Hansen: Less summer, more school is losing formula

To a kid back in the day, summers were languid, painted with blurry, quixotic images: a slow-moving hammock, pitchers of sweet lemonade and endless hours in the water.

Now, summer is busy and action packed. It’s planned, organized and compartmentalized. Somewhere along the way, summer became stressful. The education organizers decided to turn summer into fall and start school early.

Most of the school districts in the U.S. decreed that starting instruction after Labor Day was inefficient. So with a few exceptions, summer got the shaft.

Touting conflicting stats and studies, educators said it was best, and even though some communities fought back, in the end the schools won.

“Starting school in August just feels weird, because growing up I would always start in September after Labor Day,” said Simon Augsburger, 17, an incoming senior at Trabuco Hills High School in Mission Viejo. “I’d rather just start after Labor Day because then you get like an extra two weeks of summer. And you can do a lot in two weeks in summer. You can have a lot of fun.”

Aww … fun. So young and naive. Don’t you know, Simon, life is not fun? You have to work. You have to study. You have to cram for the AP exams. You have to get a 5.76 GPA to make it into a community college nowadays.

Fun … pfft.

But for Augsburger, it’s not just about fun. He wonders whether schools are doing enough to maximize their time. Like many young people, he is more accustomed to shorter, more compelling bits of information.

“I remember lectures in class that went on for 45 minutes, but if it’s not interesting, I’m not going to pay attention, to be honest with you,” he said. “If it’s short and to the point, consistent and understandable, then I will remember it.”

Augsburger is like an everyman kid. He is not on the debate team but gets OK grades. He’s athletic, plays on the baseball team and really likes cars.

But he’d rather not start school on Aug. 29, and he’s not alone.

International studies show that extra class time does not always equal better grades.

Several countries, in fact, have a shorter school year than the 180 days that are typical of local districts, and yet their students perform better than their U.S. counterparts.

According to a study by the Third International Mathematics and Science, an international study of education done in the 1990s, in four of the seven countries that outperform the U.S. in mathematics, students spend less time in class per week than U.S. students spend. For example, in Sweden students are among the highest performers, but their school year is only 170 days long.

Closer to home, Laguna Beach schools are consistently ranked top in the state and have SAT scores to match.

They don’t start until after Labor Day. Somehow they make enough time to study for the SATs.

And the high school has a surf team, by the way, which may or may not affect test scores, but you never know.

In fact, there is evidence to support the notion that it’s not all about advanced placement chemistry and physics.

“Curriculum and instructional quality appear to have a much greater effect on achievement than do total hours of instructional time,” according to a study by the Virginia-based Assn. for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

One education group made up of teachers and administrators went a step further and bluntly diagnosed some of the efficiency problems.

“School assemblies, disruptive announcements over the public address system, passing between classes, disciplinary activities, ineffective instructional techniques, inappropriate curriculum, student inattention or absence — all disrupt learning,” the group Education World wrote in a special report. “Add to those things the inefficient classroom management practices used by teachers; by one estimate, 70 percent of U.S. teachers need to improve their classroom management skills! All those things add up to lots of squandered teaching time.”

No one is pointing fingers, and everyone wants what’s best for students, but at what cost? There are more demands made of high school kids, but at the same time families have more expectations for quality family time. Parents know they don’t have much time left with their high schoolers. That special summer vacation, that cabin at the lake or other tradition, suddenly takes on more significance.

So the question remains, who do we want to become? Do our colleges and universities just want AP robots with inflated, meaningless grades?

Or do we want the kid who went to Brazil in August with his family and survived favelas?

Augsburger was fortunate enough to go to Switzerland with his family once, and he was struck by the history of it all.

“Learning about WWII and D-Day and stuff like that in school is OK, but actually going to France and seeing the stuff is really cool and helps me remember things,” he said. “I know that’s not realistic for everyone, but that just helps me personally.”

Compare that to a few haphazard days in late August in a hot, overflowing classroom, where the school may not even crack open the history book by Labor Day.

If teachers need more instruction time to get through the material, just get rid of those inane school functions like back-to-school night and open house. That should save everyone some quality time and effort.

By the time kids are in high school, nothing useful has ever come from these events that a well-crafted email couldn’t have achieved. If I want to meet a teacher, I can look him or her up n LinkedIn or Facebook.

The only O.C. schools that start after Labor Day, besides Laguna, are Newport-Mesa Unified, Ocean View and Huntington Beach City.

All by the beach. All laid back. All with their priorities straight.

And oh yeah, all doing very well, thank you very much.

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DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at hansen.dave@gmail.com.