the Leacher's union will never go along with it so it's a moot point...
Posted on 01/13/2013 11:04:35 AM PST by madison10
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....
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
But I’d love to see union teachers have to show up in the summer.
All the money in America spent in schools cannot fix what is wrong in the many kids’ homes — dysfunctional families, drug and alcohol abuse, instability, living on the edge of poverty, abuse by Mom’s live in boyfriend.
A lot of that comes from breaking down the kids’ foundations of married dad and mom parents raising them. :(
Or, as my Mexican-born friend said after unruly kids tore through her subdivision ... “Where are their fathers?”
Staying in school longer does not make up for having to study worthless subjects. The US cannot compete with other countries because other countries don’t waste their time teaching gender equality, minority studies, and other worthless crap.
The only reason Duncan wants a longer school year is so BIG government will have more time to brainwash and indoctrinate the kids while also providing babysitting services and taxpayer subsidized meals to them.
They’re not learning anything useful now, so spending more time doing nothing useful will have no beneficial effect.
It doesn’t matter,no matter if it is 90 days, 180 days or 210 days, “garbage in is garbage out.” (GIGO)
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
I’m taking a break from writing lesson plans for the upcoming week. I’d agree with the above writer about the indoctrination, but I have to add some comments from someone inside the trenches.
First, if possible, homeschool your kids. I realize that sounds self-destructive coming from a public school teacher. The facts are, however, that one-on-one learning between a parent and a child will practically always be superior to the 25-to-1 ratio in my classroom, no matter how well I teach. I’ve seen one failed homeschooling family, and dozens of successful ones. Yes, that’s anecdote, but I think I can safely generalize it to the larger population.
Second, while there are many problems with indoctrination, there are a lot more conservative teachers out there than you may realize, and we’re busy undermining the leftist establishment one child at a time. My colleague down the hall has his kids read “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “Animal Farm.” My kids are reading Solzhenitsyn. I have tenure, too. Try to fire me for teaching my students that John Locke posited the idea that natural rights emerge from God.
There’s also a problem with indoctrination that is easy to predict from its failure throughout the world. In the Soviet system, students quickly became cynical and disinterested when they discovered that all they had to do for an A was to include Marxist dialectic in any paper they wrote. The same is happening in my school. Most kids find race-based propaganda to be humorous (thanks to “South Park”), feminism to be on par with fairy tales, and Obama to be corrupt, foolish, and useless. The most popular meme circulating among my students last fall was the Obamaphone lady.
What happens in my classes, ever year, is that students routinely forget much of their learning in the summer, and we have to reteach it in the fall. I’d like to have schools year-round. Of course, I’d also like to have privatization, or at least vouchers, but that probably won’t happen during my lifetime. Someday, though. In any case, my point is that learning has to be consistent to be effective, and American schools don’t provide that consistently.
It’s a mess, though. Got to get back to work. Be well.
How much time do they really need to learn how to put a condom on a banana?
bingo
The education they are getting is propaganda filled crap. They don’t need more of what they are doing.
If you had a factory that never meets production standards, and thr products it turns out are deeply flawed, how does adding a 3rd shift correct the problem?
That extra 2-3 weeks they tacked on since I was in school doesn’t seem to have helped.
They probably don’t need to lengthen it, merely restructure it to replace the long summer break with more but shorter breaks.
yep
The question is phrased wrong.
“will a longer school year help or hurt the teachers union and their funding?”
There fixed it.
The only reason they want longer school hours is to prove that teachers need more money than the ridiculous amount they are currently paid (with more bennies).
Another reason is that today’s mothers want the school to continue being a baby-sitter for the masses and if the schools could baby-sit their little monsters all year long it would be great and give mom even more time to “screw off” and enjoy her “off” time.
The communists like it because it gives them even greater time to indoctrinate their captive students even more and “brain washing” could be accomplished in a much faster and meaningful way due to longer hours and days.
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”.
the Leacher's union will never go along with it so it's a moot point...
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