Frazz by Jef Mallett for September 05, 2016

Just imagine no Summers off. Oh you get maybe a week or too, otherwise back to school. No reason not to. One of the many reason why the USA is so far behind other countries in education.

How strange…Tomorrow is National Read A Book Day.

There is no reason to start school before labor day….

Quite the dainty legs

Michigan law is that public schools do not start before Labor Day.

Big Hoo Haa going on in Maryland. The governor issued a ruling that starting next year all schools start after Labor Day. Since he’s a Republican all the Dems and teacher groups are up in arms about ruining kids’ education and lives. I suppose if it was the other way around, it would be the other way around.

So has my school. And we get out June 14 this year!

Michigan, Frazz’s state now has several school districts which successfully petitioned for school to begin before Labor Day. Since Labor Day is already 5 days into September and many school sports teams, band, etc already started, families have to be home anyway.

Some Northern IN schools have been in session for nearly a month. Elkhart, IN started Aug. 4,

Louisiana started August 5th. They get out in early May. Same amount of time, just different starting and stopping points.

hWhen I was a kid in Michigan, school always started the Wednesday after Labor Day. That way, y could come back from your three day weekend late on Monday and sleep in the next morning…

it used to be scheduled around the farmer’s growing seasons. Now it seems to be scheduled around the summer vacation seasons. I would personally like to see year round school with each portion separated by a nice long break. Then vacations and family time can be built into every season, not just summer.

In Tucson, schools started August 4. Then they have a fall break in October, a spring break in March (seldom aligns with Easter, then out of school before Memorial Day. Fine because it avoids the really hot days in June and July, but lousy because it doesn’t align with the local University and Community College, where many parents work or are students. So family vacation times are limited to about six weeks in the summer.

It’s my understanding that a lot of schools began starting the school year in August and ending the end of May so the semester break would end at the Christmas vacation rather than having the students come back and face semester finals in January. Nobody wants to study over Christmas!

Our schools always start the week before Labor Day just to show kids who is really in charge of their lives. Or to give teachers a three day weekend; I’m not sure which.

In reading the lives of such men as James Madison, James Monroe, and others, it is clear that early schooling was over by age 14-16. By the time these men reached manhood, they and many others were accomplished in a variety of disciplines and spoke or read in several languages. In addition, their reading and study continued throughout their lives.

In some cases, tutored students’ early education continued throughout the day, and any topic or interest was pursued through practical, hands-on experience. This was and is the basis for a broad, well rounded education.

Even into the 1940’s, many people had earned a more than adequate education by the time they exited the 8th grade.

And yet, no significant new subjects or disciplines have been added to school curricula to justify longer school days or years.

Furthermore, there is the original concept of having school begin in fall and end in summer. We no longer are a nation of farmers dependent upon the seasons for work. So, it seems there exist no practical reasons, beyond the convenience of habit and the financial benefit to tourism, as to why that should still be the case.

Debatable reasoning!!

MiHorn, it’s my understanding that under Indiana law, all schools start the first week of August.

ben porterOn the surface, yes. However, how much of that budget goes for academics? In Texas, about of third of capital expenditures goes for athletics, and a male will not be hired to teach unless he can also coach, generally under a head coach who is only barely functionally literate.

Back when I was a mere lad in elementary school, we started the Monday following September 9th (California Admission Day). It is a state holiday, and since it falls so close to Labor Day, it made sense to wait. Since then we’ve endured Year-Round schedules (now abandoned in my district, the second largest in the nation) as well as other tweaks. We are now under the ‘early start’ calendar, making the first day of instruction the second week of August. This rationale was to end the first semester at the start of Winter Break. School ends the first week of June. This month the district Über Führers will vote on returning to the traditional post-Labor Day start. I’m all in favor of this move for one simple reason. I don’t like having to work on my birthday.

night-gaunt—that explains the difference in contact-hours.

It does not explain the difference in educations.

When I was still pre-school (which wasn’t part of the public school system), school staqrted after labor day, went two or three weeks, let out for kids to work the harvest, then back again, two days for Christmas, Holy Week, and no other breaks. Methodists had their Annual Conference in October, so we were barely back in school with a high probability of moving at conference (four years in one church was standard – I remember when the bishop announced the end of that, saying “I want my pastors to stay long enough to unpack their books.”)..Thanks to 1940-’50 urbanization, schools went to the current schedule and Annual Conference is mostly in June.

We’ve been back to school down here in TX for 2 weeks already. The biggest problem with the extended break is that kids do forget things over the summer. Back in England (where I was born) we had about the same number of days, but there were more 1-2 week holidays (spring break was two weeks, etc) and the summer break was only ~6 weeks.

You know, in those colors, that soccer ball looks a lot like a Yoshi Egg, or maybe a Pokemon one.

My District had been going since early August. Breaks are spread out and we still get just 182 school days. Maybe soon we’ll spread them out even more. Down with the Summer slide!