Year Round School: Letters to the Editor

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 school 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

Ballinger's Question is often repeated in the rhetorical literature and litany of the year-round school movement^1. It is a leading question that seeks to provide the reader with the answer which the querist wants the reader to assume. Look closer. It should be answered honestly.

The only legitimate way to answer any "what if" question is to search the historical record for the same, similar, or related elements, concepts or principles that may have been answered before. The basic question may even have been answered already². 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 thinking³. 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 schooling⁴. With the historical record to focus our knowledge of how these changes occur, we know that the answer to Ballinger's Question is yes. Yes, some certainly would consider the "new" nine month calendar on the strength of its recommendation by the trusted educational professionals, just as they have done in the past. 

Ballinger's Question, in fact, has been answered many times. The history of year-round schooling goes back to the middle 17th century, making it some 200 years older than the nine month school calendar. The oldest year-round school alive today is only 30 years old. The others all went to the nine month calendar. More directly, Ballinger's Question implies that once year-round schooling is in place long enough to become the community norm ("100 years") it would never be supplanted. Any historian and most grandparents can tell you that it takes only one generation (20 years) or less to completely forget the old ways⁵. After 22 years of year-round schooling the Los Angeles school district had raised an entire generation who had no memory of any other calendar. When they were given the choice of staying with the year-round calendar they all knew so well, or changing to the "new" nine month calendar, they jumped at the chance to change by a margin of 543 schools to one. After nineteen years Newark, New Jersey scrapped their year-round calendar completely, as have Jefferson County, Colorado (13 years); Omaha, Nebraska (13 years); Romeoville, Illinois (10 years); Prince William County, Virginia (9 years); and scores (if not hundreds) of other districts over the years. As the number of schools adopting year-round grows, so does the number of schools that abandon it. Just a few years ago Florida had 165 year-round schools, this year they are down to thirty. In the last five years North Carolina added 18 districts and dropped 11. New Jersey, New Hampshire and Mississippi no longer have year-round schools. Based on the solid evidence from history the answer to Ballinger's Question is yes. Yes, Americans certainly will allow a nine month calendar to replace a year-round calendar, just as they have done in the past.

- Rodger Holtin
rjholtin@hotmail.com 

1. The "free from organized instruction" clause begs an answer in itself. Suffice to say here that America will not dismantle all her summer programs just because some school professionals deem it their prerogative to be the sole organizers.

2. Three illustrations of the importance of knowing history: a) Congress, citizens and reporters are studying the Federalist Papers for guidance on issues currently before us. b) Readers with a Christian perspective will understand the Biblical use of the historical record as a repository for the concepts and principles taught throughout Christendom. c) In 1948 Columbia Records launched the LP record with great success, due largely to their searching for the lessons of the history of their predecessors who tried and failed. Columbia offered licenses of their product to their competitors, thus eliminating the specter of competing formats and ensuring a greater availability and greater public acceptance.

3. We try diligently to teach our kids to think critically about everything from homework to the movies they watch. Incredibly, we park our critical thinking at the door when we attend school meetings if we think it will make us look uncooperative.

4. On a larger scale, this process is responsible for giving our society such innovations as open marriage, no-fault insurance, emu ranching, the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin, and the Edsel.

5. The truth of this is older than Solomon. Three illustrations of forgotten ways from 20th century culture: a) The control pedals and levers on a Model T Ford (the norm of its day, 1909-1927) are vastly different from any conventional automobile built since that time. My father knew how to drive one. I do not, and neither could Dad's brother, nine years his junior. b) Back to the LP, our parents bought them by the millions, we Boomers bought them by the tens of millions. Our high school kids might recognize them, but our elementary kids do not. c) The ink blotter in use since the first day of school in America disappeared after World War II. Try asking the kids to identify an ink blotter, and its use.