Posted on 07/27/2010 9:41:20 PM PDT by Brugmansian
“In all seriousness, I think schools should be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 11-12 months of the year,” Duncan said. “This is not just more of the same. There would be a whole variety of after-school programs. Obviously academics would be at the heart of that. But you top it off with dancing, art, drama, music, yearbook, robotics, activities for older siblings and parents, ESL classes.”
He continued by explaining that the American school calendar is antiquated and must be modified so that American students can compete at the highest levels internationally.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Can you believe it? LBJ’s Great Society got power over local schools only 45-years ago.
“The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. It ended a long-standing political taboo by providing significant federal aid to public education.”
Where are the protests from the kidlets? They are always sending letters to the govt over phony school lunch cuts and global warming scare tactics. I ask again, where are the protests by the children?
I think you are right, but that would mean they'd have to hire extra help...(more budget, more prestige for administratora administrating over larger staff and faculty, big bucks, more union dues, and a thinner wallet for taxpayers...with questionable results. Home school kids have been known to knock off the same material in a fraction of the time, and the HS I went to used the Keller plan (master the packet of material, move on to the next). I wrapped up chemistry and Physics each about three months early and skated for the rest of the school year. A lot of school time was wasted then, and that was before extensive social engineering and anything beyond 10th grade 'Health' Class.
Teachers have been pushing for this for years. They won't work one minute more than they do now. They will do even less work at even higher pay as the union work force is expanded and gains more political power.
Every summer, for years, the NEA has passed the following resolution:
B-1. Early Childhood Education. The National Education Association supports early childhood education programs in the public schools for children from birth through age eight. The Association also supports a high-quality program of transition from home and/or preschool to the public kindergarten or first grade. The Association also believes that early childhood education programs should include a full continuum of services for parents/guardians and children, including child-care, child development, developmentally appropriate and diversity-based curricula, special education, and appropriate bias-free screening devices . . .
More here: Some Resolutions passed at the 2009 NEA convention
This is serious stuff. I suggest everyone read the entire article.
They want 100% of our kids and families. Like with health care, if they don’t get it this time around, they’ll come back in 10 years after getting the media to sell it and make it happen.
Combine this with LaHood’s comments on transportation and they’re setting up to build nice little communes.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2481375/posts
Here are some more choice quotes from Duncan:
“The days of telling kids to go home at 2:30 and having mom there with a peanut butter sandwich, those days are gone. Whether it’s a single parent working one, two, three jobs or two parents working, the hours from 3 o’clock to 7 o’clock are a huge anxiety, and that’s why we have to keep our schools open longer.”
Duncan highlighted what he describes as a “quiet revolution” that he feels will reform the current education system.
“This quiet revolution is driven by motivated parents who want better educational options for their children,” said Duncan. “They know how important education is to succeed and compete in the global economy, they insist on the very best, and they are willing to sacrifice to make it happen.”
Duncan also envisions a system in which schools’ structural resources such as libraries, gymnasiums and pools are shared among and are more accessible to the community.
“They don’t belong to you, me or the principal. They belong to the community,” Duncan said. “We need to keep schools open longer to where schools become the center of the neighborhood and part of family life. And when the family is learning together, students do very, very well.”
They don’t do SH!T in 6 hours as it pertains to reading, writing and math. All they want is another 6 hour of pay and the ability to indoctrinate more left wing tripe.
Parents who fall for this are handing their future generations to a country and ideology wholly anti God aand bent on the destruction of this country.
I agree. The best memories I have are of the long days of summer, sitting in the crook of the walnut tree and daydreaming... moseying down the street to the neighbor kid’s and seeing what they were up to... putting on magic shows and charging all the kids a nickel each... hide and seek just as the sun set and just before you were called in for the night... sneaking out and laying on the grass, staring at the stars in the middle of a moonlit night when it was too hot to sleep... collecting pop bottles for the deposits so you could go to a movie or pay to go for a swim at the local pool (and have enough for some chips and a soda). Summer was also a time when I read great works of literature and childhood classics... this time in a kid’s life can be golden.
Kids 50 years ago learned more by the 10th grade than some juniors in college know today and they did it on eight hours with a long summer break
For crips sake how can anyone miss that fact that the world did not pass us in education, we started running backwards!
My kids school has a non traditional schedule, instead of on very long summer break there are multiple two and three week breaks so the kids can spin down and be kids.
I disagree other than adding a course in computers (which can replace those typing classes we all loved why do we need more time?
Has Calc/Trig/Algebra changes?
Has The English language/alphabet changed?
Has History changed (enough to warrant 30 more days of school)
In an eight hour school day you can spend 1.5 on math, 1 on reading writing, 1 rotating between a foreign language/history, 1 rotating between history/physed, and 1 on science..
The problem with education in America is not hours and its not money. It’s the distraction of teaching ‘good citizenship’ and ‘tolerance’.
Its pathetic isn’t it?
I have a 5yo and a 3yo at home all day and I see them for one hour in the morning and maybe 2 hours at night, in all that time I get maybe a quality hour in.
If they put kids in 21 hours a day parents would never see them. Kid gets home at seven, eats does homework and goes to bed...
“Kids need downtime; time to do nothing; time to waste; time to try and often fail; time to oversleep; time to stare into space; time to pursue their own interests, as ‘useless’ as they may seem; time to daydream. They aren’t machines.”
+1
I just moved my kids into a home from a condo and watching them run around in the yard and hang out on swings together is close to the most rewarding experience you can have!
Kids need to be kids, they have the last 50 years of their life to work year round or to work long days, the adolescent and preadolescent brain need to do nothing but obseve the world for big chunks of time
“Kids need downtime; time to do nothing; time to waste; time to try and often fail; time to oversleep; time to stare into space; time to pursue their own interests, as ‘useless’ as they may seem; time to daydream. They aren’t machines.”
+1
I just moved my kids into a home from a condo and watching them run around in the yard and hang out on swings together is close to the most rewarding experience you can have!
Kids need to be kids, they have the last 50 years of their life to work year round or to work long days, the adolescent and preadolescent brain need to do nothing but obseve the world for big chunks of time
Our school system just got a multi-million dollar grant from the Gates Foundation to help improve the quality of the schools.
But instead of using the money in ways that will directly help the students, the teachers (unionized of course) want to use the money to give themselves more days off which means less classroom time for students.
They want to use the money to offset the loss of Federal Funds on the additional days when they would be off and the schools would be closed.
.....speechless.....
Sounds just like me. People ask me what college I graduated from. When I tell them I never completed the first year, there’s stunned silence for a few seconds, then, “How the !@#$ did you learn all that stuff?” I tell them I read a lot. Some of them are never convinced I’m not lying.
I graduated HS in ‘77 with a reasonably well rounded education from a good school in Minnesota. My first child is starting Kindergarten this fall (I’ll save ya the trouble — I’m 51 ;-) Needless to say, I’m concerned about what he’ll be learning. I’ll probably be reading his schoolbooks and assigning him extra reading to try to offset the brainwashing he’ll be getting. He’s smart, so maybe that will also help keep him from getting too bored.
However, if they ever actually start this 12 x 12 x 12 garbage, I’ll have to consider moving somewhere else to avoid losing my kids to the state. I might have considered Ukraine (my wife is from there) but they’ve gone back to a pro-Russian government, which doesn’t bode well. Perhaps that will change.
If they put kids in 21 hours a day parents would never see them. Kid gets home at seven, eats does homework and goes to bed...
. . .
I think that’s the general idea.
I use the summers to try and keep my kids from being brainwashed by their stupid liberal teachers.
If you want 12 month school years, go for it. Just keep my kids out of it.
Why have chidren at all if your going to hand them over to the government for 12 hours a day. My wife stopped working when we had our first child and did not go back to work full time until the last was in his midteens. We were not rich and sacrficed a lot to do that. That’s what you do when you have kids.
I understand that for single Mothers and for those who did not plan when they were going to have kids this is hard. Kids are not puppies and so a lot of thought and planning needs to go in advance of having children.
Mel
A lot of young kids will be committing suicide and homicide - did columbine et al teach gov’t nothing?
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