School year round and longer days?

[Ma Kettle]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090927/...us_more_school

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.

"Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Thoughts?

Personally I think it's ridiculous. I know some schools currently have year round and some have longer days with higher grades. But the results are mixed and seem to be centered for specific issues relevant to that area.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0811151449.htm

http://www.equaleducation.org/public....asp?pubid=292

There are a few studies done on the academics for yr round vs 9 month but I don't seem to be able to find studies done on FAMILIES. Obama is talking about year round AND adding hours to the school day. Children already spend the majority of their time at school and you can see in the current generation of teens how the lack of family time, morals, religious values affects children. How will family life be further affected when the schoolweeks mean wake up and go to school, eat breakfast at school, classes, eat lunch at school, lessons, recess, lessons, home for late supper and straight to bed? I would presume that the underprivileged and those with working parents who are left on their own until supper already would see a positive influence with more guidance but what about the students who have parents waiting at home to help them with homework, spend time guiding them, and providing spiritual influence (of the types that are not permitted in school)? While religious guidance in everyday life may not be an issue for those who choose not to follow a religion it could very much affect those who do and wish for their children to have that presence in their every day life.

From what I see the only benefits of year round school affect non-religious (or vaguely religious), latchkey kids, underprivileged, .... not much there for intact families or those who make the effort to ensure a parent is always available when the children are not in school.

AND homeschoolers... how will this affect those of use who homeschool? Here in PA we have a specific number of hours/days which must be accounted for in our homeschool year. Will he be changing the homeschool laws to coordinate with his proposed public school mandates?

I don't much care for politics but it seems to me Obama is taking some major liberties with my family.

[bubbelcat]

But Ma that's the point, the rest of us should be happy to sacrifice what we've worked hard to achieve just so we can pull up the rest of society that messed their lives up and/or aren't doing their jobs as parents. It's just one more way the liberals are separating children from their families so that children can be raised the way the state believes they should be. I have a great quote on this somewhere I wish I could find it.

Ah....after digging through my blog to pre-Nov. 2008 I found this:


Background: This post is not my own. It is in response to an article in The Economist by a journalist named Reich.

Reich is a different story. I think you "have his number", Leslie. He
actually argues that since the interests of the child are separable from
those of the parents ( a premise worthy of lots of discussion), they (children) should be a shared responsibility of the parents and the state. He argues that no child should be the victim of despotism, even benign despotism. I'd like to ask him, whose ethics does he want the state to impose? Is it moral to initiate force against parents? To what extent are children's interests separable? Maybe it increases with age?
Does letting the state represent children's interests sound like it
would even work? It hasn't so far, to the extent it exists.


(Sorry about the formatting I can't get the formatting buttons to work for me this morning.)

If you look around at European models of education you see a lot of this type of schooling, especially in more socialist, less homeschool friendly countries. It is sold as having oh so many benefits for the family, extra-curricular activities, community building, extra schooling, blah, blah, barf but in truth it is a way to extend the school day so parents can extend their working hours and pay more in taxes while the state exerts increasing control over the upbringing of children. It is actually the perfect way to promote a communist system which elevates the state and group think far above liberty and individual rights. And if you don't think this is all a part of a broader scheme in the US then you are sadly naive. Otherwise why make it universal? It's too bad so many Americans couldn't be bothered to notice all of this before the elections. It's been there all along, one need only look at who this administration chooses to associate themselves with.

[Ma Kettle]

I thought after I posted that maybe if I hadn't just finished watching a school video of an elementary class chanting 'mm,mm,mm,barrack hussein obama' in a school event I might not have been so concerned.

But the more I thought the more certain I was that it wouldn't have made a difference. Either way he's taking liberties with my family that I didn't approve. He's working towards having children in school at age 3 through 20+ in the state's control for more than 12 hours a day throughout the year. And the one thing that popped in my mind when adding up the numbers was the days our children would be home seem SOOOOO similar to standard VISITATION rights on non-custodial parents. weekends, every other holiday, and 1 week a month. And generously permitted 10 minutes before bedtime and get to tuck them in at night.... presuming we don't have to work nights and put them in *ahem* state sponsored daycare for that too.

Even though I homeschool this affects us. It means that our homeschooled children will not have the social opportunities they enjoy now because their public schooled friends will be in school on a new schedule. The not-school-sponsored activities will have to adapt or die because the only times available for public school students will be weekends or the 2 weeks every other month they might have off.

I worry very much about the crime rates and moral values of the future. It's hard enough when parents are not able to provide guidance in life skills and a foundation of values that promotes acceptable lifestyles and choices. How much more so will it be when the families who can and DO provide the necessary foundation are stripped of their rights to do so?

They'll still screw it up. Instead of improving the current curriculums they'll try to cram more useless garbage in and out of necessity they'll also have to add life skills classes at all age levels because children won't have the time to learn them at home and out in the world.

[Surprisedby2]

I hate the idea. First, I think kids need time to play and talk to their parents. They should have time to play sports and play with friends. I'm very good at teaching kids to read, but I'm not a suitable replacement for their parents. I'm afraid that is what this current administration is looking to do. There is also the cost factor. Teachers are paid on a daily rate. If you tack on extra hours or days, it will cost more to educate children. I am on contract for 187 days. I am paid around $260 a day. Add 10 more days, and that $2,600 more a year. With millions of teachers, that will quickly add up. And I don't even want to even think about longer days. People think teachers only "work" while the kids are in class, but we need time to plan and prep for lessons, grade papers, go to meetings and do the ever increasing paperwork to show that we are doing our jobs. I teach, and I am lucky to leave at 4:15 each day. Then I still have an hour of grading each night I do after my kids go to bed. I enjoy teaching, but not if I need to stay until 6 or 7 o'clock each night which is what would happen if school goes from 8-5 each day. I think that if they make these changes, you will have teachers flee in record numbers.