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Will longer school year help or hurt US students?
SeattlePI ^

Posted on 01/13/2013 5:39:15 AM PST by SMGFan

Did your kids moan that winter break was way too short as you got them ready for the first day back in school? They might get their wish of more holiday time off under proposals catching on around the country to lengthen the school year.

But there's a catch: a much shorter summer vacation. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a chief proponent of the longer school year, says American students have fallen behind the world academically. "Whether educators have more time to enrich instruction or students have more time to learn how to play an instrument and write computer code, adding meaningful in-school hours is a critical investment that better prepares children to be successful in the 21st century," he said in December when five states announced they would add at least 300 hours to the academic calendar in some schools beginning this year.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/article/Will-longer-school-year-help-or-hurt-US-students-4190127.php#ixzz2HrWCWLoG

(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: education; learning; schools; teaching
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Well it will hurt the teachers. /s

JCEA "First in Quality Education"

1 posted on 01/13/2013 5:39:18 AM PST by SMGFan
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To: SMGFan

The less time victims spend in the indoctrination centers, the better.


2 posted on 01/13/2013 5:41:25 AM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: cripplecreek

It comes as no surprise that the Feds would want to regulate the length of the school year oblivious to the fact that school calendars and curricula are regulated by the State boards of education.


3 posted on 01/13/2013 5:45:27 AM PST by T. Rustin Noone (the angel wanna wear my red shoes......)
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To: cripplecreek

If the government and teacher’s union is for it, then I’m against it.


4 posted on 01/13/2013 5:46:12 AM PST by Founding Father (The Pedophile moHAMmudd (PBUH---Pigblood be upon him))
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To: cripplecreek
They kill kids in the womb and the remainder are killed in the brain.

The epitome Totalitarianism.

It's only a matter of time before we old farts are gone and no more "from my cold dead hands" and "The will to kill" and "Remember Ruby Ridge" and Benghazi and ...

The list is too long.

Miss America is a gun grabbin' fugly bitch from NY ... sorry NY'ers ... she's a mutt

5 posted on 01/13/2013 5:53:02 AM PST by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: SMGFan

Aside from the free babysitting, why anyone who went to school would want more of it is a mystery to me.


6 posted on 01/13/2013 5:55:55 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
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To: cripplecreek
The less time victims spend in the indoctrination centers, the better.

That sums it up nicely. When the car you're driving has three flat tires the answer is not to drive it a little longer.

7 posted on 01/13/2013 5:59:48 AM PST by Fzob (In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. Jefferson)
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To: SMGFan

45%-75% of high school students don’t belong in school.

Keeping them longer, while continuing to tolerate their resistance to being there, is a serious error.


8 posted on 01/13/2013 6:01:44 AM PST by Jim Noble (When strong, avoid them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.)
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To: knarf

You made me Google her. OK, she’s not ugly, but this isn’t a beauty pageant anymore. It’s a test of political correctness.


9 posted on 01/13/2013 6:01:54 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
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To: knarf

Why apologize to New Yorkers? They are the problem.


10 posted on 01/13/2013 6:02:18 AM PST by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 .....The fairest Deduction to be reduced is the Standard Deduction)
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To: knarf
Ha Ha! Miss America is actually a Alabamian who moved to New York.
11 posted on 01/13/2013 6:04:06 AM PST by Coldwater Creek (He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadows of the Almighty Psalm 91:)
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To: SMGFan

There is a certain percentage of students who underachieve in school. Spending more money and extending the schoolyear won’t change this.


12 posted on 01/13/2013 6:14:37 AM PST by umgud
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To: SMGFan

Summer off is the only reason my wife still teaches.


13 posted on 01/13/2013 6:45:16 AM PST by Sybeck1
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To: SMGFan

Actually this is an excellent idea.

Better still revamp the schools into a sort of dormitory-classroom setting and keep the students at school 24 hours per day and 52 weeks each year. Don’t graduate anyone and the unemployment problem will be solved. Family budgets will shrink as the students will be fed all meals at the school.

No Christmas vacation because God is not allowed in schools but crazed maniacs and overzealous politically correct administrators are. No more parent teacher’s conferences and no more report cards and notes floating home.

If a member of our Congress should read this I predict a bill will be introduced by someone like Maxine Waters (that paragon of patriotism) who will see the true value of such a proposal.


14 posted on 01/13/2013 6:49:33 AM PST by IbJensen (Liberals are like Slinkies, good for nothing, but you smile as you push them down the stairs.)
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To: SMGFan
Extending the school day and school year has NOTHING to do with furthering the education of the students. It has EVERYTHING to do with the cradle-to-grave nanny state liberal doctrine. All the "parents" have to do is insert Part A into Part B, same as any assembly instructions. The Socialist state will take it from there. Schools are now expected to feed the students 2 meals a day, even during the summer (!), educate them, provide medical, psychological, and social services for them, make sure their "parents" aren't abusing them, make sure their "parents" even know they're not attending school, etc. Many if not most of the students have part time jobs and plenty have to work to buy their own clothing, the parents can't afford to. So they can't turn in their report because they were shoveling burgers during public library hours. They didn't have a quiet place in the home to write it anyway, and likely were being asked to babysit younger siblings, too.

The students don't pay attention now, with shorter school days. Their nervous systems never developed the capacity for sitting for long periods of time and paying attention. They need constant entertainment, in the form of listening to music with ipods or playing around with their cell phones. I don't allow anyone to listen to ipods or use their cellphones, but plenty of teachers have capitulated, because every other word out of their mouth has been, "Please put that cellphone away" or "Lose the ipod" instead of teaching. How on earth can you learn anything of the material at hand when only part of your attention is being used to listen to a lesson and take notes? Too bad they don't offer courses in ipod-ology or cell phone usage. They'd ace those, for sure.

After ALL this expenditure, the college readiness scores for these students is appalling, and don't you know, it's the TEACHER'S fault every time. You can lead a horse to water, as they say...

15 posted on 01/13/2013 7:00:08 AM PST by EinNYC
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To: SMGFan

Typical government thinking.... The system has given failures upon failures. Let’s have more of it.


16 posted on 01/13/2013 7:01:27 AM PST by martian622 (The Revolution is being televised.)
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To: SMGFan

“Will longer school year help or hurt US students?”

Just a ploy to get more teachers hired, to increase their pay and increase the brainwashing of the children.


17 posted on 01/13/2013 7:09:53 AM PST by kenmcg (scapegoat)
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To: kenmcg

More is not better. If you always do what you’ve always done, you will get the same results.

IMO, it’s not the length of time the kids are in school, it’s what is done while they are in school. Simply, get rid of all the extra “crap” that does NOT make them smarter and teach the subjects that do.


18 posted on 01/13/2013 7:22:32 AM PST by DaveA37
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To: SMGFan

Many school districts do not have air conditioned buses. In Georgia, when school starts back in first week of August (hottest time of the year), kids are stuffed three in a seat in a metal box that wouldn’t be approved for pit bulls. But it’s hunky dory for our kids.


19 posted on 01/13/2013 7:23:16 AM PST by autumnraine (America how long will you be so deaf and dumb to the tumbril wheels carrying you to the guillotine?)
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To: Sybeck1

AMEN! ~ I was a stay-at-home mom for 10 years; however, I have been in the teaching profession since 1981. Longer school terms are not required for “mo-better” learning. Intact families who discipline their children at home and teach them responsibility and respect for themselves and others is the “missing ingredient”.


20 posted on 01/13/2013 7:41:07 AM PST by lyby ("Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe." ~ Galileo Galilei)
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