Obama Makes a Push To Add Time To the School Year

N!NJA sends in a proposal that is sure to cause some discussion, especially among students and teachers. Obama and his education secretary say that American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage in comparison to 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.' '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. ... '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.' ... Kids in the US spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the US 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)."

Someone's gotta say it

[Anonymous Coward]

He's obviously a communist Nazi dictator trying to indoctrinate our children through socialized education. He must be stopped and freedom and liberty must prevail.

Re:Waste MORE time!?

[DAldredge]

"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." Was reading the article really that difficult?

Re:Someone's gotta say it

[Hognoxious]

Hear hear. If distinguished physicist Stephen Hawking had been born in a country with UK style socialized education, he'd be digging ditches today.

Re:Waste MORE time!?

[exley]

Of my 6 classes (3 of which are AP) and can already get my normal day's worth of homework done during downtime before I leave school.

Sounds like you could stand to "waste" a little more time in English class...

Re:Waste MORE time!?

[joocemann]

No way man. (bart quote, lol). Blue collar workers cannot afford 1500+ sqft homes unless they are renting. Not anymore, at least.

We used to be able to refine our work in trades or education and own a nice family home --- yet more and more we find the middle class renting and the wealthy-class as landlords.

I'd make a modest proposal, but the situation (wealth disparity) is not quite dire yet.

Re:Waste MORE time!?

[linuxrocks123]

Frasier: upper middle-class radio personality lives in a three-bedroom apartment in Seattle with his father and home healthcare worker.
Seinfield: middle-class single comedian lives alone in a medium-size one-bedroom apartment. You do have to ignore Kramer...

I'm sure I could think of others.

Re:Waste MORE time!?

[OrangeCatholic]

There's some irony. You make it sound like athletics dooms a person to depressive mediocrity. And being a math nerd, walled off in a building full of other math nerds, somehow is neither depressive nor mediocre.

Re:Waste MORE time!?

[Capsaicin]

I guess this is a cultural thing, as you pointed out: because this state of affairs hasn't grown up in a vacuun, and society here does value achievement in these subject areas. Kids are rewarded for doing well, and even more amazingly respected by their peers who don't get results which are as good.

You know the other day I took my eldest (8 yr old) son for a walk throught UNSW campus, known locally (Sydney.au) as the "University of Hong Kong," for the unusually low number of caucasian faces you will encounter there. My kid asked me, "does this mean the universities in China are full of Australians?" :)

"No it means something else altogether. Think about this ... How many Chinese are there in the Australian Cricket team?"
"None."
"Right, and how many Chinese are there in the Socceroos?"
"None."
"And how many Asians are there in the Wallabies &tc. &tc.
...
"You see what this means is that while Australians [by which I mean Anglo-Australians, but I'm talking to an 8yr old] only value sports, Asians actually value learning! :o So when you get teased at school for not being good at sport and for being too good at school, just think about that, and think about what they'll be doing when you're at Uni."

[Actually I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth: They'll be training to become tradespeople ... the gross, lazy and overpaid ruling class of the Australian idiocracy.]

Re:Waste MORE time!?

[Stupid Crunt]

Hmmm...from my experience with hospitals, I thought that all registered nurses studied Stalin as a role model.