Will longer school year help or hurt US students?

Did your kids moan that winter break was way too short as you got them ready for the first day back in school? They might get their wish of more holiday time off under proposals catching on around the country to lengthen the school year.

But there's a catch: a much shorter summer vacation. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a chief proponent of the longer school year, says American students have fallen behind the world academically. "Whether educators have more time to enrich instruction or students have more time to learn how to play an instrument and write computer code, adding meaningful in-school hours is a critical investment that better prepares children to be successful in the 21st century," he said in December when five states announced they would add at least 300 hours to the academic calendar in some schools beginning this year.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/article/Will-longer-school-year-help-or-hurt-US-students-4190127.php#ixzz2HrWCWLoG

AMEN! ~ I was a stay-at-home mom for 10 years; however, I have been in the teaching profession since 1981. Longer school terms are not required for “mo-better” learning. Intact families who discipline their children at home and teach them responsibility and respect for themselves and others is the “missing ingredient”.

I like the idea of shorter breaks... but in the end, it's still just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Schools today must get free of government control, and must get out from under the thumb of teacher unions... and even then, the changes will be small. The primary path to significant gains in education today would come from a changing of urban culture, within both parents and children, and even some teachers. As long as education is disdained; authority is undermined, distrusted, and disrespected; and entertainment trumps learning, there's nothing that can be done to help the majority of American students... other than getting them out of public schools.

And changing urban culture is NOT going to be allowed or encouraged by the Left. They have many many billions of dollars on the line there, between Hollywood, music, video games, etc.

You have the right answer - schools no longer teach they indoctrinate.

If any school system is serious about actually improving their end product - educated students they would first throw out every education theory advanced by professional educators since the end of the 1940s.

Extreme? Not really. Dr Spock admitted that his theories were all wrong. In 2012 an new (printed in 2012) educational physiology book for people working on their Masters said that Maslow’s theory doesn't work. But, you will not hear those critical points made.

Secondly, they would get rid of all the socialization classes. The basic teaching of social skills and norms belong at home. If a social advocacy group wants to include their pet in the schools then they need to pay for the complete development of the new classes out of their own pockets. If it is truly important then why not?

Finally, if we grade the students then we must also grade the teachers. Perhaps this is why the teachers have been pushing so hard to have “gradeless’ classes. If no student is graded then how can we tell the bad teachers from the good ones?

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