Summer Vacation or Not?

Year round schooling has been contemplated, and contemplated. Would year round schooling be the smartest option in trying to enhance the educational system in America? Although educational reformers are continuously attempting to develop new ways America could strengthen its educational system, the substitution of summer vacation for more days of school in the year is not the decision to make. The idea of additional time spent in classrooms across America may convince reformers to take a couple steps into the path of year round schooling; however, this is existent only due to the inability to discover other, less complicated paths. Therefore, with the tons of complications outweighing the small, meager pros, year round schooling is not the best option due to the basis’ of economics, achievement, and initiative.

The key factor in making any important decision is money. While other factors may speak for themselves here and there, money is the only component that can shift a decision completely one way or another. With that said, year round schooling would be detrimental to our nation’s economy. It heavily supports the spending and borrowing of money that neither the state nor federal government attains. The state of North Carolina, for example, has spent nearly twelve billion dollars a year on its public school system in the few past years. Regarding the fact that immense cuts are taking place now as well as in the near future, making a decision to extend the school year will make America’s slow economic recovery retard even more.

Surprising as it may sound, year round schooling is not even remotely productive. If school is extended an “X” amount of days, the students are not going to become “X” times smarter. An economic educational study from the year 2008 concluded that there is no correlation between academic achievement and the amount of days spent in the classroom. Furthermore, this brings up the principle of quality versus quantity. Achievement is directly...