(California) School Year Shrinking As Budget Crisis Grows

SF Gate ^ | July 19. 2010 | Louis Freeberg

[Spktyr]

Just as education experts are encouraging more classroom time to improve student grades and test scores, many California districts are moving in the opposite direction by shortening their school year amid a sustained and draining budget crisis.

Sixteen of the state's 30 largest school districts, including San Francisco, San Jose and Fremont in the Bay Area, are reducing the number of days in the academic year, according to a survey by California Watch. The changes are expected to affect about 1.4 million students.

Educators say a shrinking school year, along with other cuts, could depress hard-won academic gains in recent years. It is a dramatic illustration, they say, of how the state's budget crisis is eroding the core of public education in California.

The move comes amid cutbacks in other aspects of public education, including rolling back or eliminating the state's program intended to limit class sizes in the early grades to 20 students.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/18/MNQ01EFBET.DTL#ixzz0uBSpuuvb

[Spktyr]

So, let's see how this works in California.... let's shortchange the kids, give the teachers some more free days off, but no, we can't cut staff positions because they'd strike, or reduce the pay of our workers because our computer techs are too stupid to adjust the payroll programs, and we can't cut positions anywhere else - but we can shortchange the kids!

Yeah... great idea, guys.

[Signalman]

Does it really matter?

[Spktyr]

Would you please double-check to make sure this is a proper excerpt and fix it if it isn’t? I’m not sure the excerpting worked properly... Thanks.

[ebersole]

If they try really hard maybe they can beat our district in Colorado in which the elementary students were in class a whomping 157 days!!!!

[null and void]

SV ping?

[tflabo]

Just a few more less days that the kids are not indoctrinated with leftist, socialist propaganda-—silver lining in disguise.

[rbbeachkid]

I think that the fewer days that they are in public school, the better off they will be.

[silverleaf]

“hard won academic gains”?

Is the graduation rate in LA above 30%?

[martin_fierro]

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[martin_fierro]

whups

[married21]

Our district’s schedule will be five days shorter. I don’t mind it. My kids will do fine. They are independent learners who could do some assignments at home, if they need a little practice. As standards slip in school and among busy parents, my kids will just do that much better than the competition on their grades and SATs.

[Pining_4_TX]

Agreed. These kids will be smarter for having spent fewer days in the government schools. The parents won’t be happy about losing some of their subsidized babysitting service, though.