District ought to alter its calendar
Since the 2011-12 school year, Oklahoma City public schools have followed a year-round or “continuous learning” calendar that opens schools around Aug. 1. When he announced the new calendar in December 2010, then-superintendent
Karl Springer predicted,
“This plan moves the district to a seamless educational calendar that will have a positive effect on student growth and achievement.”
It hasn’t worked out that way. A December 2017 report by the Board of Education Calendar Committee found that reading and math scores had fallen during the district’s first five years on the year-round calendar. Among middle school and high school students, reading scores were slightly up, but math scores were slightly down.
Oklahoma City’s experience with the year-round calendar is disappointing, but not unusual. When the district adopted a year-round calendar in 2010, research findings on year-round calendars were mixed, and the quality of most studies was low. But more rigorous studies published since 2010 have shown that year-round calendars do not raise achievement.
In California, where over 1,000 schools switched between year-round and traditional calendars between 1998 and 2005, year-round calendars decreased average reading and math scores by 1 to 2 percentile points. In Wake County, North Carolina, where 22 schools switched to year-round calendars in 2007, the switch had “essentially no effect” on test scores.
Year-round calendars don’t increase total instruction time. In Oklahoma City, the year-round calendar has the same 180 days as a traditional calendar, but it ends summer break two weeks early and adds a week to the breaks in October and March. Children spend just as much time out of school on a year-round calendar, and for learning it makes no difference whether they are out during the summer or during fall and spring. Originally, Oklahoma City planned to offer extra “intersession” instruction during the fall, winter and spring breaks. But students aren’t required to attend intersessions, and in 2016 the district canceled six intersession days to cut costs. Even a robust intersession program would be a poor justification for the year-round calendar.
By 2016-17, it was clear that the year-round calendar had not raised achievement in Oklahoma City. In addition, the Calendar Committee estimated that opening schools earlier in August cost the district $175,000 per week in air conditioning. The cost of the year-round calendar was hard to justify in a year when the district had cut intersession instruction and eliminated 400 positions, while teachers struck statewide over low pay. Yet in December, the board voted 6-1 to continue the year-round calendar.
A survey by the Calendar Committee found that teachers, students and parents were satisfied with the year-round calendar, but three quarters of principals would prefer a calendar with a later start date, which would give them more time to prepare for the new school year.
Later this year, the board will reconsider the year-round calendar under new Superintendent Sean McDaniel. The board should base its decision on the calendar’s real costs and dubious benefits. By now, the board should have no illusions that the calendar will raise student achievement.