One benefit of a year-round schedule is that there is no summer slump.  Kids do not lose any time.  The benefit is mostly for children of poverty.  They cannot afford to go to fancy camps and takes lessons, vacations, and tutoring during the summer.  When school begins, poor kids are already behind before they even start.

I truly believe this debate will always come down to the economics of the matter:

Year round schooling signifies a large increase in expense for already financially  struggling school districts.  School districts that can barely afford to keep their schools staffed are not going to be able to undertake additional expenses of running buses, utitilities, and staffing for year round school.

As it currently stands, the national government is in no position to provide additional financial aid to already cash-strapped states for such a measure.

Moreover, do not underestimate the power of summer tourism--much of which depends heavily on summer travel as well as the businesses which depend on school-age kids as an abundant source of easily hire minimum wage employees.

As referenced in post #4, there is an argument in favor of year round schooling that suggests greater continuity of instruction leads to greater retainment of skills/knowledge. 

Another benefit of year round schooling is that there are more breaks in this type of schedule, as mentioned in post $#5. More shorter breaks can help to avoid burn-out when compared to longer but less frequent breaks.

For switching: kids will stop forgetting everything they learned over vacation.  It will help them get used to working year-round.  Shorter, more frequent breaks will help keep them fresh during the year.

Against: makes it harder to have family vacations.  Makes it harder to do things like summer programs that are beneficial to students.

Pros to year round schooling include avoiding what educators call "summer learning loss", which is the well-documented phenomenon of students forgetting and regressing over the summer break. Another positive is that more students can be accommodated at one school. Most year round schools are based on an 8 weeks on, 3 weeks off alternating schedule, which still provides for family vacation time and may let families have a better chance to actually spend time together. Students are less likely to get bored during a 3 week break than during summer break, which is a long stretch for many.

Cons include the fact that older students cannot have a summer job to earn money; this is also true for the many teachers (like me) who work a second job in the summer. In areas where tourist dollars are important, students make up a very large fraction of the labor force, so the businesses who depend on student summer labor would suffer. Many students also use the summer break to pursue internships and special educational programs, which would not be possible if they went to school year round.

In many areas school buildings do not have air conditioning, which would be an added expense, both for installation and operation. Some have said that having school buildings sit empty in the summer is inefficient, but this does not take into account the fact that in most schools the summer vacation offers the maintenance staff to do major repairs without disrupting the educational process; again, working around this to accommodate year round school might have cost impacts.

For:

Might reduce juvenile crime

Might instill more learning

Parents might like it

Against:

Teachers wouldn't like it

Kids wouldn't like it

Teachers and kids both need a break!

Would cost a lot of money because teachers would expect more pay

Summer vacations are an old tradition

More is not necessarily more