Year-Round Schools Can Stimulate Learning.

• Position: Brief Article

Year-round schools are the answer to stimulating student learning, suggests Lawrence Smith, chair of the Elementary Education Department, Ball State University, Muncie, Ind. Schools that begin the academic year in July and end in June would eliminate the problem of students "forgetting" learned information during three-month summer vacations, he maintains.

After the long summer vacation, many at-risk students return to classes needing to have instructors reteach basic information during the first few weeks of classes. "Parents really should be concerned with the retention of learned information. Every year, teachers have to go over the previous year's basics to keep a class up to speed. It leaves some students who already are at risk behind the rest of the class. Students need some sort of academic activity over the summer months. They can't just be left sitting around the house watching television and playing video games. They get quite bored."

Year-round schooling has not caught on in the U.S., where 37 of the 50 states have fewer than 10 year-round schools and just three (Florida, Texas, and...