Raleigh County Schools think about going to balanced calender school year (year round school) (Man: minimum wage, vacation)
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If Raleigh Co. goes to year around school the sports programs will be distroyed. How can fall sports play other counties that are not on the same schedule. Not to mention that mant other states that tried this method are already reverting back due to the regression of students. Teachers are constantly doing reteach after each break. This is a terrible idea.
teachk12, I'm not directly familiar with the process, but I know many year-round districts compete with traditional districts in all sports. I don't have the time to find the details, but I know they pull it off. I'd personally be in favor of it if I were still a student, but I think it's best for the communities to decide what to do.
Students in higher-risk areas tend to do better with a year-round schedule than others. For the average student, it doesn't seem to have too much an effect one way or another. It seems to me that, given the mixed results, that our lagging achievements compared internationally are not primarily caused by the school systems. This isn't surprising and is tied to the extracurricular learning, especially at home. Take McDowell county, for instance. When 72% of students live in a household without gainful employment, that sets up a recepie for disaster in terms of stimulating education in the home. The correlation between socioeconomic status and education is inextricably linked, as stated in that article.
So let's take this and see what we get. Take Sweden, for example - relatively wealthy country with very high education achievements. Compare it to the US, the wealthiest nation with very good test scores, but not the best. The Gini index is a measure of the distribution of wealth of a country on a scale from 0 to 1 (or 0-100, whatever floats your boat). Say a country had $1 million and 1 million people. If it had a Gini coefficient of 0, then every person would have the same amount of money, so this arbitrary country would have 1 million people, all with $1. Conversely, if the Gini number was 1, then one person out of the 1 million would have the whole $1 million.
Sweden has a Gini number of 0.23, whereas the US has a Gini number of 0.47 (WV is 0.45). Comparing these, it's obvious to see that most of the families in Sweden are doing well financially; it is a wealthy country and there isn't a large discrepancy between family incomes across the country. The US, on the other hand, has over twice the financial disparity and is almost in the middle in terms of disparity. So for every "rich" person, you have at least one in poverty. If you look at the plot of test scores vs income, you'll notice it is a logarithmic trend (with a jump at the end).
So, overall, disregarding the last bracket (this clumps familites with $200,000 with those with $2 million, not exactly good for data interpretation), increasing the wealth on the upper income side does little to raise test scores, while decreasing wealth has a larger impact on the test scores. This is exactly what we've seen over the last few decades in terms of the US Gini number:
The US is becoming more divergent in the share of wealth. We still have good scores, but our educational ranking is slipping as the wealth disparity increases. This will tend to have more of a detrimental effect than beneficial on the test scores overall (I'm only presenting this point, there could be any number of other factors as well), which was reflected in the logarithmic relation shown in the first graph. This also helps to show the diverging political factions in America; back in the 60s and 70s we had a Gini number of around 0.35, whereas now we have a greater disparity in the distribution of wealth. Disclaimer: I'm not advocating any political or economic philosophies here, just showing some data.
Forgive me if this has already been discussed. I just thought it was an interesting indicator as to where we are economically and educationally at the moment.
In Jefferson Co., there's talk about a more balanced school year -- basically taking a few weeks out of the summer break and adding it to Xmas break, Spring break, adding a Fall break and the like.
Personally, I really like that approach and hope it gets instituted.
Less time off over the interminable summer break is good.
More time for vacations or just chilling out in the fall, winter, and spring all sound real good to me too.
Then for their next trick... I hope they start opening schools AT LEAST an hour later.
If we go to school all year who is going to work at the state fair and how are any of the teenagers going to have a summer job to pay for there outrageous insurance ?? For the ones of us who work in the summer we might loose some knowledge, but we will do worse in school if we have to work during the school year. As far as the health goes just about all the kids I know are more active in the summer cause they don't have homework. I know for me i'm averaging four hours of homework every night right now.
If we go to school all year who is going to work at the state fair and how are any of the teenagers going to have a summer job to pay for there outrageous insurance ?? For the ones of us who work in the summer we might loose some knowledge, but we will do worse in school if we have to work during the school year. As far as the health goes just about all the kids I know are more active in the summer cause they don't have homework. I know for me i'm averaging four hours of homework every night right now.
Well, students would be getting roughly the same amount of time off. It would simply be spread throughout the year rather than concentrated in the summer. Also, Greenbriar county could work their schedule around the state fair, if they wish.
If Raleigh Co. goes to year around school the sports programs will be distroyed. How can fall sports play other counties that are not on the same schedule. Not to mention that mant other states that tried this method are already reverting back due to the regression of students. Teachers are constantly doing reteach after each break. This is a terrible idea.
First off I believe education is more important than sports.
However, why cant they be on a normal sports schedule? They go to school to learn on year around schedule, they play sports on a normal schedule. Doesnt seem so difficult.
If we go to school all year who is going to work at the state fair and how are any of the teenagers going to have a summer job to pay for there outrageous insurance ?? For the ones of us who work in the summer we might loose some knowledge, but we will do worse in school if we have to work during the school year. As far as the health goes just about all the kids I know are more active in the summer cause they don't have homework. I know for me i'm averaging four hours of homework every night right now.
Your arguments are weak.
You get just as much time during year around schooling, and plenty of students can hold a job while attending school.
If you can only be active during summer you have issues.
If we go to school all year who is going to work at the state fair and how are any of the teenagers going to have a summer job to pay for there outrageous insurance ?? For the ones of us who work in the summer we might loose some knowledge, but we will do worse in school if we have to work during the school year. As far as the health goes just about all the kids I know are more active in the summer cause they don't have homework. I know for me i'm averaging four hours of homework every night right now.
How many of those four hours are spent on English/Composition?
Well, students would be getting roughly the same amount of time off. It would simply be spread throughout the year rather than concentrated in the summer. Also, Greenbriar county could work their schedule around the state fair, if they wish.
Pools are not open all year round. Businesses in general are not going to hire for two weeks here and two weeks there. Yes, early experience in the labor force like this is aslo a part of an education. Something that will indeed be missed by many if the summer break is lost.
Pools are not open all year round. Businesses in general are not going to hire for two weeks here and two weeks there. Yes, early experience in the labor force like this is aslo a part of an education. Something that will indeed be missed by many if the summer break is lost.
People have their whole life to work bad minimum wage jobs, which many do because of a lack of good education. There is only one chance to learn in HS.
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