June, July and August traditionally are down time for scho0ls. Summer vacation! “Schools out! Schools out! Teachers let the monkeys out.” Traditionally, classrooms go dark in the summer and teachers either assume summertime, non-school employment or settle into “kicked back vacation mode.” Summer for children means daycare, playing at home, and, for older children, summer jobs. But, in 2014, any school that does not take advantage of summer as “school’s second season” is telling its children, parents, teachers and staff, and community “This school is not doing all that it can to cause all children to learn.”
The historic school calendar that limits public education to nine months with a three-month summer vacation is as out of date as believing a “Dick and Jane” reading program will meet today’s reading standards. School programming based upon the needs, requirements and calendar of the last century are not adequate. In fact, the concept of adequacy itself is defunct because adequacy connotes a static condition. Adequate for what? The goal of education is the “perfect school year” in which all children successfully learn their annual curriculum. In a parallel setting, baseball sets the goal of a “perfect game” in which the opposing team has no hits, no runs and no one left on base; 27 batters and 27 outs. In the 135 years of major league baseball’s recordkeeping, there have been only 23 perfect games. Yet, the idea of improving pitching and team defense to achieve a perfect game is always present. So it is with school programming; the idea of all children achieving their annual learning targets is always out there. This is why a school’s practices should be aimed at a “perfect school year.” That is why a school’s second season, summer, is so important.
The second season for a school is a summer session designed specifically for children who did not complete their annual learning goals in the regular, nine-month school year; the first season. The second season begins on the first Monday after the close of the first season and lasts until the Friday before next regular year begins in August of September. The goal of the second season, to continue the baseball analogy, is for every child to score and to leave no children stranded on the base paths of incomplete learning.
The structure of the second season is to provide additional time and instruction to move more and more children toward the goal of a “perfect school year.” The upside of a second season is that teachers work with fewer children. Children who met their annual learning goals are excused from the second season. Their absence clearly narrows and redirects teaching from the span of all children to the needs of fewer children who require specific assistance and help over increased time. As a deficit model, second season instruction targets only what a child did not achieve in the regular season. Second season teaching is not constrained to usual, school year instruction often aimed at the whole group. Instead, second season teaching is ultra-clinical and aimed at correcting the child’s learning errors and building and reinforcing new and correct learning. That’s it; no field trips, no enrichment, no extra credits. Teaching and time on task are directly focused on student performance.
An additional upside to the second season is that a child is excused from the summer session when achievement targets are reached. Vacation from school is earned when learning goals are accomplished. Vacation is not just a function of a date in June; it is paired with successful learning. Within the same model, assessment of learning is based upon the teacher’s confidence that the child’s new learning is strong enough to prepare the student for the next school year’s learning goals.
Another upside derived from the second season is that more children are ready to tackle their learning goals in the next school year. Past practices that promoted children with incomplete annual learning assured that these children’s teachers needed to begin their next school year in a remedial mode. A child entering second grade without mastering single digit addition and subtraction in first grade requires teaching time and effort to remediate this problem. A child who does understand or compute math problems involving fractions in elementary school faces a perpetual learning impediment in high school algebra and advanced math. A child with incomplete decoding skills usually achieved in the primary grade faces constant reading problems throughout school and adult life. Quality control in manufacturing looks for mistakes and errors early and consistently throughout the building process. Think of a second season classroom as a high quality processing center with inspection procedures addressing unacceptable skills or reasoning in the line of daily instruction so that only acceptable skills and reasoning are created. Education, unlike manufacturing, cannot discard its mistakes and errors; it must teach and reteach until all children are successful learners.
There are downsides. Achieving a perfect school year, like a perfect game in baseball, is very difficult. There are variables beyond the school and teacher’s control that get in the way of success. The most significant uncontrolled variable is child non-attendance and a lack of home commitment to the goals of a second season. The absent child cannot be taught. Success in the second season requires both a child’s commitment to personal success and a parent or guardian’s commitment to the child’s educational success. For the adult, this often means making adjustments to usual summer schedules, helping or supporting the child with second season home work, and staying the course until the child completes her annual learning goals. The second season can be very trying at home.
Downsides to a second season also exist inside the school. Just as a second season requires home commitment, a school’s second season requires school board support. The major impediment to board support is additional school expenses. In times when state aid for education is controversial and most legislators work to decrease state support, funding summer school is seen as an extra cost and receives little support. School boards, without additional state funding, must incorporate second season costs inside their annual school budgets. Or, school boards must levy locally for increased tax revenue. Levying for summer school is unpopular. But, promoting children with incomplete learning should be even more unpopular.
And, a second season requires teachers to change their perception of teaching from nine months to a full-year job. Summer vacation has been part of a teacher’s tradition just as it has been for children and families. Using verified learning to excuse a child from her second season of schooling may mean that some children will require teaching well into August. This is a significant change in lifestyles for many teachers. Yet, there are many teachers who believe that year-round work would benefit the public image of teaching as a profession. A second season will be good for teaching as it is for learning.
Achieving a “perfect school year” is very difficult. Its difficulty, however, is what makes a second season, a summer session, so important. It is probable that no school or school district has ever accomplished a “perfect school year.” It is time that every school moved closer and closer to a year in which every child successfully learned their annual curriculum. Finally, a school’s use of the second season confirms to every constituent of the school that “this school is doing all that it can to help all children be successful.”