Preparedness is a quality attributed to future success. This is why schools across the country have students complete summer assignments, as they wish to prepare those students for the rigors of high-level courses. Yet, despite the good intentions, many students often complain of these summer assignments being tedious and pointless, for they do not see how assignments completed over the summer relate to content in class. These grievances have fueled the notion that students should be the ones designing these summer assignments, as they understand what is necessary information and what is redundant within summer assignments. However, this viewpoint fails to consider that teachers are the best option for formulating these assignments, as teachers understand the content of the course, have completed higher education, and know what pace the course needs to be at.

Students who participate in a course at school will usually participate in that course for about one year of their school career, while teachers typically spend a majority of their years teaching specific courses, making these teachers the most knowledgeable in certain areas of study; therefore, they are the most qualified to create summer assignments for these subjects. When students go through secondary education or below, they have to take an array of different core classes such as Science, English, Math, Foreign Language, and History. With students being required to become knowledgeable in various fields of study, they simply do not have enough time to become the master of a certain subject. With this being the case, it would be foolish of schools to use students to create summer assignments, as these students do not have enough time to master a certain field of study and create an assignment that reflects the major concepts of the class. However, while students may not have enough time to perfect a topic, teachers do. Many teachers resort to teaching only one specific core topic their entire career, giving them omniscient knowledge of what that subject entails and how to best prepare people to perfect it. Hence, teachers should be the ones creating summer assignments due to their concentration in one area of study, in turn giving them a better chance of composing an assignment that adequately covers the content of the class.

Teachers have gone through the rigors of a post-secondary education, have had the ability to achieve a teaching position, and are specialized in helping students learn, making them the most qualified candidates for creating summer assignments. No student going through a secondary education or below has had the experience or education to be qualified to create an assignment for others. Students are the ones being taught, as their job is to learn, not to teach. Furthermore, teachers have specifically received a higher education that focuses on proper methods of teaching others and, due to their ability to graduate and receive a job, have very fine-polished teaching capabilities. With all the training and education involved in being a teacher, it is clear that these teachers know how to best prepare their students for any challenge a course brings, which is why they need to be in control of the creation of summer assignments.

Teachers need to have control over the creation of summer assignments because they know what pace their course needs to be at in order to cover the content in an expedient manner that allows time for examination. In the eyes of many students, summer assignments contribute nothing to the overarching value and knowledge a class has to offer, but these students fail to consider the benefits associated with knowledge of a certain class prior to the first day of school. If the teacher can create an assignment that will give students background knowledge of the content over the summer, the teacher can then essentially eliminate the process of teaching the course's basic information, saving a lot of time. For example, in 2018, the Generic_School AP World history course's summer assignment had students reading an excerpt from a textbook about the Paleolithic and Neolithic era and answering questions about the reading. This assignment not only gave students a solid understanding about the foundations of world history, but it also let students practice their reading and interpretation skills, which are big components of the class. Furthermore, once in class, the teacher did not need to waste time covering this content, as students had already learned it on their own, providing more time for final exam preparation. Teachers understand the pace their class needs to be at in order to ensure their students are successful and by allowing these teachers to create summer assignments, schools are giving their teachers the ability to put their students on a fast-track to success.

Teachers have an in depth understanding of the key concepts taught within their course, they have received a higher education, and know the pace their course needs to be at in order to give their students time to succeed. With all these factors taken collectively, it would be a mistake for schools to grant students the ability to design summer assignments as a pose to teachers, as students do not have near the qualifications a teacher has. If schools grant teachers the ability to construct their own summer assignments, then schools have effectively set up their students on a trajectory aimed at future success.