Why not do this?

I have been getting a lot of criticism for my decision to home-school Nicholas. After all, he's only 2.5, who knows what the school system will look like when he's ready to go to school? Why shouldn't he have to go to the school and go through things like everyone else....the critiques go on and on.

But here's the thing - the Elk Grove School District, even though it is good, isn't good enough. The gifted and talented programs don't start until 2nd grade and are rarely challenging enough because they only meet infrequently. The class sizes are large, the teachers are undertrained. The teachers teach to the tests and have to work to raise the lowest students to the middle, rather than working with the middle to make them better and the top to make them even better. It's not fault of the teachers' - it is the system that needs fixing.

There are school districts that have been fixing things. One of the things that can be done to help fix the problem is to eliminate summer vacation. Our school systems were set up when students still needed to go home and help with agriculture things. They were intended to make the transition from an agriculture-based society to an industrial one easier for the coming generations. Well, that transition has been completed, but we have still held onto the same traditional calendar.

The first simple fix for schools is to have year round schools. If places such as Chicago and Houston can recognize this, why can California not recognize this? Here's an article about the situation: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39748458/ns/us_news-life/