School Year Extension

Pro says that kids can use vacation time intermittedly during the school year to spend time with their family, vacation, work on hobbies, etc. While that's true, the convenience of having three months off in a row means people can attend summer camp, or vacation for a decent period of time without having to rush right back home. Also, parents know exactly when to arrange child care and other activities for their children (hence summer camp). Anyway, this comes down to a matter of preference. Again, we cannot use people's preferences to uphold the resolution. We need to see which is most beneficial. Both of these ideas can be beneficial, and as such, this isn't a contention in favor of the resolution. It's a neutral point. However, it should be noted that Pro is arguing to EXTEND the school year. This means my points about quality time with family and for hobbies still stands, because even with interim breaks, Pro wants more actual days spent in school. Pro continues, "You say having longer school years mean nothing, but again this is not true. Everyone knows that students aren't always on the same page as the others. Some may get straight A's, B's, or lower so having more time equals more time that the teachers are able to help those lower grade students." Pro has not offered one shred of evidence that more time in school means children will have a more equal grasp of the knowledge. We can assume that a disparity in grades comes from different overall intelligence among students, more time spent studying by some students, etc. We have no reason that more time given to ALL students would mean children would suddenly all get on the same page.Further, Pro suggests that the extra 10 days (such as having 190 like the Finnish school year) would help us reach Finnish test scores. I've negated the idea that an extra few days would significantly help in the last round. Extend those arguments pertaining to contributing factors of how students perform on standardized tests.Pro says, "This also helps the higher level students learn about their favorite subjects more, such as how in History books WWII may come later and the students may not even be able to cover it." As I said in the last round, students can study their interests on their own time. There is no reason to demand that all students know particular students favorite subjects. This is unrealistic as students have a variety of favorite subjects. We cannot expect everyone to have the same interests; instead we should encourage students to read up on and/or pursue intellectual interests outside of school, such as they do in South Korea (where they have the #1 test scores).Pro says, "You say we already have the opportunity to attend a trade school or university, but as in Russia it stands only 10 years of school are necessary, and as we should already know when 16 the student may drop out but in Russia they can attend the trade school or University so people like Mark or Steve could be here in America with the education to do more if they wanted." I'm not sure the point Pro is trying to make. Both in the U.S. and Russia students have the opportunity to drop out of school, and attend a trade school or university. I know plenty of HS students who are also enrolled in college classes simultaneously. There is nothing stopping a 16 year old, 18 year old, etc. from pursuing outside or higher education. Pro continues to say that it would be a good thing if students went to camp of sorts to learn foreign languages. He says a lot of camps focus on sports, which is not useful. Once again, it should be completely up to the individual if they want to learn multiple languages. If they and their parents would rather invest in a camp for sports, that is their prerogative. Again Pro is trying to impose his own ideals and preferences on everybody. While it's true learning multiple languages can be useful in the workforce, that is up to each individual to capitalize on and invest on learning in their own time. As it stands, the purpose of school isn't to teach students everything about everything. Instead it is about teaching a little bit of everything (because there's a heck of a lot to learn -- far too much to include everything, obviously!) and have individuals decide for themselves what else they want to learn more about, either for their own knowledge and/or for their career. That is why in college you have general education requirements, but also the opportunity to major or minor in particular subjects.In terms of how to fund extending the school year, Pro suggests the government ought to shift their interests, but this is not a likely endavor. Pro has not provided an explanation as to how we could fund these school extensions under our current budget and in our current recession. Pro has given his opinion on what he thinks the government ought to focus on, but that doesn't mean they will. Further, remember that this will still be a burden on the tax payer any way you slice it. Even if the government stopped spending money in other areas as Pro suggests, that money could always go back to the tax payer (instead of the government finding other ways to spend it). That way, as I suggested, the tax payer (parent) can invest that money in schooling and/or intellectual or other interests for their child outside of school. I've explained why this is practical, useful and more beneficial to extending the school year in the last round. Extend those arguments.Pro agrees with my suggestion that instead of extending the school year for everyone, parents could always choose to invest in a private school that offers longer school years. For those who can't afford that, I would suggest people utilizing free education resources or other tools to offer similar advantages.Pro suggests that people having free time is actually a bad thing, because in that free time they may do stupid things. Likewise I could easily point out that kids sometimes do POSITIVE things in their spare time, such as volunteer work, community service or learning particular hobbies (sports, instruments, etc.). This point of Pro's has therefore been negated.Pro concludes that American students today lack discipline and an overall positive view of the education system (the majority do). We have no reason to assume that extending the school year would address this in any way whatsoever, and in fact in the last round I pointed out why this might cause even more resentment of the school process. Pro hasn't really addressed my point that standardized tests aren't the best measures of intelligence and success. While he agrees with me on these matters, what he doesn't realize is that I've proven my point that American students are plenty intelligent and successful as it is. Even though we could be smarter, extending the school year isn't necessarily the best way to go about it. Instead we could focus on investing in better teachers, trying to implement better teaching methods and standards, teaching different subjects, changing the emphasis in schools from testing to specializations (as one example, though there are many more), etc. In this round, Pro really has not made any compeling argument to extend the school year. I've negated all of his points in the last round, and nothing he's said in this round has really given his points any more leverage. All of my points currently still stand:1. No link has been proven (only suggested) that more time spent in school leads to more successful students.2. Standardized tests indicating that American students are falling behind are not reliable (Pro agrees).3. We cannot afford extending the school year (Pro provides an idealistic solution; I've given a better suggestion). 4. Extending the school year takes time away from family, hobbies, etc.5. People who want more education can attend private school and/or seek outside intellectual interests.