Counterpoint: Save the Summer Break

For an alternate viewpoint, see “Point: How Summer Vacation Became a Burden, Not a Break.”

Who can forget George Gershwin’s memorable song “Summertime and the Living is Easy”? Summers meant picnics in the park, vacations, camping, lounging at the pool, jumping in the lake, and reading favorite books.

That was then, this is now.

Now, we have children attending academically focused summer programs or athletic camps designed to turn kids into elite athletes and everything in between. Within the U.S. public school system, 15 percent of students participate in summer academic programs. Add to this, a whopping 97 percent of elite universities offer summer programs for high school and middle school students. So began the dismantling of summer as we knew it. By sending kids to space camp,