Traditional School Calendar: FYI, Not Our Fault!

One of the most enduring misconceptions about American education is that the traditional school calendar is result of practices arising from 19th century rural America. It has been repeated so often that it is has become almost a cliché. Take for example a December 1, 2004 Education Week Commentary by Jennifer Davis and David Farbman: "The conventional school year of 180 six-hour days with a long summer vacation that exists today was developed chiefly to accommodate the labor needs of 19th-century farmers. Yet, at the close of 2004, this schedule is still the norm."

A funny thing about that statement is that you never hear a farmer say it. Why? Because it's not true! If you were going to develop a school schedule that accommodates the labor needs of farmers, you would have vacations in the spring when you plant the crops and in the fall when you harvest the crops.

So how did the traditional school calendar come into being? According to Kenneth M. Gold author of "Schools In: The History of Summer Education in American Public Schools," the long summer vacation is actually the result of an urban society. It turns out that it gets really hot in cities in the summer months. Before air conditioning was invented, spending summers in places like New York City was pretty unbearable. The best option for beating the heat was to get out of the city and head north, to the mountains, or the ocean. Hence, the summer vacation was born!

Why does the agrarian society myth still prevail? One reason is that fewer and fewer people come from agricultural backgrounds and have no background knowledge upon which to know the statement is false. Another reason is that their urban counterparts have long considered rural people as being backward and inferior. Don’t believe it? Look up the origins of the word villain sometime. The traditional calendar myth reaffirms people's perceptions of rural people.

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