Advocates of a year-round school calendar believe that with shorter breaks children will retain more information than they do with the current 2½-month summer vacation.

Yet as recently as the late 1980s, then Indiana Lt. Gov. John Mutz was advocating a return to a school year that begins after Labor Day and ends by Memorial Day, giving students slightly more than a three-month summer vacation. Among his reasons for that suggestion was it would help the state’s tourism industry.