Summer Brain Drain

According to research compiled by connectwithkids.com, students score lower on standardized tests at the beginning of the school year than they do on the same tests just before summer break.

Math skills are particularly affected: students lose about 2.6 months of "grade-level equivalency" in that subject over the summer! This is particularly true in the areas of factual and procedural knowledge (e.g. how to carry out mathematical operations like multiplication and addition).

There is actually a group, the National Association for Year-Round Education (NAYRE) that promotes a longer school year. And here's a fascinating article, originally published in Edutopia magazine, that critiques the way time is used in our present education system, whether it's the tightly-calibrated daily schedule in high schools or the 180-day year itself.

I'm for year-round schooling. That doesn't mean NO breaks. In fact, you could have, say, two weeks between semesters or something. That still comes out to a lot of vacation, but it means LESS interruption. I don't know about your kids, but mine seem to just get settled in to the school routine, oh, around March. There are other arguments to be made for it, of course (e.g. working parents not in academia), but that's a big one.

Until year-round school is implemented, however, there's camp. I am sending my oldest to MKA STAR camp, Bill Wing tennis camp, science camp during our visit to the grandparents, and probably two weeks of ENOPI to regrease his brain before third grade. My daughter: Early Adventures at the Little Y, Korean heritage camp (she's adopted from Republic of Korea), and Camp Tonsils-Out for two weeks while she recovers from surgery. She'll also do at least a week of ENOPI. (God forbid she should go to kindergarten still making those adorable backward a's!)

There goes the tax refund!