Should we make summer school mandatory for kids in danger of not getting credits?

Things like homework differ a great deal from school to school to districts to states etc. As a country, we have one of the higher total school hours per year amongst OCED countries, and one of the higher hours per week for homework as well.

Places like Japan, Finland, Korea spend less time for school and students test just as well if not better than America in math/science/reading

I'm unaware of the changes during covid, I'm sure things are both different and #fluid

 

There is for sure, a whole lot of factors that come into play with education outside of just raw hours spent in school or on homework, and just mimicking hours of others countries does not ensure improvement or success, but it does show when all things are aligned for whatever their situation is, children can spend less time in school while learning just as much, which I personally see as a good thing.

The data source is OCED

Spoiler: Large

 

I haven't read much about it, but this website makes it seem like those countries have a longer school year. https://school-days.blog/2019/07/09/we-compare-school-days-around-the-world/

I think the length of summer vacation is a factor. It's a vestige of the agricultural calendar, and it's possible that kids would lean better with breaks that were more spaced out during the year.

 

Big cost associated with keeping schools open year-round. My wife would kick you in the nuts if you asked her to work during the summer. It's one of the biggest perks for us for her as a school librarian/teacher. It's not being lazy, she can spend the summer with the kids while they're young. But you're right that some people would take the extra pay.

I think it should be optional (but free) for any kid. In fact, if kids want to knock out a semester in 2.5 months to get ahead, it should be available if it isn't now.

Goes back to different career tracks in HS. I love the idea of three tracks:

• Trade School/Farming/Construction: They're done at 14, get apprenticeships
• Office Workers: They're done at 18
• College Prep: Additional year

All three tracks have different curriculum.

Some kids just don't want to keep going to school. Why make that brass ring of graduating when they're 18 so far off? Give them a path that they can attain and be proud of.

 

Thats an interesting observation, for Japan and Korea it certainly is significantly more days, but for places like Germany, Finland, Sweden is only about 10 days longer which wouldn’t be a major change from ours

 

Meeting up with friends and doing activities with them. Spending summer going to places. Spending time with grandparents, cousins, neighbors. The basic human to human contacts. Many kids have missed out on that for nearly a year. On top of that, there are families that are struggling financially, which can become a big toll on kids' mental health as well. In my circle of family and friends, 2 out of 3 kids have problems with schools - these were kids that were honor roll students. 1 out of 10 went through some tough times - depression like.

Initially, I thought you meant summer school to catch up on failures due to covid school year. For that case, it's a strong no from me. We shouldn't force kids that have failed this year to spend more time in school. It's a special school year and I strongly believe letting them connect in person with families, friends and places over the summer months does much more good than trying to catch up academically in school.

Outside of this covid year, I still think no, but I can see some value in it as well.

 

Looks like one city is going to make it happen.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/us/atlanta-summer-school-coronavirus/index.html

 

This is not a fair comparison. They have fewer kids in poverty, fewer going without health care and their parents are not as stressed running from low paid jobs to their extra jobs. They don't lock up as many of the parents-- primarily dads. They pay their teachers more, which attracts more talented folks.

Our public schools in the upper middle class neighborhoods hold our own with their schools.

 

It's a mess and a nightmare for equity, which has recently been the #1 focus of many school districts across the nation. You're going to have kids going into school next year that should basically repeat the same grade. Meanwhile, other kids who were fortunate enough to have parents at home helping with schoolwork (and even supplementing) are going to be right on track. You can't hold back 50% of kids in every grade, because you still have the same number of kindergarteners coming into school. So it's just going to be an even split of kids at entirely different levels in the same classroom, and I just don't see how this going to work.

I'm not sure what the solution is going to be other than it's going to have to be something drastic. Half-grades maybe? For the younger grades, the teachers can't even really assess where kids are over a computer, so I'm not even sure how you can even make accurate determinations about what kids need more support and which don't.

 

It is a very difficult situation for a variety of reasons and there will be some degree of a long term impact.

As you know, politicians and a large group of voters simply do not want to spend the money or the resources needed on education.

I suspect we will see this again, where kids are just passed along.

 

Mark my words in 20 years we're going to see a bump in the crime and murder rate.

We're due for a different, smaller bump in about 10 years from the 2008 crash.

I'm so, so glad I don't have school age children.

 

Most teachers get paid to teach summer school. a minute of searching found stories from several different states with pay ranging from 35 to 70 dollars per hour. Does Texas try to make teachers teach summer school for free?

I think the best thing we could do to improve education is to end social promotion. If you have learned the material and can demonstrate that in whatever way you are to be evaluated, then you pass the class and move on. No more people going to high school who read at a third grade level. If you read at a third grade level, you should be in third grade until you can read at a fourth grade level. Same for math, science, etc.

 

I won't go so far as to say "mark my words" but one thing that I think is worth keeping an eye on is for kids who are, say, 2-5, is how this impacts their socialization skills. It might not impact them at all because they are so young, but anecdotally I have heard from some parents (especially those with only 1 child) that their kid has become far more shy and/or awkward in social situations, because they've spent 20%-50% of their lives quarantining.

 

You're exactly right.

Kids do the majority of their critical social development between ages 2-5. If they don't get it then, they never get it, and the outcomes are usually terrible.

I have a 2~ year old and, though we spent the entire Summer outside at parks and whatnot, every time we'd come across another kid their parents would hurriedly shuttle them off and away from us instead of letting the kids play together.

 

I don't know about Texas, but California absolutely still has social promotion. It is nearly impossible to hold back a student. Millions of students are "Not meeting standards" or "approaching standards" in one or even all of their subjects, but they are passed on to the next grade level to inevitably not meet the standards again. Until you can meet all of the standards of grade 1, you probably cannot meet the standards of grade 2, and even if you could, you still haven't learned what you need to meet the standards of grade 1, which are presumably something we think is important enough that we teach it to people in grade 1. You should not pass to the next grade level unless you are meeting standards across the board at the end of the year. If being given targeted help makes you meet those standards, great.