Bye-bye summer vacation

Interesting idea for fixing schools, from Ruy Teixeira and the folks at the Century Foundation:

To alleviate public school overcrowding, provide more effective instruction, raise the performance level of students, and reduce pressure on working parents, the federal government should support a move to keep public schools open all day and throughout the year. All-day schooling would involve keeping schools open past normal hours, providing educational and enrichment activities after traditional instruction has ended. Year-round education would entail keeping schools open for all students, not just the academically challenged, during the summer and might include a shift in the traditional school calendar—eliminating summer vacation for students and replacing it with much shorter breaks throughout the year.

Another second order idea that Kerry should push heavily. Most of the griping would come from people too young to vote, anyways.

More to the point, all-day all-year schools are popular with teachers, reduce overcrowding, reduce the need for day-care, and allow time and space for extracurricular activities and remedial education programs. What's not to like?