Year Round Education

Year-Round Education is also known as Year-Round School, School-Within-A-School, Alternative Calendar, Extended School Year, Modified School Year, Continuous Learning Calendar, Education For All Seasons, the Balanced Calendar, Flexible Scheduling, the Remedial Calendar, the (Student) Achievement Calendar, the Creative Calendar, the Collegiate Calendar, the Inclusive Calendar, the Fall Break Calendar, the Enrichment Calendar and the Amended Schedule!

I have even seen it called the Standard Calendar!  (YRE is a deviation from the standard calendar.)

Year-Round Education has also been packaged with other things and relabeled.  Examples are The World Class School System and The Quality Learning Plan.  This represents another step in the evolution of YRE packaging and salesmanship.  Other steps of implementation are changing to a "beginners" year-round calendar - but calling it something else so as to not draw attention, study/indoctrination/survey, and brute force with no parental input.

Please contact me with other aliases and I will add them to this list.
"In a sworn declaration, Assistant Superintendent Gordon Wohlers conceded that for years L.A. school officials have, in effect, perpetrated a fraud on the children of Los Angeles. Year-round education is not, in fact, a swell way to keep kids learning all year, as district officials originally claimed. Instead, the schedule, as practiced here, has hurt students badly, declared Wohlers."  
(Howard Blume, "No Vacancy  The school district's space crunch is much worse than you know and no one has a plan that will fix it.",  LA WEEKLY)

 


Our Experiences

Research/Reports

Articles/Essays

Other YRE sites

More Articles & Essays

More Resources & Links

Lawsuits

 

Wes Walker's Homepage: Opposition to Year Round School

It is generally accepted that those of previous generations enjoyed a higher quality of education. Something changed. The calendar has not changed.  Why is the calendar being blamed?

There are many sites on the internet that advocate Year-Round Education (YRE).  This site is not one of them.  This site opposes Year-Round Education.  

For some, the first rule in a political battle is to call the opposition names in an effort to persuade those who perhaps don't have the time to study the details. The standard school calendar is always referred to by YRE advocates as a farm or agrarian calendar, as outdated as the abacus and the sun dial. When one challenges the validity of this and other ad hominem arguments, one gets quickly labeled as an extremist, close minded, and afraid of change. If you've ever opposed your school administration and been labeled as a trouble maker for it, you know what type of behavior I am referring to. 

Do not confuse an objective conclusion with bias. We experienced Year-Round Education first hand.  We experienced broken trust with school officials.  Our children experienced burn out and loss of some activities because of a year-round calendar.  We watched teachers in absolute fear of their jobs if they went against the political agenda of their administration.    We experienced the division and bitterness in our community.  

Every single sentence on this site is supported by an external source or is my opinion based on experience.
I am listing the sources as I can in my spare time. If you want the source for any statement you find here, EMAIL me and I will respond ASAP.


If you have any comments, questions, ideas, or suggestions, EMAIL them to me - Wes Walker - wesleycwalker@email.com. 

(click on the colored text below)

 

Our Experiences

"The common-sense conclusion is that the deciding factor in learning is not how much time is spent in school but the quality of the hours devoted to classroom teaching." 
(Leon Botstein, "We Waste Our Children's Time", New York Times, January 25, 2001)


 

Research & Reports

"Ron Gardner, President of the Arizona Association for Year Round Education, is pushing YRE for a Lake Havasu elementary school. When questioned, however, Gardner said there was no firm data to prove that year round programs were the cause of the increased student achievement which some schools have experienced. Often there have been other changes as well, such as curriculum changes and increased participation by parents and the community. (Today's News-Herald, Lake Havasu City, AZ, 1/30/97)"
(Time To Learn, Issues Update #23, page 2)


 

Articles & Essays

"There is no evidence that indicates there's any difference in achievement between year-round and traditional schools," said Tom Payne, who is in charge of year-round education for the California Department of Education. The moral of the story is that the year-round school, like so many so-called education reforms, is like rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. The ship is still sinking.' (The Phoenix Gazette, EDITORIALS, Friday May 3, 1991 "Year-round fraud")
 



 

Other YRE sites

"Any new educational concepts or changes are posed to the school patrons by administrators who are perceived by the patrons to be well-educated and well-paid to be well-informed, and as having the best interest of the students in their care at heart. Upon this podium of public trust they provide the citizens with positive, pointed ("studies have shown") information to promote whatever change they desire. Simply on the foundation that the new concept is promoted loud enough, hard enough and long enough by credible education professionals, some patrons inevitably will embrace it. Those who are seen (or want to be seen) as forward-thinking, progressive, open-minded and unafraid of change are susceptible to the pitfalls of this process. These are all positive qualities that become deadly liabilities when untempered by a modicum of critical thinking. It is exactly this process that has brought us where we are today. At this very moment, thousands of schools (and parents) are digging out from under the rubble caused by such good-sounding time bombs as whole language instruction, new math, open classrooms and year-round schooling." (Rodger Holtin, Ballinger's Question)
"If year-round education were the traditional school calendar and had been so for 100 years or more, and if someone
came along to suggest a "new" calendar wherein students were to be educated for only nine months each year with
another three months free from organized instruction, would the American public allow, or even consider, such a calendar?"
- Charles Ballinger -

ad hominem (esp in phrase) argument ad hominem an argument directed to the personality, prejudices, previous words and actions of an opponent, rather than an appeal to pure reason. Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language, Lexicon Publications, Inc., Danbury CT. 1992.

Click here to read a thoughtful answer to Mr. Ballinger's question.

 

Come back soon.

  

Last Updated 12/03/03

EMAIL to Wes Walker: wesleycwalker@email.com



 
 
 
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