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| Sun, 09-27-2009 - 12:50pm |
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More school: Obama would curtail summer vacation
By LIBBY QUAID, AP Education Writer – Sun Sep 27, 8:55 am ET
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.
Fifth-grader Nakany Camara is of two minds. She likes the four-week summer program at her school, Brookhaven Elementary School in Rockville, Md. Nakany enjoys seeing her friends there and thinks summer school helped boost her grades from two Cs to the honor roll.
But she doesn't want a longer school day. "I would walk straight out the door," she said.
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?
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Obama and Duncan say kids in the United States need more school because kids in other nations have more school.
"Young people in other countries are going to school 25, 30 percent longer than our students here," Duncan told the AP. "I want to just level the playing field."
While it is true that kids in many other countries have more school days, it's not true they all spend more time in school.
Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days).
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Regardless, there is a strong case for adding time to the school day.
Researcher Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution looked at math scores in countries that added math instruction time. Scores rose significantly, especially in countries that added minutes to the day, rather than days to the year.
"Ten minutes sounds trivial to a school day, but don't forget, these math periods in the U.S. average 45 minutes," Loveless said. "Percentage-wise, that's a pretty healthy increase."
In the U.S., there are many examples of gains when time is added to the school day.
Charter schools are known for having longer school days or weeks or years. For example, kids in the KIPP network of 82 charter schools across the country go to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., more than three hours longer than the typical day. They go to school every other Saturday and for three weeks in the summer. KIPP eighth-grade classes exceed their school district averages on state tests.
In Massachusetts' expanded learning time initiative, early results indicate that kids in some schools do better on state tests than do kids at regular public schools. The extra time, which schools can add as hours or days, is for three things: core academics — kids struggling in English, for example, get an extra English class; more time for teachers; and enrichment time for kids.
Regular public schools are adding time, too, though it is optional and not usually part of the regular school day. Their calendar is pretty much set in stone. Most states set the minimum number of school days at 180 days, though a few require 175 to 179 days.
Several schools are going year-round by shortening summer vacation and lengthening other breaks.
Many schools are going beyond the traditional summer school model, in which schools give remedial help to kids who flunked or fell behind.
Summer is a crucial time for kids, especially poorer kids, because poverty is linked to problems that interfere with learning, such as hunger and less involvement by their parents.
That makes poor children almost totally dependent on their learning experience at school, said Karl Alexander, a sociology professor at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, home of the National Center for Summer Learning.
Disadvantaged kids, on the whole, make no progress in the summer, Alexander said. Some studies suggest they actually fall back. Wealthier kids have parents who read to them, have strong language skills and go to great lengths to give them learning opportunities such as computers, summer camp, vacations, music lessons, or playing on sports teams.
"If your parents are high school dropouts with low literacy levels and reading for pleasure is not hard-wired, it's hard to be a good role model for your children, even if you really want to be," Alexander said.
Extra time is not cheap. The Massachusetts program costs an extra $1,300 per student, or 12 percent to 15 percent more than regular per-student spending, said Jennifer Davis, a founder of the program. It received more than $17.5 million from the state Legislature last year.
The Montgomery County, Md., summer program, which includes Brookhaven, received $1.6 million in federal stimulus dollars to operate this year and next, but it runs for only 20 days.
Aside from improving academic performance, Education Secretary Duncan has a vision of schools as the heart of the community. Duncan, who was Chicago's schools chief, grew up studying alongside poor kids on the city's South Side as part of the tutoring program his mother still runs.
"Those hours from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock are times of high anxiety for parents," Duncan said. "They want their children safe. Families are working one and two and three jobs now to make ends meet and to keep food on the table."

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I do not see this happening anytime soon. For better or worse, Americans like their summer vacation. Besides, if they haven't learned whatever it was they were supposed to have learned why would another 60 days fix this?
Also, the President and Mr Duncan seem to forget that keeping schools open for more days costs more money. A good deal of that isn't paid for by the Federal government but by state and local taxes. My state has enough budget issues as it is.
For many kids, yes, 60 more days would fix a lot. The curriculum for Social Studies K-12 in NYS, if it were all taught as written by the state, would take over 23 years to teach. Sorry about no link, the source was Max Thompson of Learning Focus Schools in a seminar. Any more time would help.
You are right, though, the money issue is a problem. I would not mind teaching the additional hours or days, but there would have to be additional compensation. And that spells higher taxes no matter where the money is from.
Not only the teachers would need to be paid. There are administrative staff, custodial staff, bus expenses, heck even the utility bills.
I recall a few years back the local public schools had to remain open a week longer because of lots of snowdays. People were complaining about their interrupted vacation plans .... Americans are extremely accustomed to that long summer break, to get us to change this long standing tradition will not be an easy task.
For several years my daughter went to year round school. As a working mother, at the time, I really liked the schedule. She was out of school a month in Dec. & one in the Summer.
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This is true. The kids seem to lose just as much over those three week breaks as they do over the summer. On top of that, think about how kids and teachers start shutting down right before the end of the school year...now do that two or three more times during the school year...along with getting back into the groove of things each time you come back from track breaks. A lot of time is wasted. I've taught at year round and nine month schools and I wouldn't ever put my kids in a year round school.
Oh, and this is a bit off topic, but this just popped in my head. At the year round schools in my district, testing of the kids occurred in February...FEBRUARY...while nine month schools tested a bit later in the year...yet those scores were all compared to each other. Does that make any sense whatsoever?
I agree with President Obama and I sincerely hope he does it! I have been saying this for the last 20 years. The kids have way too much time out of school during the summertime. After 6 weeks of summer vacation my kids are complaining of boredom and wanting to go back to school!
School hours should change too. I have often wondered why the hours
They've tried to push the high school schedule forward (or is it back--whichever to have them start an hour later) in my district because of that. The problem is, pushing them an hour later means they get out an hour later and in an overscheduled world (another debate on whether it's needed because I vote no), teens couldn't get in the million extracurricular activities plus homework w/out staying up later. They decided not to change the schedule as a result. There is so much pressure these days to do well, not just in school but everywhere and it's too bad because the kids are suffering.
The Washington Post just had an article with the problem you've mentioned about students being out of school and being at home, while parents are working. It talked about how there are so many options when children are younger but they get to 10 or 11 and there's nothing, even if you're willing to pay for it. Too many latchkey kids. I wonder if they could come up with a volunteer option for some of them--let them help pack food for shelters and such, tutor/read to little ones. Free child care and in return, children gain something about society.
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