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MichaelMeckler.com: Blog: Summer is over

Summer is over

18 AUGUST 2014

I didn't title this blog post because temperatures dipped into the 50s over the weekend, but rather due to immediate arrival of the school year, which now is an event that occurs in August rather than September.

This is the third year that Ohio State has been on semesters, and classes here will start next week. But local school districts here almost universally begin in mid-August, and the schools in my neighborhood went into session last week.

While I understand the reasons for Ohio State's switch to semesters, I was never a fan, primarily because I believe that college students should have a broad rather than a narrow education. Students take fewer courses in a semester system, which may limit their exposure to different ways of examining and solving problems.

But the move of the school year even among elementary students from September-to-June to August-to-May means that schools are running expensive air conditioning throughout their buildings in August with kids still facing warm-weather distractions. This shift just doesn't make a whole lot of economic sense in an era of tight education budgets.

 

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