Summer vacation is one of the most American traditions in our nation, being up there with baseball, hot dogs, and even apple pie. Whether it be summer camp, swimming in a pool or at the beach, or plain old family bonding time, summer traditions epitomize our great nation. Now imagine this original American lifestyle being taken away. Removing summer vacation from the school schedule would be like killing a person’s livelihood.

This expulsion of summer vacation from children’s lives is one of President Obama’s goals to accomplish for education reform in his administration. This decision, coupled with longer school days throughout the nation, would be detrimental to our children’s health and livelihood. According to the White House, the reason behind these education reforms is to compete with other countries in the future job markets, because teenagers in countries such as China or Japan perform much better on standardized tests than American students. Obama believes that these two reforms will boost the academic achievements of American students.

Summer vacation is a time for relaxation; a time when kids are relieved from the stress of school and have a long period of free time to pursue their interests, without a highly regulated schedule that is common during the current school year. This allows kids to grow as people and be independent. Also, students use the summer months to hone their abilities in activities that they could not participate in during the school year due to weather, or lack of available time. Swimming, sailing, and other outdoor sports that kids cannot take part in during the school months are played during the summer, and if we don’t allow our kids to get better at the things they love, what will they be? Collective drones whose only activities in life will be going to school and doing schoolwork? Even intellectual things are discovered by children on their own during the summer. By only learning required subjects during the school year does not stimulate kids’ minds.
If school days were longer, kids would be extremely tired at the end of the day, more so than they are now, making the school day not conducive to learning. By making the day longer, children would have less of a will to learn and will be even more stressed and frustrated with work. The lengthened school day would backfire, leading to a decrease in student scores and attentiveness in school because of this lack of sleep, stress, and frustration. Adding to this the importance of extracurricular activities in the life of the American teenager, there is no way children could be more successful in their school lives with longer days. Extracurricular activities are what help propel many teens to their choice of colleges, thereby becoming a standard part of the school lives of most upper- and middle-class teenagers. It is a proven medical fact that regular exercise, which many students achieve through extracurricular sports, keeps people happier, healthier, more awake, and more focused. With a school day lengthened to end an hour after it does now, that leaves less time for kids to do their extracurricular activities, and more time doing unnecessary homework which just causes frustration and a decrease in focus. How are we to have a well-rounded society if children are stuck doing needless work all week?
Another point I would like to add is that everyone has ways to relieve stress, whether it be exercise, music, or just rest. Obama’s proposed school day leaves little time for children to do such activities, and adds even more stress because more learning during the day leads to more work at night. Though it pains me to say this, I think suicide rates among teenagers might increase as a result of implementing this plan. With that amount of stress, there’s only so much a kid can take. Take South Korea for an example, a country which places high pressure on teens to perform well in school and compete with one another. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, South Korea has the highest suicide rate of any member country, members being some of the largest economic powers in the world.