Relieve Parents Year-Round Esther J. Cepeda wrote “Ring the school bell year-round” to be read in The Washington Post. This controversial topic was published August 16th, when schools across the country are beginning to go back into session. Cepeda shares her thoughts on keeping students in school spring, summer, fall, and winter. Using personal situations and allusions to other articles, Cepeda makes her opinion of having school year-round very clear. In the first sentence of the opinionated piece, Cepeda says “It’s mid-August and parents across the country are breathing a sigh of relief that their tours of duty as surrogate educators finally will end.” Cepeda’s tone suggests that she is glad school has started once again. The way Cepeda refers to all parents suggests her propaganda of plain folks. This article can be appealing to any guardian of a student; whether they agree or disagree with the rest of the piece. What Cepeda has to say in the rest of her writing will ultimately effect how the readers react but in the first sentence it is easy to determine her stand point on the situation. Cepeda almost refers to the schooling systems as a daycare and when school is not going on, parents are burdened by their children. As Cepeda goes on, she discusses the cause and effect of summer break. The topic of “summer learning loss” is brought into the piece. It is only talked about briefly but is a key in the article. Cepeda says that the only way to prevent students from forgetting recently learned material, is keeping them involved in numerous summer activities. In this paragraph, the appeal of ethos is brought into the piece. Cepeda strengthens her article just by being a mother. Because of this, she is able to share her experiences and understand the financial difficulty of enrolling

her children in various summer programs. This gives her piece a more personal feel rather than being strictly formal. Cepeda brings out cause and effect in her piece as well. School is let out for summer break and guardians are forced to tote there children around. Whether it is daycare, sports, or other arrangements, one must make time and schedule these plans throughout the summer break. Cepeda states, talking about her husband and children, that “between ferrying one kid here and another there, he spent almost six hours in the car.” The conclusion being that if school were in session all year long, all children would be on a similar schedule. After hours, less extra-curricular activities would need to be made which would free up and relive “chauffeurs” for many hours. Later in this piece, logos is brought out. Cepeda refers to another article, “Ending Summer Vacation Is Long Overdue -- Here’s How to Pay for It,” by Matthew M. Chingos. In this research piece, Chingos discusses the economical struggle of having school in all year. Cepeda uses Chingos research in the aspect of having larger classes to maintain the same teacher salary. Here, it is stated that having larger class sizes does not effect the learning to a great extent. Cepeda understand this study but also points out something else that is considered refutation towards Chingos. “His back-of-the-envelope estimates” is what Cepeda says because Chingos did not consider other costs. This, in a way, contradicts Cepeda because she first agrees with the statistics and then says they are faulty.

This article by Esther J. Cepeda discusses the cause and effect of having school last all year-round. It is simply to inform and share with readers of statistics and personal experiences of Cepeda. Cepeda was able to reach to a wide audience because many parents, or students, would be interested to read her thoughts. The effectiveness of this article is not strong because Cepeda is does not necessarily include enough to persuade the audience. If more facts and stronger opinions were shared this piece could have a bigger impact on others opinions.

Esther J. Cepeda: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/esther-j-cepeda-ring-the-school-bell-year-round/2013/08/16/c9526490-06bd-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html Matthew M. Chingos:
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brown-center-chalkboard/posts/2013/08/07-end-summer-vacation-longer-school-year-chingos