Obama Proposes Longer School Days, Extended School Year

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Obama Proposes Longer School Days | Edu in Review Blog


For this generation of students to remain competitive with their international peers as adults, they need to start spending more time in school. This week President Obama proposed that American school children extend their time in class, either by lengthening the school day, or spending less time on summer vacation.

“We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day,” Obama said. He continued to say “That calendar may have once made sense, but today, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea. That is no way to prepare them for a 21st century economy.”
In fact, American children spend the least amount time in the classroom when compared to other countries. Currently, the school year length in the States is 180 days. Advocates are pushing further toward a 200-day school year, which would align with Thailand, Scotland and the Netherlands, and leave us a close second with Israel, South Korea and Japan, who leads with a 243-day school year.


via MSN Encarta
This comes as Obama makes it very clear that education is on his hot-list of priorities. He admits the notion of spending more time in school is not “wildly popular”, but necessary.

He was applauded for his breadth of knowledge regarding the public education system in the U.S. He cited that one-third of the 13- and 14-year-olds in our country cannot read at an appropriate level for their age, and that the eighth grade curriculum is two years behind competing nations. He says the part of the problem is our “race to the bottom” mindset, wherein states are comfortable with lower standards for students.

Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are truly advocates for a superior education system than that we’ve previously and currently known. It’s imperative that states use the stimulus package money to rebuild curriculum, increase teacher pay, improve school conditions, offer newer technologies to students and even extend the school year to ensure that this generation can not only keep up with their international peers, but even surpass them in the professional environment of the coming decades

What do u think?
 
I have disagree with Obama's decision on extended school year, I rather to sticking with traditional year, not 21th century.

Compare with US with other countries, especially Europe and Asia are just like apple to orange, even I don't want copy from other country.

Thanks to god, I already out of school in last 3 years ago but would still in grandson.
 
I think Japan has the longest school year, and also the most student suicides.

It is not necessarily healthy for kids to spend that much time in school.
 
My step-cousin who is a teacher in Colorado told me that the school board there approved to add 70 minutes to the school day. What she was so pissed off was that they arent planning on increasing teacher pay or give teacher more comp time. To me that is JUST SO wrong! If teacher's pay arent increased, and this gets approved nationwide, we will see a teacher shortage crisis.
 
When I was in high school in 2005-2006, days of school was 170 or 175 days but they increased to 180 days in after 2006-2007 school year.
 
It will not work in Calif unless they find more $$$ to hire more teachers and build more schools.. It is already overcrowd in classroom and not enough teachers to teach. They are laying teachers off at the end of school year. Plus I do not want any more tax raise unless they find a way to fix where all tax money had gone before.

No way to increase longer day for kids.
 
jazzy said:
It will not work in Calif unless they find more $$$ to hire more teachers and build more schools.. It is already overcrowd in classroom and not enough teachers to teach. They are laying teachers off at the end of school year. Plus I do not want any more tax raise unless they find a way to fix where all tax money had gone before.

No way to increase longer day for kids.
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When congress start vote, you need call congress to vote no.

I bet most republican would vote no.
 
I think the idea is more so a bit too much. Kids are not behind due to lack of days. They are behind because so much has already been cut from schools. Hate to say it teachers are suppose to teach. Kind of hard to doso in overcrowded classrooms.

If the days or hours are increased... How will he fund it?
 
I would prefer to leave it as it was. Children love summers so much.
 
i disagree with obama with that.
i felt that children need to rest in summer time not get stress it is not good for kids to get stress at school to struggle with.
 
The first 2 months of school are review because the kids have forgotten so much during the summer or are out of practice. Year round school is gets rid of that.
 
I think it should be optional for parents who have to work til 5pm...

but we also have voluntary work as well.
 
family life is important.. all work and no play ... how does that quote goes?
 
Bottesini said:
I think Japan has the longest school year, and also the most student suicides.

It is not necessarily healthy for kids to spend that much time in school.
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It is true that children in Japan spend more time with education than we do so obviously its no surprise that alot of them can actually be smarter than us. I assume we need to extend education activies so to give a better future to the children.

I'm sorry to hear that some of you disagree with this, of course it can be frustrating at times for going to school more often, but the more the better your life will get.

Think about it.
 
I disagree....my boys work hard in school, make good grades and attend everyday. They look forward to summer...inasmuch as we adults look forward to vacations from work.

They are "just kids"...let them be that way! They'll grow up pretty fast, some go to college or join the work force 5 days a week 8 hours a day....

"All work and no play....makes a kid a very dull child"!..I feel they have enuf pressure as it is!
 
180 days out of 365 is nearly half the whole year doing nothing, so i kind of agree with Obama, its payback time to America to work for their status as the world's biggest consumer, so they should pay for it by working extra harder, what's more Japan is one of the safest country in the world, (ok aside from some extremity and slightly higher suicide rates). America have alot of problem with young people getting out of hand simply they are bored and have nothing to do but cause trouble. I think it would be worthwhile, and perhaps its not needed to go to extreme as Japans but maybe the academic year could length somewhere in the middle of the road, say 200 or even 210 days. This would actually prepare america to cope better in the 21st century' increasingly competitive world market for employment along with captial and intellectual investments. Why be so offended to lose 3 weeks? I doubt it would be stripped off from the summer break, maybe one week there and another 2 weeks in piecemeals from somewhere during the academic year. Hell i think New Zealand should too, we have too many aggressive and lazy teenagers wagging schools and they dont get better when they enter university, they just get worse...like mass vandelism is confused with 'partying' that, i think it's simply becuase life is too easy for them so they get real cocky. ps, I agree with Steel X too.
 
Thank god that I graduated from HS in 2006.... It was bad enough to have 180 days of school, and I always have looked forward to having summer vacation while I was in school, that what kept me going.

My dad almost sent me to a private school that does a year around school.... I'm just soooo thankful that my dad didn't.... because that would be just awful, horrible.....

So I disagree with Obama.... kids needs to be kids, not like those Japan children that goes to school like 90% of the time... you basically won't have time for family or friends, instead you'll just be focusing on education/school work.
 
Grummer said:
180 days out of 365 is nearly half the whole year doing nothing, so i kind of agree with Obama, its payback time to America to work for their status as the world's biggest consumer, so they should pay for it by working extra harder, what's more Japan is one of the safest country in the world, (ok aside from some extremity and slightly higher suicide rates). America have alot of problem with young people getting out of hand simply they are bored and have nothing to do but cause trouble. I think it would be worthwhile, and perhaps its not needed to go to extreme as Japans but maybe the academic year could length somewhere in the middle of the road, say 200 or even 210 days. This would actually prepare america to cope better in the 21st century' increasingly competitive world market for employment along with captial and intellectual investments. Why be so offended to lose 3 weeks? I doubt it would be stripped off from the summer break, maybe one week there and another 2 weeks in piecemeals from somewhere during the academic year. Hell i think New Zealand should too, we have too many aggressive and lazy teenagers wagging schools and they dont get better when they enter university, they just get worse...like mass vandelism is confused with 'partying' that, i think it's simply becuase life is too easy for them so they get real cocky. ps, I agree with Steel X too.
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WTF?

In the USA in most places we only get 3 straight months off from school, and that's during the summer. From mid-June until Mid-August to late August (it varies in different areas of when school starts at the end of the summer). We get one week off for Easter/Spring break (it varies on when the break is in different areas - back where I come from we had Easter breaks but now it's spring breaks) and about 1 1/2 weeks to two weeks off from school for Winter break, and about three days off from school for Thanksgiving, and that is about it. That's not 180 days. Do you even know math?

I don't like how they keep moving up the first day of school earlier and earlier and earlier. When I was a child it was the day after Labor day. Now it's mid-August! It fucks with summer plans!

At least I can homeschool my kids if I want. So ain't nothing anyone can say about MY kids.
 
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Familes do take vacations together...during the summer break. Also, many divorced parents share custody of kids during the summer months. And some kids do attend summer school, or have to attend on Saturdays. Some kids go to see their relatives and spend the summer, especially their grandparents.

Often wonder why suicide is high in Japan? Could it be the pressure they are pushing on the kids to "learn"!?

Here in Duval County, they have already cut bus service for many children, so next year a lot of kids will have to walk to school, some even farther than they used to.
 
~*Kaelei*~ said:
Thank god that I graduated from HS in 2006.... It was bad enough to have 180 days of school, and I always have looked forward to having summer vacation while I was in school, that what kept me going.

My dad almost sent me to a private school that does a year around school.... I'm just soooo thankful that my dad didn't.... because that would be just awful, horrible.....

So I disagree with Obama.... kids needs to be kids, not like those Japan children that goes to school like 90% of the time... you basically won't have time for family or friends, instead you'll just be focusing on education/school work.
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Yeah, when I was a child, we learned about children in other countries, and one of the things we were taught were that children in China goes to school 6 days a week! Ugh...fuck no.

Weekends and winter breaks and spring breaks and summers are precious...I ain't sending my kids to school during these days. If the school authorities don't like it, I can always pull my kids out of public school and either homeschool my kids or send them to a private school that does not do a year-long thing but only does the usual September to June school year!
 
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