Education: Longer school day and calendar.

[bobjustbob]

No doubt that USA is falling behind in this area. I think it's a good idea. An extra hour in school, add a few more weeks. Still there is opposition to this. Unions for one. Parents? What do you think? The longer your kids spend in school the better educated they will be.

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/01/gov_christie_to_seek_longer_school_days_and_school_years.html

 

[Mayhem]

There should be a Constitutional Amendment that states that every dollar spent on defense gets matched by a dollar on education.

 

[Rey C.]

Even though I don't have kids, education is probably my biggest pet peeve and the thing that concerns me most about the future of our republic. I'm not sure (really don't know) if a longer school day or more money are the answers, or if it more comes down to what kids are being taught and how they're being taught.

Kids are treated like spoiled, fragile babies now and they seem to be acting the part... well into early adulthood. But with the U.S. slipping further and further behind the rest of the world in math and science, we surely have to do something... like yesterday! It's very difficult to get kids to understand that a good education, while not a guarantee of future success, is the one thing (about the only thing) that no one can ever take away from you. And with it, you'll have more options going forward. But because they're short-sighted babies, without a guarantee that they will be millionaires if they go to college or technical school, too many kids in the U.S. are content to be slackers and sponge off of their parents or society these days.

 

[mongo18]

I think shortening the summer vac is definitely the way to go, 12 weeks is just way too long for a kid to be out of school. But I don't necessarily believe it means there has to be more time at school. In Australia we had 6 weeks for summer, and then 3 more 2 week vacations spread throughout the year. Shorter terms and more frequent breaks are better for kids energy levels and retention I think.
I do agree with the common opinion that kids aren't coming out of school with the same set of skills they were 20 or 50 years ago. I don't know if I would place all of the blame for that on schools, and even if I did it certainly wouldn't be any single factor, it's a whole bunch of factors and as such there is no silver bullet, there's only so much you can force into a kid in a single day, and I'd be pretty skeptical about how both students and teachers are going to respond to it.

 

[Mayhem]

I think shortening the summer vac is definitely the way to go, 12 weeks is just way too long for a kid to be out of school. But I don't necessarily believe it means there has to be more time at school. In Australia we had 6 weeks for summer, and then 3 more 2 week vacations spread throughout the year. Shorter terms and more frequent breaks are better for kids energy levels and retention I think.
I do agree with the common opinion that kids aren't coming out of school with the same set of skills they were 20 or 50 years ago. I don't know if I would place all of the blame for that on schools, and even if I did it certainly wouldn't be any single factor, it's a whole bunch of factors and as such there is no silver bullet, there's only so much you can force into a kid in a single day, and I'd be pretty skeptical about how both students and teachers are going to respond to it.

I think the teachers would respond favorably to it, overall. A longer school year would mean more money for them, and they probably want/need it.

 

[mongo18]

I think most teachers are salaried, I could be wrong.

 

[Lacey Black]

I don't agree with this at all. Its not the quantity of education that is the problem in this country, its the quality of it.

 

[bobjustbob]

I don't agree with this at all. Its not the quantity of education that is the problem in this country, its the quality of it.

By asking for quality you are also asking for quantity. There's a lot more kids have to know now than 50 years ago. The 180 day school calendar is antiquated and can't handle this extra information they need. I can't see the teachers fighting this because 3 or so more weeks of work still gives them a nice summer layover.

 

[Lacey Black]

By asking for quality you are also asking for quantity. There's a lot more kids have to know now than 50 years ago. The 180 day school calendar is antiquated and can't handle this extra information they need. I can't see the teachers fighting this because 3 or so more weeks of work still gives them a nice summer layover.

Not necessarily. There is a lot of wasted time in school already because of teaching kids things that don't help them learn essential skills. If they would take that time and compact it down to teaching children things they need to know to survive in the real world and hire teachers that are enthusiastic about teaching they would be receiving a higher quality education. Also I do not think they should shorten kids summer, you only get to be a child once, overloading a kids childhood with too much responsibility is unhealthy. Every kid will grow up and have plenty of years to work all summer, take care of their own families, etc.

 

[bobjustbob]

I can't tell you how many different ways that I disagree with you. What do kids do when they're not in school? For the most part, wasting time. Why not take some of that time and put it into good use? An hour or 2 a day without Xbox and their phone won't hurt anyone. They don't have to spend that extra time behind a desk. They can do projects. Have a field trip. Teachers are creative people and have an interest in their students achieving. There is more kids need to know now than yesterday. It's unfair to the kids and teachers to try and cram that extra stuff into the same 180 day time frame.

 

[Rattrap]

I don't know the specifics or how it would work with the earlier schooling, but here in Germany they're very big on getting kids into work-study placements in high school. I was touring a factory where they make all kinds of sensors and was surprised at how many high school-aged kids were working there. Apparently that's perfectly normal; a lot of kids out of the equivalent to high school here graduate said high with work experience. I'd imagine that allows the kids who work much better hands-on instead of sitting in classrooms to flourish and flourish with real, useful skills, as well as getting them to be productive earlier on. All of this of course requires will from the private sector, which I can't say anything about one way or another with regards to the US.

But here, it works and it works well. Germany's the economic engine running Europe.

 

[bw18081]

It's unfair to the kids and teachers to try and cram that extra stuff into the same 180 day time frame.

Bob, I completely agree with you; however, from personal experience, this fact is irrelevant in my local school district. If the teachers were teaching to their fullest potential, they would definitely need more time to add in the non-traditional subjects like the explosion in technology that didn't exist decades ago.

To illustrate with a couple of examples: last year my sister took college prep chemistry in high school. The teacher wasted (by her estimate) approximately 20-25 minutes a day. After concluding his lesson plan for the day, he allowed the students to do anything they wanted, and I mean quite literally anything: use their phones, talk, etc. The classes are 85 minutes and they run for one semester, 90 days. After running through some calculations, this equates to approximately 30 hours of wasted time, which is equivalent to the total in-class time for most standard college courses. That is, the time they wasted is the same amount of time one would spend in class in Chemistry "101" at most universities, keeping in mind that chemistry is already a difficult subject.

During my time at the same school, I took AP Calculus. I'll basically repeat the same story as above, but in this case it was over the full 180 days and we wasted about 30 minutes a day. That's about 90 hours over the year, or 3 college courses. I can also repeat this for other classes, and I don't even want to get started discussing how much of a joke my shop was [it is partially a vocational school].

My youngest brother is in junior high and I can't even be positive that his math teacher is present because every day he has questions to the most basic of problems and no notes to refer to. Yet, he immediately understands it when I explain it.

What's ironic is that my district is considered one of the best in my state, and yet, graduating fifth in my class, I feel my knowledge is in spite of my high schooling. My best friend who is getting his PhD in electrical engineering, and attended the same high school and college as I, has said the same thing.

The teachers in my district appear to be failing to even fill the time they are given, or putting in sufficient effort, so it makes it hard for me to argue that they need even more time.

 

[Rey C.]

Not necessarily. There is a lot of wasted time in school already because of teaching kids things that don't help them learn essential skills. If they would take that time and compact it down to teaching children things they need to know to survive in the real world and hire teachers that are enthusiastic about teaching they would be receiving a higher quality education. Also I do not think they should shorten kids summer, you only get to be a child once, overloading a kids childhood with too much responsibility is unhealthy. Every kid will grow up and have plenty of years to work all summer, take care of their own families, etc.

I just wanted to highlight the portions that I totally agree with. With all of the tools (computers, tablets, multi-media, video conferencing, etc.) that kids and teachers have access to now, I would expect the teaching and learning experience to be more efficient and effective, not less. But going by our global rankings vs. the rest of the world, we continue to sink. My mother is from a totally different era of education. In her day there were no computers or even calculators. But kids still took Latin, in order to improve their knowledge of English and the Romance languages. Conjugating verbs is the same now as it was 70 years ago. So why can't kids these days speak standard English???!!! Why can't kids these days write complete sentences???!!! Why can't they perform basic math calculations???!!! Why did my mother know more about more subjects when she graduated 70+ years ago than a kid who graduates now... and has an iPad under her arm?! The tools have become toys - it's not working!

My mother went on to become a teacher. And my ex-girlfriend was a special ed teacher before she became an administrator. From my mother's era as a teacher to my ex's, teachers went from being educators to being babysitters. I'm not saying this to pick on any particular group (pick any group and use it as an example). But in my opinion, time spent "socializing" kids to be good, little, politically correct citizens with the right views, is a waste of time. If you're gay, be gay. It's no one's business what you are or what you believe. But we don't need classes that include Heather Has Two Mommies. We need classes that teach Heather that 2+2=4 or that 4 squared is 16 (I actually dealt with a young "engineer" that didn't know that!). Kids should be able to balance a checkbook when they graduate - basic accounting should be a requirement prior to graduation. And anyone who was born in this country should be able to speak standard English! It kills me that I hear non-natives who can speak English better than someone born here - but that's pretty common these days.


IMO, go back to teaching the basics and the rest will take care of itself.

 

[delta9]

I do not agree that the kids today are asked to learn more useful information than we did. Math is still math. What they do have are more distractions. Why does a kid need to troll their Facebook account and stay up late on the phone while using the internet and playing video games? How many kids today read books or even magazines? It seems like the emphasis has been taken off of the core skills and they are now focusing on what we would have called "electives" when I was in school. My typical day had me going to school, then sports practice, then dinner, then homework. Call it a day. Somewhere along the line that model has become unacceptable for the kids of today. There is no need for socializing on school nights. If they are so concerned with how the kids are faring in school, why is there no mention of the lack of parental involvement? In my home it was unacceptable to come home with lousy grades. In schools today, it has become acceptable to blame the teacher if a child is failing. My parents would have throttled me if I came home with a poor grade and tried to blame the teacher. Maybe they need to treat school like a real responsibility and not just a place they are forced to attend.

 

[bahodeme]

A few of the posts refer to teaching core skills. The problem is the school systems are rated on how well they score on a standardized test. So the educators set up the curriculum based on that test. This is why there are a lot of students in college taking courses for those core skills. Also look at the schedule of some students. In my area, High School classes start at 7:30AM. Think back, how receptive were any of us to learn that early as a teenager. I've also seen some of the homework my niece has. Unless it's War and Peace, what is the need of a ten page book report? This is the same example goes for her other classes as far as homework.
Also thanks to technology, there are fomulas, etc. that most students really do not have to remember. But then again, the first budget cuts are to education. Why, very few students are old enough to vote. I have not heard in passing about parent-teacher conferences as when I was in school. The culture has decided mediocrity is now its benchmark. So is it really a surprise that education is lagging?

 

[Rey C.]

A few of the posts refer to teaching core skills. The problem is the school systems are rated on how well they score on a standardized test. So the educators set up the curriculum based on that test. This is why there are a lot of students in college taking courses for those core skills. Also look at the schedule of some students. In my area, High School classes start at 7:30AM. Think back, how receptive were any of us to learn that early as a teenager. I've also seen some of the homework my niece has. Unless it's War and Peace, what is the need of a ten page book report? This is the same example goes for her other classes as far as homework.

Also thanks to technology, there are fomulas, etc. that most students really do not have to remember. But then again, the first budget cuts are to education. Why, very few students are old enough to vote. I have not heard in passing about parent-teacher conferences as when I was in school. The culture has decided mediocrity is now its benchmark. So is it really a surprise that education is lagging?

Great points! And yes, I think that (strictly) teaching to a standardized test has done great harm to many school districts. And as much as technology can (and should be) an educational aid, when students no longer know how to perform tasks when they do not have access to their computers, iPads or iPhones, their education to that point has little value. When I was in elementary school, calculators were just coming into widespread use. But we were not allowed to use calculators in school. The thinking was, if we knew how to perform calculations long hand, then (and only then) should we be allowed to use the shortcut/quick method. Now I'm spoiled. I still (roughly) remember how to calculate things like NPVs and IRRs long hand, but I reach for my HP12C like it's an extension of my arm. Understanding the basic mechanics of what you're doing will help you to understand why you're doing whatever it is that you're doing

Where I work now, there is an older gentleman who just has a high school diploma. He's worked at this company for about as long as I have been alive. He is truly "old school". Last year, about the time that I first joined the company, I was working on a project in his area. To look at him, you'd think he was just an average Joe. But he blew me away. He had more knowledge of trigonometry and calculus in his head than I could find on a laptop. There I stood, an ex-banker with an MBA, an Econ degree and a wall of professional certifications, and this high school grad in his 60's was showing me what was what. Through his years of experience, he had built a head full of practical knowledge. And he did that while only having a basic formal education. I've grown to like and appreciate him. I've often told him that my next job is to clone him before he retires next year. Why? Because he'll likely be replaced by some 20-something hoople-head, who thinks that he's an engineer because he knows how to play Grand Theft Auto on an Xbox. We have several of those where I work too. Dealing with them makes me look forward to retiring early. Most of them are just talking babies who have not an ounce of practical knowledge. From my mother (who is ahead of his generation) to this fellow to me to the young hoople-heads, I believe you could almost draw a downward sloping trendline of degradation in education or practical knowledge. It's truly scary to think what the next generation will look like.

BTW, do you also think that one problem with the American educational system is our society at large? What I mean is, when you look at Asian societies (Japan, China, South Korea and even India) they see the extreme importance of being well educated - and having practical as well as theoretical knowledge. IMO, our focus is more on (too much on) superficial, social things: do you feel good about yourself? If you're a screw-up, as long as no one is allowed to call you a screw-up, you're OK, I'm OK, we're OK. Are you good at sports? Are you popular? Are you a bully? Are you being bullied? Do you have ADDHD ABCDEFG? Do you need some Ritalin? Or maybe Adderall? Between parents who aren't really parents and a society that doesn't value objective learning, maybe it's no surprise that our kids are as ill-prepared as they are once they graduate.

Any extreme is not good. But to be honest, I think I would rather read stories about American kids jumping out of buildings to commit suicide because they got a bad grade (like Japanese kids), rather than shooting their teacher and schoolmates because someone made fun of them for not having the latest model Nike shoes.

 

[Will E Worm]

Year round school and move the driving age to eighteen.

 

[bahodeme]

Great points! And yes, I think that (strictly) teaching to a standardized test has done great harm to many school districts. And as much as technology can (and should be) an educational aid, when students no longer know how to perform tasks when they do not have access to their computers, iPads or iPhones, their education to that point has little value. When I was in elementary school, calculators were just coming into widespread use. But we were not allowed to use calculators in school. The thinking was, if we knew how to perform calculations long hand, then (and only then) should we be allowed to use the shortcut/quick method. Now I'm spoiled. I still (roughly) remember how to calculate things like NPVs and IRRs long hand, but I reach for my HP12C like it's an extension of my arm. Understanding the basic mechanics of what you're doing will help you to understand why you're doing whatever it is that you're doing

Where I work now, there is an older gentleman who just has a high school diploma. He's worked at this company for about as long as I have been alive. He is truly "old school". Last year, about the time that I first joined the company, I was working on a project in his area. To look at him, you'd think he was just an average Joe. But he blew me away. He had more knowledge of trigonometry and calculus in his head than I could find on a laptop. There I stood, an ex-banker with an MBA, an Econ degree and a wall of professional certifications, and this high school grad in his 60's was showing me what was what. Through his years of experience, he had built a head full of practical knowledge. And he did that while only having a basic formal education. I've grown to like and appreciate him. I've often told him that my next job is to clone him before he retires next year. Why? Because he'll likely be replaced by some 20-something hoople-head, who thinks that he's an engineer because he knows how to play Grand Theft Auto on an Xbox. We have several of those where I work too. Dealing with them makes me look forward to retiring early. Most of them are just talking babies who have not an ounce of practical knowledge. From my mother (who is ahead of his generation) to this fellow to me to the young hoople-heads, I believe you could almost draw a downward sloping trendline of degradation in education or practical knowledge. It's truly scary to think what the next generation will look like.

BTW, do you also think that one problem with the American educational system is our society at large? What I mean is, when you look at Asian societies (Japan, China, South Korea and even India) they see the extreme importance of being well educated - and having practical as well as theoretical knowledge. IMO, our focus is more on (too much on) superficial, social things: do you feel good about yourself? If you're a screw-up, as long as no one is allowed to call you a screw-up, you're OK, I'm OK, we're OK. Are you good at sports? Are you popular? Are you a bully? Are you being bullied? Do you have ADDHD ABCDEFG? Do you need some Ritalin? Or maybe Adderall? Between parents who aren't really parents and a society that doesn't value objective learning, maybe it's no surprise that our kids are as ill-prepared as they are once they graduate.

Any extreme is not good. But to be honest, I think I would rather read stories about American kids jumping out of buildings to commit suicide because they got a bad grade (like Japanese kids), rather than shooting their teacher and schoolmates because someone made fun of them for not having the latest model Nike shoes.

Rey C,
I agree with you. I've mentioned in several posts how education is not high on the list of U.S. society. One of the other things is there is no Phys. Ed. In some schools, there is no recess, just lunch. Most kids need to run off that energy and if it's not outside playing, it will be disrupting class. Then Oh no, your child has mental/emotional issues comes into play. The next that goes is music. You use math in dealing with notes (1/2, 1/4, etc). When I was in school, we would have field trips at least every 3 months. This was cut out in that school system. So there is no exposure to things outside of that student's community. Hence when they meet someone or experience something different,, They have no reference to handle it. It's not just the parent's fault. I blame every taxpayer (including myself) because this is our tax money being squandered and we are not holding those resposible accountable.