This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English EducationReport.

Recently we discussed the idea of year-round schools. Students donot get a long break from classes during the hot summer months.Instead, they get shorter breaks throughout the year. Not very manyschools in the United States do this. But other schools that are notyear-round do often have summer programs.

In many cases, students take summer classes to repeat a subjectthey failed. This way they get a second chance to succeed. Butschools also offer summer classes to students who want to be free ofa required class during the next school year.

Generally, students in theseclasses want to take fewer subjects during the year because they areinvolved in a lot of activities. They might be involved in sports ormusic programs. Or both -- and more.

These summer school students do the same amount of work as ifthey took the class during the school year. But they do it in a muchshorter time, one to two months. They say it makes for a lot ofreading and homework and not much time for anything else. Someeducation experts are worried about high school students who takesummer school because of pressure to attend a top university.

The New York Times recently reported about summer classes at oneof the best high schools in the United States. New Trier High Schoolis in Winnetka, Illinois. Almost six hundred students are in schoolthis summer. Only twenty are repeating classes that they failed. Theothers are in difficult courses like physics and honors history.

The students say taking classes like these in the summer meansthat they can take even more difficult classes next year. They saythis shows colleges not only that they are serious about theirstudies. It also shows that they have experienced the most difficulthigh school program possible.

Another place with a lot of students in summer school is PaloAlto, California. The Mercury News reported that about twentypercent of the students in the city schools are in class thissummer. That is more than two thousand teen-agers.

A third are in classes they failed before. The others are takingsubjects they do not have time for during the normal school year.

But they are not taking subjects like physics and history. Thestudents in Palo Alto are in classes like creative writing, filmstudies, literature and cooking.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by NancySteinbach. This is Steve Ember.