-per-day, 180-day-a-year model is standard (Worsnop,96). This type of schooling may be the answer to the decades-old concern that American students are being ill-prepared to compete with their counterparts overseas. By the most objective measure, test scores, year-round education seems to be working. For example, before switching to its new schedule, Socorro schools had some of the lowest test scores in the country. Now Socorro students outscore the state average on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (Blackman,99)For many school administrators, the most persuasive argument in favor of YRE is that it offers a cost-effective way of relieving classroom overcrowding. Instead of renting commercial space, portable classrooms or constructing new schools-- administrators can enlarge the capacity of existing facilities by converting them to year- round operation. "Implementing a year-round calendar extends the capacity of a school by 33 percent," according to NAYRE (National Association for Year-Round Education.) The Oxnard Elementary School District is considered the pioneer of year round educational systems. Oxnard first reorganized their schedule in 1976.The driving forces behind the updated schedule were the increasing number of students in the buildings and lack of funds. Oxnard has had success with this arrangement. Building capacity has been raised by 2,000. Had Oxnard not been able to reorganize the traditional schedule, they estimate that the spending of more than 20 million dollars, would be needed to build new schools (Pritchett,96). A year-round schedule makes fuller use of existing facilities, thus eliminating or postponing the need to build additional classrooms. The net effect of such arrangements is to substantially increase the number of students the school can accommodate. Some experts argue that year-round scheduling helps to deter juvenile crime, thus benefiting the entire community. Although juvenile crimes occur throu...
