Posted on 09/27/2009 8:05:16 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
WASHINGTON – Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.
Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.
"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom."
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.
Clip
Domonique Toombs felt the same way when she learned she would stay for an extra three hours each day in sixth grade at Boston's Clarence R. Edwards Middle School.
"I was like, `Wow, are you serious?'" she said. "That's three more hours I won't be able to chill with my friends after school."
Her school is part of a 3-year-old state initiative to add 300 hours of school time in nearly two dozen schools. Early results are positive. Even reluctant Domonique, who just started ninth grade, feels differently now. "I've learned a lot," she said.
Does Obama want every kid to do these things? School until dinnertime? Summer school? And what about the idea that kids today are overscheduled and need more time to play?
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Just more time away from family influence and more time for indoctrination.
Honestly...What are schools doing all day that can't be finished in 2 serious hours of study?
( We did homeschool Monday through Friday all year except for major holidays and my husband's 4 weeks of vacation.)
Again, obama is either a liar or a complete idiot.
It’s not how much time you spend in school, it’s a matter of what you do when you are there.
We could shorten the school year to six months a year and give kids a better education than they are receiving now, IF the right people were in charge and given the freedom to educate...
Let the kids have their summer break.
My 14 year old granddaughter says they could teach what she learned in half the time if teachers were efficient.
BINGO! The State is their new family.
time out of school = less time to be learning ‘dear leader’ songs
If he can't get rid of them in the womb, he wants them dumped in kid prison from birth till they pay taxes.
JUST WHAT WE NEED: MORE TIME FOR INDOCTRINATION!!!!
Good grief, they want to turn out new SOCIALISTS EVEN FASTER!
Give them 10 years and the libs will run Karl Marx — assuming there even are elections then.
DEFINITELY NOT PC!!
Barack Hussein Obama is THE ONE.
Just ask your government schooled child!
Under 3 minute video depicting how the Obama cultists resemble Hitler cultists:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u0GJSZttZE&feature=channel_page
Kids do not need more hours in school. They need better schools and more qualified teachers. And I wish schools would stop curving grades, it is now so bad my kids are complaining about it.
“But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom.”
Doing what? Studying what?
“Classroom” is one of those words that always sounds noble, yet in the hands of fools should cause revulsion.
The last thing I’d want for my own mind is to have art, history, science filtered through the perverted minds of teachers like...Obama.
ROGER TO THE 2 HOURS!!
I’ve posted this a lot but one more time with feeling for the newbies.
In 1978, my wife and I came to know a young woman named Patty. She
was a devoutly religious young mother who’d become more devout when her
husband and father of her two small sons aged 2 and 6 informed her that he
was leaving. In dire economic straits, I offered to let her stay in our
former home in Chamblee — which was not rented at the time – rent-free until she got back on her feet. She had been clandestinely home schooling the 6 year
old for about 2 years using very well done Christian course materials from
an organization in Texas the name of which escapes me. The lad had recently been tested and had placed at least a year ABOVE his chronological age. As required by the government school authorities at the time, she dutifully apprised the authorities of his scores.
For reasons which would become clear in a moment, Patty had been harassed by the DeKalb County school authorities for about 6 months and, by the time she moved into the Chamblee house, had been — unbeknownst to us — ORDERED to put the 6 year old into the nearest government elementary school or suffer the consequences. Because she wanted the boys to be educated Christians, there was no way she was going to do that and she told them so.
At approximately 2 am one morning, a loud knock on the door announced the
arrival of the aforementioned “consequences.”
Dressed only in a nightgown, she was confronted by several burly police officers who thrust an arrest warrant in her face. With the now awakened 6 year old watching and the 2 year old wailing in the other room, she was handcuffed and led out the door to jail. She was tossed into a large cell with a couple of hookers and a junkie who spent much of the rest of that morning vomiting in the corner. The two young boys for whom the educational authorities professed such great concern were just left AT THE HOUSE — ALONE! Patty was later told that the bureaucrats from Children Services who were SUPPOSED to accompany the cops were late and, in their haste to get this dangerous miscreant behind bars, the cops just missed the fact that the Children Services people were, well, missing. The CS folks showed up an hour later to find two terrified kids, one of whom had just seen his mother hauled off in cuffs.
Patty was ultimately brought to trial under the Georgia Truancy Statutes. Her pro-bono attorney tore the school authorities to shreds and hers has been called THE case that opened the floodgates to home schooling in Georgia. Once they had all the facts, the jury didn’t take long to acquit her. I’m proud to have played a small part in that.
At Patty’s trial, a previously overlooked aspect of the government schools was put into sharp focus for those paying attention: The Director of Instruction for DeKalb County testified that the then current 7 hour school day consisted of an average of approximately 3 hours or less of instruction. At that time, Patty was devoting 4 to 5 hours a day to direct instruction.
He also as much as admitted that the REAL reason they wanted ALL these kids in school was the $3,000.00 per kid per year (I’m sure that number is MUCH higher today!) they then got from the state and federal government. Empty seats = lost funds. As in most things, follow the money.
Patty home schooled these two boys through high school.
And how did the boys turn out?
One is now a physician and the other a budding journalist.
But that now seems to be the norm for the growing legions of home schooled kids – which most likely explains why the NEA and the government school folks feel so threatened. For what it’s worth, a home schooled kid won the last National Spelling Bee.
Thomas Jefferson believed an EDUCATED PUBLIC to be the cornerstone of the system he and the other Founders TRIED to leave behind. He would NOT, I feel certain, be a big fan of the current government education system. If he returned today, he’d home school just as he did before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0lR1KQq2-U
Dick Bachert
1989
How come he didn’t say this during his speech to school kids last month?
I can deal with ruining our economy, ignoring our allies, selling out Israel, etc. But now he has really done it.
Instead, they’re getting CRAP LIKE THIS!!
DEFINITELY NOT PC!!
Barack Hussein Obama is THE ONE.
Just ask your government schooled child!
Under 3 minute video depicting how the Obama cultists resemble Hitler cultists:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u0GJSZttZE&feature=channel_page
someone please get this clown out of office
You got that right. How does Obama plan to pay for this? Does he think union teachers are going to work more hours for free? Ha!
Typical liberal thinking... If something is a complete and utter disaster, it’s because there’s not enough of it.
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