Liberal Parenting

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More school? Obama could trim summer break

WASHINGTON - Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.

Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom."

Read the rest here- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33054056/ns/us_news-education/

#1:   Are people finally going to start paying teachers what they are worth?  Ohio schools are funded by homeowner's taxes.  Homeowners are already strapped to the max with taxes.  Teachers are currently paid for 9 months and so many hours of work.  Increasing the school year would mean increasing their pay which is already too low.  Who is going to be willing to pay teachers what their time is worth year round.  It's almost not worth it for a person to pay for a college degree to become a teacher.  You can barely pay off your loans on a teacher's salary as it it.

#2:  Kids are like cups.  You can only fill them with so much information at a time. and then it just spills over. 

#3:  Lengthening the school day does nothing but take more time away from homework, family, and the extra things that make a child well rounded, such as music, sports, dance, 4-H, Girl and Boy Scouts, and church activities and youth groups.

#4:  I can see where the president and his education dept. can see where his ideas would benefit certain schools and areas in the U.S., but many schools already have excellent plans and extra-curricular programs in place.  The only problem is that Mr. Bush put No Child Left Behind into effect and now localities are responsible for funding a federal mandated program with no federal support.  Schools are going bankrupt.  This plan can not and should not take place on top of NCLB.

This is something that should be localized and just as No Child Left Behind should be scrapped and education put back into the hands of the communities, this should remain local. 

As always, I completely agree with you - and you stated it better than I could!

When I read this my first thought was - with what money??  One of our local districts just had a levy defeated - they cut all sports, all extra-curriculars, all after school programs ... and that's just one district.  Other local districts also are weighing cutting programs and sports.   Several districts have frozen teachers wages and are looking at increasing the % teachers pay for benefits.  With these funding concerns NOW here in Ohio how could they possibly pay for longer school days, longer school years, more after school programs, etc??  It's just not doable.  And besides staffing costs there would be additonal other expenses - A/C all summer, more electricity and water costs if the buildings are open later, just to name a couple off the top of my head.

There's got to be a better solution.  I think scrapping No Child Left Behind would be a good start!  Oh don't even get me started on that!!! 

I agree that we spend less time in classrooms than other first world countries and that we are behind-no denying that! But with everyone so strapped I don't see how its feasable. My boys go to an A class school and the school has great ways to expand on kids learning during the summer.

One, you could take home a summer math packet and if you got it done you get to have lunch with the principal once a month all school year. My boys worship the principal-he plays football with the kids at recess, and they both were very excited to do the packet.

There were also summer school packets for kids who were weak in a subject area that you could order fairly cheaply, and do on your own time. I didn't order those, since we had the math packets and library reading program and I have a son who recieves vision therapy-which is more work for him.

I think these take home summer programs are a much cheaper way to get us caught up. I know all parents won't take the time to do that kind of thing, but theres always going to be varying degrees of involvement with different parents.