While year-round schooling might help lessen the achievement gap, I think it would be detrimental for kids genuinely interested in enrichment projects that they aren’t able to pursue in a traditional school setting. Like you, I’ve been very influenced by reading Madeline Levine’s book and while I see your point that many kids aren’t able to take advantage of unstructured free time at home, I’m not sure that keeping all kids in school year-round is the best way to fix that problem.

Further, Levine writes extensively about how there is so much learning that happens beyond the classroom when kids are allowed to navigate new environments without the facilitation of a teacher. The fact remains, though, that many kids live in environments where it isn’t safe for them to roam about unsupervised after school. And so they end up hunkered down in their homes, oftentimes in front of one screen or another. Given this, I believe that we have to find ways to incorporate that kind of learning into the educational curriculum, which means that we have to set aside some school time for unstructured learning, free time, exploration of passions, and so on. And it is my thought that lengthening the school year would provide the additional hours to allow for this freedom without compromising the quantity or quality of more structured teaching.

Anne – The Matthews article talks about the French school week. Hollande proposed eliminating homework in conjunction with adding a fifth day of school. Given the double variables proposed, people are unsure whether it would be a net gain or a net loss for the academic performance of the kids. As for field trips, etc, that really is a disappointing sacrifice. Art and music programs have also (notoriously) suffered. There is so much more to school than math and reading.