Wow, this is an incredibly unbalanced piece. Just because American adults only get 2 weeks vacation, unlike our European friends, doesn't mean we should move in that direction for kids! There is plenty of reason to think that free time is good for children (and adults) in terms of fostering creativity, pursuing interests that there isn't enough time for during the school year, and even - yes - doing absolutely nothing but running around outside. They are KIDS, afterall. As for evidence showing that test scores are lower in September than in June, so what? There is a lot more to life than tests, and many (I'd say most) important life learning skills aren't covered on standardized tests anyway. Not to mention that most school children learn things for tests and promptly forget them anyway. Even the subjects I enjoyed, like math, are now long forgotten except for basic mental arithmetic.

Long live summer!

Under the current system, most kids spend 35 weeks per year in school (175 days) and 17 weeks on vacation or holiday. Do you really think that kids need to spend one week on vacation for every two weeks they spend in school? And even if you do, do you really think that they desperately need to have twelve of those weeks all bunched together during the summer, instead of taking a shorter summer vacation and a longer break at another time of the year? Why can't we take a month off in December, and two in the summer, instead of a week and a half in December and three months in the summer?