Year-round school fails to improve learning

Well looky here! What's this I see?!

A study from last August proved that year-round school doesn't improve academics one damn bit - but I didn't discover this study until now, because the right-wing media has kept it swept under the rug.

You know, I've been willing to give those who might feel comfortable with an "alternative calendar" equal time, as long as they've tried to be reasonable. At least those who I've granted this privilege to didn't support more days in school. However, every "alternative calendar" I know of has more days in school than what I suffered in my youth.

Now a sociologist at Ohio State University reports that year-round school offers no advantage in test scores over a regular 9-month calendar. People try to place spin on the study, saying the problem is that year-round school isn't year-round enough, but that's contradicted by the study's findings.

Year-round school is basically a classist sham and a scam. In addition to not boosting learning, year-round school hurts agriculture and summer jobs, and it runs roughshod over the need for leisure. And it increases disease and deprives students of a safe haven from bullying. School bureaucrats could curtail the disease and harassment problems if they had half a brain, but you're pretty much stuck with the agricultural, economic, recreational issues. The harassment and disease woes are in fact major reasons why year-round school has become more common: It really tells you something that cold medicine makers have paid off schools to implement a year-round calendar.

The year-round school experiment has failed. I've been patient, I've been good, tried to keep my hands on the table. Now is the time for state lawmakers to step in and halt it. (Supposedly there was a bill this year in Kentucky to curb this scourge, but I never heard anything about it passing. Surprise, surprise, huh?)

(Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070811151449.htm)