There's no proof that starting school early improves education

7/31/05
Maybe it's just me and my circle of friends.

Perhaps we're just plain ol' fuddy-duddies, stuck in the past, rigid to change. But change has come, and it has left us to wonder how in the world we got to this: That our kids return to school in a week. That Mom and Dad are already tax-free shopping for clothes and supplies, and that soon our kids will be prepping for high-stake tests.

We've lost practically all of August. The traditional months of summer have been truncated. We get less true summer time to spend with Big Momma, see movies, have sleepovers, play basketball, read, and yes — succumb, even, to boredom. Our dog days of summer are spent in class, not poolside.

This year, all of the state's public schools will open up by Aug. 15. Next Monday, Gwinnett's 142,000 or so students join others returning to class in eight other city and county school systems in the Atlanta area. Some school systems, like those in Cherokee and Newton county, are already in school or start Monday.

My request to talk to someone at the county office about Gwinnett's start date was greeted with amazement, and as if this is a nonissue. "It's the same date school started last year," a spokeswoman told me.

Understood. Now show me the research that says starting school in late July or early August leads to kids learning better, retaining more and acing standardized tests. Prove to me that it's best to test students before they leave for the long holiday break rather than when they return in January.

Lane Holt, a Cobb County mother who co-founded Georgians Need Summers, a group lobbying for later start dates, has searched for answers.

She can't find anything.

"I haven't read any data that supports the premise that early start dates do one thing to improve education," said Holt, who counts Gwinnett parents as some of her organization's big supporters. "This is a fad that educators in Georgia — and by that I don't mean teachers, but administrators — are looking at to improve test scores.

"It's all about the tests."

High test results have emerged as the end-all and be-all to what's considered quality education. I don't know. Maybe they should be.

I do know this: You can get an education when you spend a week or two sleeping at grandma's house, especially if she lives in the country.

A full summer of employment might teach you something, too.

And who knows what great things can be born out of boredom? Especially if it's not combatted with TV.

"These people who argue that their children get bored during the summer — they need to be bored," Holt said. "They need to be bored so they use their imagination, and do something. Figure out what to do. That's one of the things I like about summer."

Georgians Need Summers has been lobbying the General Assembly to adopt a uniform school calendar, one where school starts no earlier than late August. The Cobb County organization gets a rash of calls and hits to its Web site (www.georgiansneedsummers.com) whenever it's mentioned in stories about calendar protests. And Holt says that for every 10 people she talks to about the issue, nine think early start dates are a bad idea.

Hmmm. Maybe my circle of friends is larger than I'd realized.

Read responses to this article at "Return to traditional calendar, teachers" Atlanta Journal-Constitution - August 3