The government should increase the school year, and decrease the number of weeks of summer break.

Did you know that students can lose almost a third of what they learned during the school year? That isn’t good, because the students will be relearning everything they learned the preceding year. Summer vacation is a period of 13 weeks, and during that time children tend to take up sports, or go to summer camps. Most students like this break, but it can potentially cause students to fail to remember what they had learned the prior year. Schools should make summer vacation shorter, so kids will not lose what they learn during the year, also that teachers would get higher pay, and finally that parents wouldn’t need to spend money on childcare.

Summer vacation didn’t always exist. During the summers, children would help their parents on the farm, and milk the cows, basically things that we wouldn’t dream of doing during our 20th century summer break. It all started with the heat. It was unbearable. School in New York used to be 260 days long, but during the summer months, the heat got absorbed into the school buildings, which made them incredibly hot. Because of the heat, and how uncomfortable it was, summer break was established. 

Teaching tends to be a low income job, because most schools are funded by the government. The government gets their money from the taxes. To pay teachers more money, the government has to raise the taxes, so people who live in the district have to pay more money than usual. According to USAFacts most teachers have a master’s degree, but get paid only $66,000 for the ENTIRE school year. If we cut the summer break short, then teachers would get more money, and could live a better life.

The point of school is to learn information, but during the summer, kids tend to forget some of the things that they learn. This is most commonly known as “the summer slide”. The summer slide is when kids forget what they learned during the school year during summer. A study done by Brookings.edu showed that the declines in math were sharper than those in reading. Reading is a hobby that some children have, and those kids read during the summer, but math isn’t commonly done during the summer vacation. If summer vacation were shorter, kids could forget what they learn, but not as much as a 13 week break.

Babysitting is quite hard to find during the summer, since babysitters might be on vacation, or they could be occupied with other clients. If parents are forced to entertain their children for 13 weeks straight, it could start to get very boring. If school was elongated, parents wouldn’t be forced to enthrall their kids for 13 weeks, but instead for 4 weeks. School is there, so parents can drop their kids off, and head to work. During that time, kids can learn vital information for their lives ahead of them. Some families are less fortunate, and can’t afford childcare, but with school, they know that their kids are safe and learning a lot.

Most kids feel like they absolutely need 13 weeks of rest, but kids in France have an 8 week break, and do just fine. Studies show that teenagers in France learn almost the same information as American kids do, but French children tend to have higher test scores. Some might say that it is because they start school earlier, but that isn’t true. The summer slide affects American children more than French kids, because we have a longer break. If children in the US want to have a reputation of the smartest kids in the world, we really need to shorten our summer break. I feel like kids do need a summer break, but it really should be shorter than 13 weeks.

To wrap this up, summer break is nice, but it would be better if it was shorter. Schools in the US should make our summer vacation shorter, so parents wouldn’ t be burdened 24/7 by their children, so that teachers could get paid more because the school year would be longer, and most importantly, that kids would not forget what they learn during the year. To make sure that kids stay smart, we have to shorten summer break.