A City School Year

Kat Coble argues that our decidedly non-agrarian society no longer needs school calendars dictated by the concerns of the farm. Her call for a year round school calendar is exactly right.

In addition to the arguments she makes, I would add that under the current system children spend the first 1/4 of the school year reviewing what they learned the year before and forgot over a summer filled all too often with television and video games. One of Coble's commenters argued that some children need the extended summer to catch up with their classmates, but by and large that argument fails to coalesce with reality. Few children spend much time during the summer reviewing their math and science lessons.

Another of her commenters seems to feel that the school year should function as a jobs program for tourist businesses. Leaving aside the fact that the number of school days will remain the same and will only be spaced differently, this misses the point that the school year should serve the needs of school children, not those of Walt Disney.