Year-Round Schools
Do they improve academic performance?
By Richard L. Worsnop

For most of the nation's 44 million school-children, summer vacations begin in June. However, more than 1.7 million students will remain in classes a few weeks longer and get a shorter vacation break. They attend schools with “year-round education” (YRE) programs designed to improve academic achievement and/or ease overcrowding. YRE programs rearrange the school schedule into several instructional. . . .

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A Year-Round Education Glossary

Core academic curriculum: Defined by the National Education Commission on Time and Learning as the subjects that all students should take during the academic day - English and language arts, mathematics, science, civics, geography, history, the arts and foreign languages.

Extended year: A type of year-round education (YRE) that actually lengthens the school year substantially, up to 240 days of instruction compared with the standard 180 days. Only a handful of U.S. schools have initiated the extended year.

Intersession: Designated days students or teachers are not in school.

Juku: A private Japanese tutorial school that supplements regular school programs, offering remedial and enrichment programs to prepare students for university exams.

Multi-track year-round education: A type of YRE that divides students in one school into three, four or five same-size groups, each with different class and vacation schedules. Groups attend on staggered schedules, so that one group is always on vacation. Multi- tracking is designed primarily to relieve overcrowding and make better use of facilities.

Single-track year-round education: A type of YRE in which all students attend school on the same schedule of instructional sessions and vacations; designed to improve educational performance.

Track: A group of students attending the same school on the same schedule.

Year-round education: A concept that reorganizes the school year to provide more continuous learning by breaking up the long summer vacation into shorter, more frequent vacations. It does not eliminate the summer vacation, but reduces it. The total amount of vacation ordinarily remains the same as in traditional schedules.

Sources: National Association for Year-Round Education, National Education Commission on Time and Learning