Summer assignments are required by a multitude of schools accross the state of Virginia. But some school districts are considering breaking from the traditional teacher-designed summer projects and instead replacing them with projects designed by the students. This may reflect student desires, however, it does not reflect what is best for the students education. Summer projects should be designed by teachers rather than students because it would be in the students own best interest.

Summer projects are intended to be used as preparation for courses students are going to take in the upcoming school year. Therefore, how could students be sure of what content should be emphasized; what ideas are the most important; and what materials, such as books and web sources, are the best? Furthermore, teachers will have a far greater knowledge of the courses at hand. Often times theachers will have particular material they want to be covered or emphasized over the summer. For instance, many Humanities teachers have specific books that they want students to read. Even though these books may be longer and harder than many students desire, they likely cover crucial material or are written in a certain literary style that is going to be taught about.

Some may claim that in order to have effective learning, students themselves must control the different components of their eductation. While this may be true for some aspects, such as selecting the courses they wish to take, this should not be the case for summer assignments. This is because many students may take advantage of an opportunity to design their own summer projects, by making them as quick and easy as possible. While this may allow students to enjoy their summer break more, it compromises the very objective of summer assignments, that is, to enhance their education through having continuos learning instead of a complete break from school over the summer. Instead, if teachers were to design summer assginments, they would be far more rigorous, but more importantly, they would be more beneficial for students for the upcoming school year.

If student-designed projects are too easy, they end up simply becoming busy work. More difficult teacher-designed projects would challenge students, which may seem unappealing to many, however in order to grow academically, students need a stimulus to respond to. Moreover, students become stronger learners when they are forced to overcome challenges. These challenges could include: reading a book in a foreign language; reading a book that is longer than they would like and far more dense than they are used to; or having to perform operations with dificult mathematic equations, formulas, and concepts. Nevertheless these challenges will make students think heavily and help them become better educated.

Although student-designed summer projects may appeal more to students, they will ultimately privide significantly less benefit to students' education, than teacher-designed projects would.