It’s that time of year again when students trade in their summer jobs and sandy beaches for classrooms and textbooks, and when teachers worry most about summer learning loss. The New York Times recently asked experts to weigh in on the potential of summer homework assignments. While many experts agreed that homework can help minimize summertime mental vacations, others felt that summertime offers important learning opportunities.
“Summer should be seen as a gift, an important time to explore new hobbies, work a summer job, gain independence,” wrote Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education. Other experts note that if a quick review couldn’t remedy summer learning loss, then students were not being taught the material well enough in the first place.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sided with the pro-homework camp. Duncan even joked that students should ideally attend school 13 months of the year, stressing that time is one of the most undervalued resources for education improvement in the U.S. But is Duncan forgetting the time-old standard of quality over quantity? Evidence from the Secretary’s own department indicates that student math and reading achieving on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, actually declines from fourth grade to 12th grade. This suggests a quality-time not quantity-time problem.
Research overwhelmingly shows that access to great teachers—not more seat time—can improve student learning by as much as several years. In fact, schools in other countries are getting the job done in a fraction of the time and for pennies on the dollar compared to the U.S. Many of those countries recruit their teachers from the top five and 10 percent of college graduates, compared to the U.S. which draws from the bottom third.
Among the 32 countries participating in the latest Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. led in teaching hours per public-school year with 1,080 hours compared with an international average of just 803. Top performing countries have far fewer teaching hours, including Japan with just 505.
For all that extra time, the U.S. still ranks 25th globally in math and 21st in science. Such performance is a compelling argument for improved math and science teacher training, recruitment, and retention efforts, including merit pay, which the Obama Administration has indicated it supports.
Still, Duncan recently chose to blame parents—albeit tacitly—instead of the schooling system for American students’ poor international standing. “The more schools become the center of family activity and the true hearts of the neighborhoods,” he said, “the better our children are going to do.”
Of course, making government-run schools the center of hearth and home according to a federal government approach would likely mean that family time and community participation would require additional taxpayer dollars for programs and even more government red tape.
To make summer enrichment and learning a goal embraced by families and communities alike, give parents the choice in how to spend their child’s education time and money. Consider, for instance, a summer-learning scholarship program that would encourage parents to stay involved in their children’s summer vacation and academic enrichment.
Better than allowing politicians to spend more of the taxpayers’ dime regimenting the taxpayers’ time, empower parents to decide about summer activities for their children they think are best. Most important, let parents pick their children’s schools and teachers in the first place to give students an academic foundation solid enough for a lifetime—not just summertime.
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Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D., is Education Studies Associate Director at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, California where Kelly Gorton is an associate.
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