obama lengthen school year
What do you think about lengthening the school days/year?
Apparently Obama wants to extend the school day and or school year. I’ve generally been opposed to everything he’s done to date, but this idea doesn’t appear to be with out merit. Pros and Cons everyone? Is the school duration the problem?
As a teacher, I can personally attest to the fact that lengthening the school day doesn’t really do any good. Last year the kids stayed until 4:00 (extra 15 min per day) and our state test scores went way down that year. Students simply are not productive when they are in school for long days, and neither are teachers, especially that last part of the day. As far as lengthening the school year, I am opposed to that as well. The problem is not how long our days are, or how long the school year is. The problem is that our failing schools (I work at one) are not getting the resources needed to even stay afloat, much less make decent progress. And when you pit us with schools that aren’t failing, and have enough staff,etc, schools like mine are always going to come out on bottom. When you have schools that have a rough student population, more time is not the answer. The answer is giving them more resources to make their time BETTER while they are in school. Not to sound negative, but I have worked at rough schools my entire career, and these are my observations.
