Summer break is too long

It feels almost sacrilegious to say, but summer break is too long. It’s a quarter of the year (more than 2,000 hours). Doesn’t that already make the case?

It’s summer, so I can daydream: Schools should offer more instructional days. Some U.S. schools have started to, and other countries do.

I hesitate to suggest taking some of the best things in life from kids: Summer offers more time for the outdoors, family, friends, new activities, travel, rest and creativity. But those can still be had in less time, and are not the reality for lower-income kids.

Children and teacher assistants at The Kwong Kow Chinese summer school play at a local park on July 21, 2022, in Boston. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The long break made sense in the past, but no longer. It was established around 1900 so that city-dwellers could flee the heat before air conditioning was invented. In 1900, fewer women did paid work – 20.6% of women, with a sixth of those in the arguably more family-friendly field of farming. That left 8 in 10 women more free to help with kids, although they were also doing unpaid domestic labor. 

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By the 1970s, approximately half of women with minor children worked (including part-time), and today it’s about three-quarters. Among fathers with minor children, 93.4% work. Meanwhile, full-time American workers take fewer than four weeks of paid time off.

In the past, parents also had more support from extended family, with grandparents nearby and more siblings and cousins for their kids to play with. Today, it’s not as easy to just send the kids outside all day, when many areas are plagued with traffic and not designed to be child-friendly. Plus, adults are less likely than nowadays to help oversee other people’s children when they’re outside playing. 

I believe in small government, but providing education is one of government’s most important roles. If you believe in taxpayer-funded public education at all, then why not a little more? Of course, if public schools offer more instructional days, private schools would follow suit and would increase tuition, but, except for the most expensive private schools, it would still be more affordable, or comparable to, the cost of camp.

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Camps are often only for a few weeks, not during regular work hours or for limited age groups. The patchwork parents create to manage kids and work reduces their productivity; or some kids just go to the same camp all summer, which – unless it’s a pricey camp offering a lot of variety – is not as good as going to more school. Every camp requires parents to entrust their children to another group of new people too, and adjusting to lots of camps can be stressful on kids.

Localities offer free summer programming for the low-income, but otherwise week-long camps range from $200 to $800. For parents who have budgeted for the expense, they may still decide it’s better to save the money. The Federal Reserve recently reported that many parents are not doing well financially: "About 64% of parents living with children under the age of 18 said they were doing all right financially in 2023."

Just breaking up the summer break, with the same amount of instructional days, is not a good option. A small portion of U.S. school districts, less than 4%, have adopted "year-round schooling" or a "balanced calendar." It spreads out breaks, with the benefit of reducing burnout and making time available for remediation. 

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To help working parents, schools have programming during the added breaks. But the number of schools using this calendar has declined recently, as it’s hard on parents with kids in different schools, complicates the schedule for extracurricular activities and summer jobs, costs more in air conditioning, is opposed by the tourism industry, and more. 

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Since it doesn’t add instructional days, it doesn’t improve academic performance. Earlier this year, Wales put off consideration of trimming its six-week summer break by adding a week to another holiday.

Adding instructional days is the solution. Logically, as long as kids learn anything at school, they will learn more with more instruction time. U.S. students perform below average compared to international peers.

Research is unclear how significant summer learning loss or the "summer slide" is, but a long break is a missed opportunity. Many schools have also reduced recess, and adding more school days would allow for adding that back.

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However, it should be noted that American students spend more hours in school than is the average among peer nations, due to longer school days, even though the U.S. has fewer school days, averaging 180 days. American students also receive more funding than international peers.

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That’s where, as Rick Hess argues in his book "The Great School Rethink," schools need to be more efficient in how they use the school day. He cites a study that found one school’s disruptions tallied up to 10 to 20 days of school instruction time per year. He says schools should work on efficiency before adding more schools hours. I’d argue they should do both.

School choice would also help here – with more education providers outside of the bureaucratic public system, they can offer a greater variety, including more school days.  

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Of course, teachers will need to be paid more for more time. One way to is to cut administrative staff, which has almost doubled in 20 years. 

There are many obstacles to instituting such a massive change, such as resistance from teachers, and I can’t say I’m hopeful that my summer daydream will come true. Less than 1% of U.S. elementary schools offer extended-year calendars.

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But many other developed countries have figured out how to offer a shorter summer break: Sweden’s is nine weeks; France, China and Norway’s is eight weeks; Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Denmark and the Netherlands’ is six weeks.

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Leisurely Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal have a similarly long break to the U.S., with 12-13 weeks of summer break; Ireland and Canada have around 10 weeks off.

My kids have had fun this summer, but it’s been challenging to find time to keep them engaged in healthy activities while I work. They’ll be happy to return to a regular routine, their good friends, regular teachers, and a variety of learning and play.

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