Dear Mr./Mrs. President,

There is no debating that the public education system in America is failing. We are consistently being outperformed by other nations whose GDP’s, standard of living or even international standings are not nearly as high. Countries like Germany and Poland have been steadily getting better and are now ahead of the US. Out of 57 countries that were selected, the US scored 17th in science and 24th in Math. One issue this can be attributed to is the fact that we have the shortest average school year of any first world country. Some states have year round school and the students attending those schools tend to have higher learning and retention rates than those who don’t. Consequently, we should have year round school in America not only to better our international educational standing, but to better our future generations.

The United States should have year round school in order to ensure that we can become an international leader in the educational field because we are being surpassed by many other countries. Allie Bidwell of US News states, “But still, American students are performing far below most other developed nations on this triennial international test. In fact, they’re actually performing worse today than before. But that’s not the big problem, Duncan said. A more pressing concern, he claims, is the fact that American students are standing still, while other nations are advancing.”This problem cannot be ignored and must be targeted at the root. This isn’t about instructional hours or time in class, it is about minimizing the consecutive days out of class so that there can be less time spent reviewing and relearning material that was already covered previously. Other countries that are ahead of us have year round school, Australia for example, has school from January to mid December with remedial breaks throughout the year in order to make sure students aren’t overwhelmed. By minimizing wasted time, countries like Australia, make better use of their days in class. Therefore, by adopting this model in the United States we can more effectively educate our students. Many students in America would recoil at the idea of year round school because then summer jobs will be ruined, summer sports will be ruined, summer activities will be ruined. However, using the most popular format for year round school, there is still a 2 week break in the middle of summer. Additionally, there are no major school sports in the summer which then could be moved to during the summer when the weather may be nicer than their current season. 

The state of our education system is lackluster currently but can be led to a better future with your help.  The question is what is more important?  A summer vacation or a nation's education.

Sincerely,

Elijah S