Should we rethink the school year?

One more PLN tidbit for the day from a favorite blog / news site that says what lots of us have been wondering for a long time.  It just might be time to rethink the academic calendar!  After all, the kid are not working in the fields in most of the USA.  The only real down part to this idea would be sleep away summer camps and the burden of longer breaks for working parents.  I am CONFIDENT that we could find LOTS of people interested in providing 2 weeks day camps that would provide wide experiences and broaden kids perspectives of learning!  

Here is the link:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/2012/08/a_better_academic_calendar.htm

Here is an excerpt: I recommend breaking up the time spent in school so that students get more frequent but shorter breaks than at present. I base my case on the principle of diminishing returns.....
This goal can be achieved by dividing up the year so that there would be, say, 6 weeks of instruction followed by, say, two weeks off. 

Looking critically at this article, here is one piece that I do not think has been proven: It sounds good....but I am not sure of the research basis for this statement. 
Distributed learning, in general, has proved to be a better option than massed learning.

PS....Even though I think such a schedule would be best for KIDS, I am starting to get a little panicky that the summer of 2012 is coming to a rapid close!