Longer School Days? Have they gone insane?

[voodoopenguin]

[quote davester]I'm with cbelt. I went to school in england until 8th grade, where the hours are much longer and the summer vacation only 3 weeks long.
Which England was this? Not the England as in the UK as our summer holidays have never been as low as 3 weeks, certainly not in the 50+years I know of and that is for both public and private education. Must have been a special school.

The school summer holiday starts towards the end of July and ends at the beginning of September so is usually 6 weeks long.

[Pops]

Oliver said the real benefits showed up on Brittany's report card, which improved from straight C's to B's.
"I did not foresee honor roll," Oliver said, brimming with pride.

You don't need grade inflation if B's constitute the honor roll.

[Chupa Chupa]

The debate should be focused foremost on quality of eduction, not quantity.

[Grateful11]

>a high school classmate of mine graduated high school without knowing how to do
multiplication. I asked her how she had managed to avoid it. She answered
nonchalantly, "I just would add."

When I was in grade school you had to know multiplication tables to x12 or you didn't go
to the 4th grade.

>For example, if a student's test scores reveal that student is reading and writing on a
12th grade level while still in the 8th grade, why then is that student still required to take
9th, 10th, and 11th grade English?

My sons have been taking college level AP classes since the 10th grade because they
placed out of lower classes.

>You don't need grade inflation if B's constitute the honor roll.

Some schools have a separate A, A/B and a B Honor Roll. I find that odd myself.

If you're easily offended please don't read what else I have to say.

Sorry but I still blame the parents for most students poor grades. It just so darn easy
for people to blame the schools when it's really themselves they should be blaming.
I also realize that there are students out there that are not going to progress
through school as well as others it's a fact of life. Many feel they have to have
both parents working and then one of them is working two jobs
to pay for a $250K house, a boat, an ATV, a camper or what have
you. I had a guy the other day tell me his wife told him that
in order for her to stay home with the kids he had to make
$80K per year, that's just pure baloney. We're doing it on almost half that.
If this offends anyone that's too bad it's just the way I feel. I have a sister and a SIL
working in the public school system and they can both tell you some stories that would
make your blood boil. My brother had to get out of grade school system because he
couldn't take anymore, got his Master's went on to be a dept. head and retired as
Program Coordinator at a large Comm. College.

[kap]

[quote Racer X]many countries. the school year is 11 months.
True! Where I came from there were few holidays, i.e. three days for New Year, one for Christmas, ummm ... no July 4th and school hours were from 7:00 A.M. until 6:00 P.M. with lunch from 12 noon until 1:00 P.M.

Kap

[blusubaru]

I hope they pay the teachers more for the increased time. But, probably not, like always. Teachers are asked to bend over and...

[kap]

[quote Grateful11]>[

If you're easily offended please don't read what else I have to say.

Sorry but I still blame the parents for most students poor grades. It just so darn easy
for people to blame the schools when it's really themselves they should be blaming.
I also realize that there are students out there that are not going to progress
through school as well as others it's a fact of life. Many feel they have to have
both parents working and then one of them is working two jobs
to pay for a $250K house, a boat, an ATV, a camper or what have
you. I had a guy the other day tell me his wife told him that
in order for her to stay home with the kids he had to make
$80K per year, that's just pure baloney. We're doing it on almost half that.
If this offends anyone that's too bad it's just the way I feel. I have a sister and a SIL
working in the public school system and they can both tell you some stories that would
make your blood boil. My brother had to get out of grade school system because he
couldn't take anymore, got his Master's went on to be a dept. head and retired as
Program Coordinator at a large Comm. College.
I agree with you that one parent should stay home for the sake of their children's well-being if the family could afford it. However, there are parents, especially single parents, who have to take on jobs that barely pay the rent. What those parents need is an extended family, i.e. grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. to help out with raising the children. I am fortunate to have came from such a background. Of course, there were conflicts but nothing major that would deviate everyone's goal: the children's welfare was the top priority.

Kap

[elmo3]

I'm convinced the public schools are creating a mindset of "time off" entitlement in our children, increasingly so every year.

My kids are in private school, but--aside from the fact that they are in school a full 7 hours every day, compared to the EVER SHRINKING number of hours the public system has--they follow the days-off schedule of the public system, which is flat-out stupid.

Recently, what with holidays, in-service days,and the like, combined with "unexpected" bad weather (in February? unexpected?), my son went to school about 3 days out of 2.5 weeks. By the end it was a struggle to get him back into the routine.

Kids today are EXPECTING that work weeks are on average 4 days, and that there are plenty of "holidays" off. They will struggle to understand the concept of working for a living, unless they are part of a system (union, government) that follows the same days-off lunacy.

For sure, overall they won't be well prepared for the idea of working for themselves.




[quote Kap]I agree with you that one parent should stay home for the sake of their children's well-being if the family could afford it. However, there are parents, especially single parents, who have to take on jobs that barely pay the rent.
Yes, but please don't fall into the trap of trotting out the extreme situation to try to disprove the general situation. Grateful11 is completely right in that family priorities are screwed up, and those people need to hear his message. He isn't aiming at the truly poor. He's aiming at those who THINK they're "poor" because they otherwise couldn't afford the more expensive house, the Lexuses, and the 84" plasma and "home theater" system.

[viaripatti]

Sometimes I get very paranoid of the issue of education. I realize its downfall involves about 5 major components: 1.)Teacher Pay too low. 2.) Too much emphasis on credentials-some people are just great teachers regardless of papers; "no child left behind" got rid of some fabulous teachers in my son's school.
3.) Balkanized theories of discipline distracting the process
4.) Broken funding process
5.) Needless fights over subject matter(c'mon intelligent design is crap compared to Darwin)

BUT, I still think that the radical right WANT kids to not be able to reason and thereby vote on simplistic issues of fear and loathing. After all, that other stuff is too hard and wonky.

This is a hit and run so I won't be back to take my expected lumps from the Seacrests of the world :-))

[davester]

[quote voodoopenguin][quote davester]I'm with cbelt. I went to school in england until 8th grade, where the hours are much longer and the summer vacation only 3 weeks long.
Which England was this? Not the England as in the UK as our summer holidays have never been as low as 3 weeks, certainly not in the 50+years I know of and that is for both public and private education. Must have been a special school.

The school summer holiday starts towards the end of July and ends at the beginning of September so is usually 6 weeks long.
Interesting. Is it a regional thing? I went to school near Portsmouth in Hampshire. Public education. My recollection is 3 weeks, because our family would head out on a camping holiday the second we got out, and I'd return to school the day after we got back. Also, we weren't released until 4:30 pm each day. It was an incredible (good) shock moving to the US. Suddenly summer vacation was 3 full months and school was released at 2:30 pm. It felt like an all year vacation.