Philadelphia Looks at Extending the School Year

Paul Vallas would like to add a month to the school year in 60 low-performing schools, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Vallas said the plan also was prompted by a survey of district teachers that found that a program started in 2003 ordering under-performing students to attend summer school has not been as successful as hoped. One of the main problems is attendance, which has hovered in the area of 70 percent, he said.

Students who return for summer school after a couple of weeks off don't have the same level of "seriousness," he said. Eliminating that break will maintain meaningful instruction, he said.

This touches on one of the big questions in education--how do you get more time to the kids who need it? Do you extend the year for the entire school, or only for those kids who need it (which may well be the entire school)? I've struggled with poor summer school attendance too, and if I could figure out a way to get them there more often I'd use it in a heartbeat.