Summer reading programs are a band-aid on the problem that children shouldn’t have such a long summer break now that air conditioning is common. Spread the breaks out throughout the year if you want to maintain the same number of days off. All evidence shows the summer break is bad for children’s academic achievement (especially poor children), but it is viewed as a perk for the teachers so the teacher’s unions fight against questioning it.
Let’s say summer break is basically 3 months. I as a parent need to figure out childcare for that 3 month period at the beginning of summer. This is a much more time consuming endeavor than most would expect (or at least more than I expected). If you distribute those months throughout the year I need to repeat this process 3 different times, adding a bunch of overhead that could be spent on activities more beneficial to my family and kids.
Edit: Adding that I realize the summer slowdown absolutely exists and has a disproportionate effect on those that don’t need another wrench thrown in their life. But just wanted to add a perspective that isn’t “teacher union boogeyman”.
And there are schools that do year-round schedules, but the total time off is about the same. They will typically get a longer winter break, longer spring break, an additional fall break, and then a much shortened summer break, but those add up to about the same time off overall. I know many teachers who prefer that system, some because it means they get paychecks more consistently throughout the year, and also it gives you more spread out breaks and flexibility in taking trips instead of being locked in to summer/Christmas/one week in the spring.
The strongest push back to this schedule is in fact parents. The primary issue is once their kids are in different schools (high school / middle school / elementary) with different schedules this causes issues as kids are not longer on break at the same times. In addition summer camp programs are tied to the traditional schedule leaving kids in the year round schedule with fewer or no options.
In order to change it, you also need neighboring districts/communities/private schools/programming to all shift as well, otherwise it becomes too much of as hassle for parents & teachers.
Air conditioning is common, but at least in some regions, it would be a tremendous expense for the the school to condition their buildings for occupation during the summer. And many buildings were designed around the summer break, so they may not have capacity to condition the buildings for occupation during the summer; this is not without its problems as some buildings end up being unfit for occupation during the school year, especially as the climate gets less consistent. There's probably some opportunity for savings in places where increasing hours during the summer could result in decreasing hours in the winter, though.
I think there's some cultural value in having a shared experience of summer vacation. But I agree, breaking up the breaks throughout the year, where possible, would make a lot of sense. There's a benefit of less crowding when school districts have different weeks off; although it's harder for extended families to meet up when their school schedules are drastically different.
That assumes academic achievement should be the primary aim of childhood. What I learned in school was incredibly important—don’t get me wrong—but what I learned over the summer was arguably more important.
As a child of divorce, I cherished 6 straight weeks at my mom’s house (we only visited every other weekend during school). As a working class kid, I earned probably half my annual spending money over the summer.
My wife and I now have kids, and we’ve always loved to travel (and needed to just to visit family). Summer is the only time available for extended family trips (2+ weeks).
The argument wasn't for shortening it, but for distributing it through the year. I have never in my adult life taken 10 consecutive weeks off, and 5 two-week breaks would still be very generous.
Maybe summer break also has some value for the joy it brings to children? Their lives shouldn't just be preparation for adulthood, it's worth making childhood enjoyable too.
