teacher.

Last time I checked, teachers weren't motivated by money. Otherwise they would take their degree and do something else with it.

Besides, these are your democrats in action!

Please point out in the article where their political leaning was stated.

We're talking about Hawaii... it's a given. Have an opinion about year 'round school?

 

[classy]

Thats a real bad idea. The mind needs a break. The young minds of kids need to be able to rest and learning year round will burn those kids out quick. I predict a higher drop out rate will be one of the side effects.

 

[Rainsford]

Perhaps I'm missing some crucial bit of information here, but it sounds like they are still going to be going to school about the same amount of total time, it will just be spread out over the entire year. I fail to see how this will improve education in the least. The only explanation that's coming to mind is that students will not get out of the school mindset over a long summer, so the "next year" will start up more quickly. Perhaps, except that I really think kids need a good long break from school, otherwise they'll reach the point where they take in even less information than they would have otherwise. I suppose it depends on age, but my girlfriend teaches 7th grade, and she's said several times that they would almost certainly be impossibly antsy without summer vacation.

For those people who think foreign schools are "proof" that year round school is a good idea, I'd only point out that it may simply be a characteristic of foreign schools, NOT the reason they are as good as they are.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: classy
Thats a real bad idea. The mind needs a break. The young minds of kids need to be able to rest and learning year round will burn those kids out quick. I predict a higher drop out rate will be one of the side effects.

There's no such thing has the mind needing breaks to learn, if you know how to teach. You burn young minds out if your curriculum is crap and your execution is poor. A year-round curriculum that reintegrates music and other arts, sciences, and DAILY vigorous physical activity will build strong minds and bodies.

Content-centered methods (traditional) will likely produce higher test scores since schools will have more time to teach to the test. Very bad idea and if this is the approach, I agree with your post.

Learning-centered methods definitely improve test scores even if you have no idea what's on the test. Unfortunately, many school systems and teachers don't do learning-centered education.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: classy
Thats a real bad idea. The mind needs a break. The young minds of kids need to be able to rest and learning year round will burn those kids out quick. I predict a higher drop out rate will be one of the side effects.

There's no such thing has the mind needing breaks to learn, if you know how to teach. You burn young minds out if your curriculum is crap and your execution is poor. A year-round curriculum that reintegrates music and other arts, sciences, and DAILY vigorous physical activity will build strong minds and bodies.

Content-centered methods (traditional) will likely produce higher test scores since schools will have more time to teach to the test. Very bad idea and if this is the approach, I agree with your post.

Learning-centered methods definitely improve test scores even if you have no idea what's on the test. Unfortunately, many school systems and teachers don't do learning-centered education.

But why not do all those things WITHOUT making school year round? It's not impossible, certainly, as year round school does not really add THAT many extra days (I've seen proposals that add none at all). What does year round school, by itself, add?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Unless they've increased Teacher salaries a lot, there goes the incentive to be a Teacher.

Last time I checked, teachers weren't motivated by money. Otherwise they would take their degree and do something else with it.

Besides, these are your democrats in action!

Bullcrap. You expect more and more accountabilty for results out of Teachers while upping the amount of work time while not increasing pay.

You are essentially creating and promoting Teacher's sufferage. Good luck on finding folks that want to sign up for that. :roll:

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: classy
Thats a real bad idea. The mind needs a break. The young minds of kids need to be able to rest and learning year round will burn those kids out quick. I predict a higher drop out rate will be one of the side effects.

There's no such thing has the mind needing breaks to learn, if you know how to teach. You burn young minds out if your curriculum is crap and your execution is poor. A year-round curriculum that reintegrates music and other arts, sciences, and DAILY vigorous physical activity will build strong minds and bodies.

Content-centered methods (traditional) will likely produce higher test scores since schools will have more time to teach to the test. Very bad idea and if this is the approach, I agree with your post.

Learning-centered methods definitely improve test scores even if you have no idea what's on the test. Unfortunately, many school systems and teachers don't do learning-centered education.

But why not do all those things WITHOUT making school year round? It's not impossible, certainly, as year round school does not really add THAT many extra days (I've seen proposals that add none at all). What does year round school, by itself, add?

The studies I've seen show that kids with the least enriched home environments lose a lot over the long summer. Summer school doesn't help b/c its usually focused on passing some retarded test the kids have already failed.

Quality education is incremental and integrated. Child progress is predicated on a good understanding of what came before. You cannot go from the end of May to the beginning of August without losing.

For instance, Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy cannot be fulfilled (at least the higher levels) unless children are compelled to use higher order thinking all the time. It takes a lot of time to build a quality curriculum and even more time to tailor that material/approach to the needs of ALL children.

Even better, what if you took each year's end of grade testing (EOG) and kids actually reviewed everything they got wrong?! Further, make them review what they got right as well since "correct" answers aren't the same thing as real knowledge. For the low performing kids, a good teacher could actually fill in the missing knowledge base. For the higher performing kids, a good teacher will push them to perform at even higher level.

It's impossible to do that when EOGs are essentially the end of teaching for the year. There should never be an end. Quality education should be a helix that extends ever higher.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Unless they've increased Teacher salaries a lot, there goes the incentive to be a Teacher.

Last time I checked, teachers weren't motivated by money. Otherwise they would take their degree and do something else with it.

Besides, these are your democrats in action!

Bullcrap. You expect more and more accountabilty for results out of Teachers while upping the amount of work time while not increasing pay.

You are essentially creating and promoting Teacher's sufferage. Good luck on finding folks that want to sign up for that. :roll:

I taught for a year and I'm married to a literacy facilitator (elementary school). I think we should demand more and more accountability for results out of teachers. Often that will mean changing HOW they work and possibly increase their time. These "higher" expectations should indeed come with substantially better pay.

It won't be enough to cut central offices. States and localities will have to come up with more money or flexible solutions . . . ie pension plans that draw retired teachers back to the schools.

 

[43st]

Great idea... We're a service based economy now, not agricultural. Kids don't need to be home in the summer to slave away on the farm. In fact it's better if they're in school so parents can stay at work longer providing essential services.

Same arguement goes for national healthcare. The state should cover it so businesses don't have to eat the cost.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Thera
Great idea... We're a service based economy now, not agricultural. Kids don't need to be home in the summer to slave away on the farm. In fact it's better if they're in school so parents can stay at work longer providing essential services.

Same arguement goes for national healthcare. The state should cover it so businesses don't have to eat the cost.

Actually many of the rural kids are badly needed on the farms during the summer months. They are such a small minority, even out in small rural towns I doubt more then 80% and in the medium rural towns less then 50% of them are from family farms.

I still think all kids need a vacation to learn how to be kids instead of robots.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: Thera
Great idea... We're a service based economy now, not agricultural. Kids don't need to be home in the summer to slave away on the farm. In fact it's better if they're in school so parents can stay at work longer providing essential services.

Same arguement goes for national healthcare. The state should cover it so businesses don't have to eat the cost.

Who knows if we actually remove most illegal aliens, we would probably have to shorten the school year (and school day) to have enough "labor" to pick crops.

I still think all kids need a vacation to learn how to be kids instead of robots.

If that's really the problem, then you need fundamental reform in what goes on IN the school not how frequently or how long school is in session.

Again, there's a BIG difference between a content-centered education and a learning-centered education. Further, kids should be friggin' kids every day of the week. Every moment is a teaching moment but its up to schools/parents to ensure they establish nurturing, interesting, and challenging stimuli. A kid doesn't need a break from that . . . they need as much of it as they can get . . . and plenty of sleep . . . and quality food.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: classy
Thats a real bad idea. The mind needs a break. The young minds of kids need to be able to rest and learning year round will burn those kids out quick. I predict a higher drop out rate will be one of the side effects.

Ha Ha! That was hillarious!

Wait, I hope my sarcasm detector isnt busted...

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: classy
Thats a real bad idea. The mind needs a break. The young minds of kids need to be able to rest and learning year round will burn those kids out quick. I predict a higher drop out rate will be one of the side effects.

There's no such thing has the mind needing breaks to learn, if you know how to teach. You burn young minds out if your curriculum is crap and your execution is poor. A year-round curriculum that reintegrates music and other arts, sciences, and DAILY vigorous physical activity will build strong minds and bodies.

Content-centered methods (traditional) will likely produce higher test scores since schools will have more time to teach to the test. Very bad idea and if this is the approach, I agree with your post.

Learning-centered methods definitely improve test scores even if you have no idea what's on the test. Unfortunately, many school systems and teachers don't do learning-centered education.

But why not do all those things WITHOUT making school year round? It's not impossible, certainly, as year round school does not really add THAT many extra days (I've seen proposals that add none at all). What does year round school, by itself, add?

The studies I've seen show that kids with the least enriched home environments lose a lot over the long summer. Summer school doesn't help b/c its usually focused on passing some retarded test the kids have already failed.

Quality education is incremental and integrated. Child progress is predicated on a good understanding of what came before. You cannot go from the end of May to the beginning of August without losing.

For instance, Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy cannot be fulfilled (at least the higher levels) unless children are compelled to use higher order thinking all the time. It takes a lot of time to build a quality curriculum and even more time to tailor that material/approach to the needs of ALL children.

Even better, what if you took each year's end of grade testing (EOG) and kids actually reviewed everything they got wrong?! Further, make them review what they got right as well since "correct" answers aren't the same thing as real knowledge. For the low performing kids, a good teacher could actually fill in the missing knowledge base. For the higher performing kids, a good teacher will push them to perform at even higher level.

It's impossible to do that when EOGs are essentially the end of teaching for the year. There should never be an end. Quality education should be a helix that extends ever higher.

Perhaps, but aren't you worried that kids will get burnt out on learning? You're talking about having a school that demands far more from students than current schools do...which is fine. But you're also talking about not giving them a fundamental break to rest their brains, so to speak. Kids are not just little adults, I'm not sure how well they would do with constant school, with only short breaks, for 12 years straight. I can see the argument for not having an end to the school year, but I also think there it is useful for kids to be able to see an end...if ony for a few months. GOOD school, as you are proposing to go along with this, can be quite mentally taxing. Adults might be able to handle this for years on end, but I'm not sure kids would. Of course, I suppose it would be possible, in theory, to make school enjoyable enough that this wouldn't happen, but I'm not sure we're anywhere close to being able to do that.

The other thing that I'm worried about is kids who actually derive something useful from their time away from school. I know this is the rare case, but every summer when I was in high school, I got some kind of internship that I believe helped prepare me for my current job far better than anything I learned in high school. And while this is rarer than I might like, I wonder if pushing something like that over the summer might be more helpful than simply having more school. Of course I'm a person who believes that while school is helpful and necessary, it isn't the be all, end all in preparing you for life.

 

[LumbergTech]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: classy
Thats a real bad idea. The mind needs a break. The young minds of kids need to be able to rest and learning year round will burn those kids out quick. I predict a higher drop out rate will be one of the side effects.

There's no such thing has the mind needing breaks to learn, if you know how to teach. You burn young minds out if your curriculum is crap and your execution is poor. A year-round curriculum that reintegrates music and other arts, sciences, and DAILY vigorous physical activity will build strong minds and bodies.

Content-centered methods (traditional) will likely produce higher test scores since schools will have more time to teach to the test. Very bad idea and if this is the approach, I agree with your post.

Learning-centered methods definitely improve test scores even if you have no idea what's on the test. Unfortunately, many school systems and teachers don't do learning-centered education.

But why not do all those things WITHOUT making school year round? It's not impossible, certainly, as year round school does not really add THAT many extra days (I've seen proposals that add none at all). What does year round school, by itself, add?

The studies I've seen show that kids with the least enriched home environments lose a lot over the long summer. Summer school doesn't help b/c its usually focused on passing some retarded test the kids have already failed.

Quality education is incremental and integrated. Child progress is predicated on a good understanding of what came before. You cannot go from the end of May to the beginning of August without losing.

For instance, Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy cannot be fulfilled (at least the higher levels) unless children are compelled to use higher order thinking all the time. It takes a lot of time to build a quality curriculum and even more time to tailor that material/approach to the needs of ALL children.

Even better, what if you took each year's end of grade testing (EOG) and kids actually reviewed everything they got wrong?! Further, make them review what they got right as well since "correct" answers aren't the same thing as real knowledge. For the low performing kids, a good teacher could actually fill in the missing knowledge base. For the higher performing kids, a good teacher will push them to perform at even higher level.

It's impossible to do that when EOGs are essentially the end of teaching for the year. There should never be an end. Quality education should be a helix that extends ever higher.

Perhaps, but aren't you worried that kids will get burnt out on learning? You're talking about having a school that demands far more from students than current schools do...which is fine. But you're also talking about not giving them a fundamental break to rest their brains, so to speak. Kids are not just little adults, I'm not sure how well they would do with constant school, with only short breaks, for 12 years straight. I can see the argument for not having an end to the school year, but I also think there it is useful for kids to be able to see an end...if ony for a few months. GOOD school, as you are proposing to go along with this, can be quite mentally taxing. Adults might be able to handle this for years on end, but I'm not sure kids would. Of course, I suppose it would be possible, in theory, to make school enjoyable enough that this wouldn't happen, but I'm not sure we're anywhere close to being able to do that.

The other thing that I'm worried about is kids who actually derive something useful from their time away from school. I know this is the rare case, but every summer when I was in high school, I got some kind of internship that I believe helped prepare me for my current job far better than anything I learned in high school. And while this is rarer than I might like, I wonder if pushing something like that over the summer might be more helpful than simply having more school. Of course I'm a person who believes that while school is helpful and necessary, it isn't the be all, end all in preparing you for life.

they could break up the breaks throughout the year possibly instead of having one big gap ..maybe a bunch of 2 week breaks spread out

 

[HombrePequeno]

I don't really like the idea of year round schooling. I think I would've gotten burnt out had I had to go through that type of program. I am fine, however, with increasing the length of the school year. Perhaps tacking on an extra week for each quarter would be fine. Kids don't really need 3 months for the summer. I know I spent half of my summers bored out of my skull.