“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.
Several schools are going year-round by shortening summer vacation and lengthening other breaks.
I have thought for a long time that school should be lengthened to year round with no breaks longer than one week. Though I do not support that it should be an unfunded federal mandate or even in the hands of the federal government. States clearly have all jurisdiction concerning education. Realistically what I would like to see is some sort of compromise in which states are off the hook for something thy currently don’t like if they implement a new school plan. It would be completely up to the states if they want to or not. None of that holding of highway funding garbage they pulled with the drinking age either. States need to have a real choice. The states that do take the option will serve as a test for the new system and if it works other states will see the benefits and jump on board.
I would like to know what parents think of the idea of longer school years.
There are tons of great schools systems, the problem for most of the poor ones is generation after generation of horrible parenting. No amount of rebuilding schools can help kids when their parents don’t teach them to value an education.
Summer vacation should be longer than a week but far less than what it is now.
This change will NEVER happen under a Democrat controlled government because the teachers union has far too much pull with Democrats.
I’m sure that lots of teachers who value their summers off would think twice about their career choices, lol. Some wouldn’t care since they do the summer school thing and/or coaching, but many veteran teachers would not like this without a significant raise in salary.
x2 on the parenting though. Obviously some of you guys have never been inside a Buffalo City school. I delievred to an elementary school last year way down off of military ave, and once I got inside and headed to the office, all I heard was this frantic page over the intercom for some “code” to room “whatever”, and all of these peope in the office ran out the door. It was some security code for a teacher needing assistance in the classroom for a big fight. The kids in these schools are simply animals with zero values. You cannot educate 90% of them.
if they are going year round they can shorten highschool so you graduate at age 16, like england.
how many more people would have went to college if they could have went at 16 as apposed to 18
Either way college is a waste of government and state funding anyways, they could small down the budget if they actually taught you shit you needed for your field, and didnt make you take irrelevant filler classes.
I personally wouldn’t mind having school all year, but if they reform the scheduling, they mind as well reform the style.
The education system in the states is no longer on the cutting edge, which I believe is needed in order for success. We really need to step it up in this department, and don’t give me that b/s line about letting kids be kids. They need a more focused accelerated program to propel our future society back into the number one spot in the world. This is a global economy, we need to use our brains not our brawn to stay ahead.
Good example. My sophomore year in Frontier I missed 34 days of school and still managed a 98+ average. I didn’t even try, school is just a joke.
I often thought I should start a private school, which would allow the children to attend all year, but graduate at 15/16 will a full diploma. I honestly feel like most of my public high school education was a waste of my time.
^ The problem is the trend toward “mainstreaming”. Everyone gets taught the same lesson plan, even the half retarded kid. A herd can only move as fast as it’s slowest member, so if you have 20 above average kids and 2 far below average kids your entire class moves at the pace of the 2 below average kids. In our liberal society that’s deemed “fair”.
My mom is nearing retirement as a public school teacher and she can’t wait to be out. Right now she has two kids in her class that require one on one aides. So everything she teaches the class she has to then wait while these one on one aides work with their slow kids. This is in kindergarten, a grade where kids are expected to be reading now by the time they move to first grade. The way the mainstreaming system works is teachers can recommend these kids be moved to special education but they have to be “tested out” of the main curriculum. The system is designed so moving anyone out of the main curriculum is the last resort. That takes about 2.5 years in NYS, so all the other kids are held up for their first 2.5 years of education. But holding up all these smart students is fine because the liberals get to say at least we’re not discriminating against any slow kids.
By the way, while I support more school days I definitely don’t support longer school hours. Kids can only absorb so much per day and don’t have the attention spans to be at school from breakfast until dinner.
+10000
We taught our daughter lots of tricks long before pre-K. You know fun party tricks, like what a trapezoid and rhombus are… the alphabet, counting, etc…
Then she starts school and there are 6 y/o kids that can’t count to 10.
To top all that off… The school does not support the above average kids… Instead and class is balanced with smart, average and not so smart. It’s all about statistics and getting the class to be average.
I HATE that my daughters ‘free’ education is aimed at creating an average student. Also, I heard about advanced HS math programs that let students take college level calc. classes just to guess what… Take calc in college… WTF. I do not know if my kids will be gifted or above average but if you keep dumbing down the smart ones, you fail society as a whole. We need engineers and scientifically minded people… Not fry cooks.
And then there is parenting… Parenting is the most important thing in education… It’s amazing how little interest some parents have in what their kids do for 7 hours a day
As far as they are concerned it’s free day care.
Interesting, why is trying out for sports teams allowed then? Shouldn’t they have to play everyone?
When I was in elementary school they had some class for the smart kids, I forget the name, deathproof was in it. Then all in middle school we had advanced placement math/science. In high school they offer AP classes that give college credits in some cases. I think we need to just ramp it up some. Keep the tards in tard classes and allow them to go to technical schools.
I would have personally loved to have my masters when I was 22, idk.
If you have students that can absorb the coursework faster, you would be able to complete the HS requirements sooner and get on with additional learning/experience.
The students that would start advanced schooling earlier could get more of it and would be the type of people sought out for advanced research and development type work.
