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.
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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 ...
Excellent post. Dead on.
The current public school system needs to be razed and the education of children left up to parents to work out.
What is wrong with parents actually taking care of their own kids’ needs?
I know for a fact in my local Los Angeles School district they got wayyyyy too much minimuim days
Where kids get off on Tuesday at 12:45pm every Tuesday while high school kids get off 1pm on Wednesday
How about that Mr President
Every Tuesday evening my husband and I help tutor the Spanish speaking children in our congregation.
Last Tuesday, I helped a 12 year old who literately could NOT read. There is no way she could even be considered a first grader, yet, she is in the fifth grade.
I am just astonished. It must be hell on earth for this girl to be in that class and know, every minute of every day, that she is not and can not keep up with the class. It must be very hard for the other students as well, because she must be like an anchor dragging the class down.
By the way, the girl has been in the U.S. six years, speaks English well, and has two devoted and well disciplined biologic parents.
I am appalled. It seems plainly evident to me that the girl has **never** been taught phonics.
Yesterday, my husband and I visited the family and brought over a basic phonics program for the whole family to use. We will keep an eye on how they are all progressing.
The consequences for this bright girl are dim if she can not read. It is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
Quality, Obama, not quantity. Apparently, all those years of education did you no good.
Our godson was in 10th grade and reading on a 4th grade level, when the school system suggested she might want to homeschool.
She had begged them for years to help him, had taken him to summer school. She knew he had a problem, but he got straight A’s in school and they saw nothing wrong with him until high school.
Government schools also made the income tax, FDR and his New Deal, the Great Society, Fannie Mae and Mac and every other fascist-socialist scheme INEVITABLE!
If children are made to feel comfortable, day in a day out, with taking money from their neighbor for schooling their parents want for free. These same kids will grow up to be completely comfortable with everything else the voting mob can steal, from the IRS to Obamacare.
Yet....Conservative **consistently** fail to see the urgency of getting all of our nation's children out of the government schools and into private conservative schools! Isn't this evident just from the posts on this one thread?
I am exasperated!
Honestly...the public will buy "education" but would rebel against more free child-care...which this really is, IMO.
Not officially homeschooled, he is working with a tutor toward getting his GED.
Don’t worry kids. The teachers’ union will never let this happen.
Learning Obama Praise songs? They've got to get those lyrics down just right.
Those lyrics went something like this right:
mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmm Barack Hussein Obama mmmmm mmmmm mmmm had a whore for a mama mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmmmm
mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmm Barack Hussein Obama mmmmm mmmmm mmmm prolly never knew his papa mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmmmm
Oh, the unions will support this if it means hiring MORE union members.
Ex-science teacher here... The current teacher contracts will stay at about 180 days for a 6-hr day (plus a few non-teaching duties), but districts will have to hire aides and additional teachers to staff the after-school and summer programs.
Schools in many locales do not have air conditioning and would have to be retrofitted for summer classes. Janitors would have to be hired for additional/longer shifts.
But why do more of the same failed thing? Unless schools change to a disciplined model such as KIPP, adding more time doing stupid things inefficiently doesn’t make sense.
BTW, the photo caption accompanying the article is wrong. No way is that thing a guinea pig heart!
mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmm Barack Hussein Obama mmmmm mmmmm mmmm hated his white granmama mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmmmm
mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmm Barack Hussein Obama mmmmm mmmmm mmmm Kennedy called him Osama mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmmmm
mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmm Barack Hussein Obama mmmmm mmmmm mmmm wears papa Hugo’s pajamas mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm mmmmmmmm
In the late sixties, the union started gaining strength and resisting the drive for excellence, they annexed a neighboring school district with an older declining urban population, and the school district has never been the same.
Of course the monthly property taxes were higher than the mortgage on my parents' home, but it was the same for everyone.
My fourteen year old daughter just said pretty much the same thing.
Does this mean Obama will work more hours and not play so much golf and basketball?
More time in school does NOT mean a better education.. just like throwing more money at schools makes them better.. if we’d throw out the junk learning such as tolerance training and environmental concerns, there would be more time given to basic education. And who cares what the kids around the world are doing? Asian kids routinely commit suicide because there is so much pressure on them.. and Europeans grow up to be complacent little socialist...and therein lies the rub.
The biggest hoot in this whole story, to me, is the idea that the schools are kept open on the weekends to provide “ a safe place”! Ha! How many kids in the US actually feel safer at school than at home? Obviously, safety varies from one facility to another, but I believe Obama’s implication is that the supervised, government environment is a warm, all- knowing, loving embrace compared to the cold, abusive,judgemental chaos of the wildly varied American family. Still, you can bet the farm that your average Philadelphia parents don’t want their kids anywhere near those inner-city schools on the weekend. They’d be safer with the crew from MTV’s “Jackass”.
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