2004-7-21
This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Education
Report.
Recently we discussed the idea of year-round schools. Students do
not get a long break from classes during the hot summer months.
Instead, they get shorter breaks throughout the year. Not very many
schools in the United States do this. But other schools that are not
year-round do often have summer programs.
In many cases, students take summer classes to repeat a subject
they failed. This way they get a second chance to succeed. But
schools also offer summer classes to students who want to be free of
a required class during the next school year.
Generally, students in these
classes want to take fewer subjects during the year because they are
involved in a lot of activities. They might be involved in sports or
music programs. Or both -- and more.
These summer school students do the same amount of work as if
they took the class during the school year. But they do it in a much
shorter time, one to two months. They say it makes for a lot of
reading and homework and not much time for anything else. Some
education experts are worried about high school students who take
summer school because of pressure to attend a top university.
The New York Times recently reported about summer classes at one
of the best high schools in the United States. New Trier High School
is in Winnetka, Illinois. Almost six hundred students are in school
this summer. Only twenty are repeating classes that they failed. The
others are in difficult courses like physics and honors history.
The students say taking classes like these in the summer means
that they can take even more difficult classes next year. They say
this shows colleges not only that they are serious about their
studies. It also shows that they have experienced the most difficult
high school program possible.
Another place with a lot of students in summer school is Palo
Alto, California. The Mercury News reported that about twenty
percent of the students in the city schools are in class this
summer. That is more than two thousand teen-agers.
A third are in classes they failed before. The others are taking
subjects they do not have time for during the normal school year.
But they are not taking subjects like physics and history. The
students in Palo Alto are in classes like creative writing, film
studies, literature and cooking.
This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy
Steinbach. This is Steve Ember.