Obama says school year should be longer - States disagree

[QUOTE="berserker2389"]would this apply to college as well?UT_Wrestler

[QUOTE="magicalclick"][QUOTE="UT_Wrestler"] Most Latin-American countries' schools do only the core curriculum. Anything extra-curricular such as sports, PE, music, etc is done on your own time outside the school setting.UT_Wrestler

Personal finance and civics too.

[QUOTE="PBSnipes"]

How in the name of all that is good and holy would that help? I could be wrong, but teaching (particularly at the public-school level) has never struck me as a particularly well-compensated profession.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the US and Canada follow very similar school schedules, yet Canada generally does quite well in international education rankings (particularly when it comes to math and science). Obviously it isn't an apples to apples comparison (different demographics and such), but lengthening the school year seems like it should be more of an absolute last-resort (as others have said, spending more time in a broken system isn't necessarily going to improve the result).

airshocker

Because in my area(NY and NJ) teachers are given absolutely ridiculous benefits that they don't have to pay for. EVER. Ridiculous pensions and ridiculous healthcare and dental. It's a major drain on the state economy and is one of the major reasons why both states had to take chainsaws to their budgets.

The Teacher's union has a stranglehold on both of those states. They don't care about the students, only about themselves. We need to make it about the students.

OK each state has their own problem, so I will not argue with you on that aspect (please disregard my above post).

But as for the latter comment on your part, it is incredibly important for teachers to have a firm grip on their jobs. The performance of the students is directly related to the performance of their teacher; I would hope that any teacher worth their salt, that enjoys giving knowledge and inspiration to young people daily, would fight tooth and nail all the way to the state capital to keep their job.

My mom has done such numerous times in her career; she is currently working at a middle school in a fairly rich area of Northern California, and even there teachers, counselers, and other faculty are losing jobs and given notices daily.

My mom gives me both stories; she tells me as often about the teacher bolting for their car five minutes before schools gets out, as often as she tells me of the science teacher working 12+ hour days to ensure her students learn the material and get their results promptly.

Personally, in terms of funding, I would much rather err on the side of the good teachers and give them what they need than play it "safe" and pull funding, etc, from all of them.

The biggest obstacle will be the teachers unions who care more about their comfortable work hours then the student's education.Diablo-B

yea I dont know how I feel about this

Part of me thinks teachers should be paid hourly

Part of me thinks enough good teachers exist to warrant salary for all

Part of me thinks they should be forced to clock in, earn salary, but if their work goes under 40 hours a week they sacrifice benefits.

Idunno man...I'd like to think teaching is a noble profession, but as I said earlier I hear enough stories about lazy teachers in it for the benefits and the summer vacation.

Yes I agree. Kids (and adults for that matter) lose a lot of knowledge if they aren't being constantly stimulated. I would be perfectly okay with extending school the same way other countries have. You get a few months of school then 3 weeks of vacation. That would have been much more desirable to me when I was younger rather than have 3 straight months of nothing and being forced to relearn a lot of information.

I think this model works and I would like to see the US at least TRY something like this and see if it works. I truly think it would benefit our youth.

We need smaller schools where students can get more attention and thus better learning. Schools of a few thousand plus students simply don't work for intimate and in depth learning. ferrari2001

How the heck would we pay for that and set up the infrastructure? Some places are thinking about merging highschools, not making them smaller.

Hell no, who's going to clean my house if my sisters are staying longer in school. Kruiz_Bathory

You have to clean it.:P:lol:

So glad, I'm done with that. Lets torture the kids, more.

No. We don't need to work our children to death. I think school is too hard as it is these days.

Some schools around here are year round. I dislike year round as it really screws the kids out of having a summer. Yeah they get vacation time but their friends likely will not have the same vacation time they do. So instead of a couple months of fun with friends, you get a month of nothing to do because only you're out of school.

Pixel-Pirate

school is not too hard. When I was growing up, the public school system here in Cali was a joke.Allicrombie

I agree, it wasn't hard. My system was strict - you either learned or failed, so I studied my tail off.:P

Quality >>> Quantity

What American children need is better schooling... not more crappy schooling.

The biggest obstacle will be the teachers unions who care more about their comfortable work hours then the student's education.Diablo-B

The American kids need more school. From what have heard, many are very uneducated, without knowledge of basic geography, history, mathematics and cooking skills.

America also needs to put more money into its schooling system, so the children learn more effectively.