Obama knows there's a tough road ahead. I guess he's teeing up something for after health care LOL

If it gets Ridgely Middle a functioning air conditioning system I bet those parents willl go along.

But I don't think that converting the rest of the school buildings in the area (County or City) to full year operation is the best use of limited resources.

If anything, the school year should be shortened, some days of the week lengthened and some Saturdays added.

Back on point:
If the comment that "American students spend more hours overall in school during a year" meant all that time was spent in meaningful instructional periods it would have more merit.

The conclusion seems to be that the arbitrary minimum days standards are what need to be looked at.

Sometimes less is more. Abe Lincoln & Ben Franklin had less than three yrs formal ed. What they did have is FREEDOM to pursue their curiosities which fosters creative thinkers and problem solving skills. 2 TIM 3: 7 "Always learning but never coming to an accurate knowledge of the truth." Sound familiar ? Look at the last sentence of the scientific/medical journals. It always states: "More study is needed." Abe Lincoln learned from reading the Bible. 2 Tim 3: 16 "All scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for learning,..." Mark Twain:"Don't let school get in the way of your education." Albert Einstein:" Education begins when you forget all that you learned in school." Pink Floyd:"Hey teacher, leave them kids alone." Paul Simon:"When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all..." Ever hear the bogus arguement that kids forget so much over the long summer break ? People tend to forget useless info ? These educated idiots do not respect the family unit and are systematically destroying the fabric of this great nation. Just Say No to expanding government control.

GIVE ME A BREAK!! As for the urban systems - just call it what it is - "summer day care" Lets hold those urban parents accountable for supporting the 10 month plan before we start expanding. Exactly how will the state and local systems pay for this - you know - higher utility bills, increased salaries ...etc. Last time I checked, we can barely afford the current program. Just another farse coming from the Joker...by the way, were the kids in NJ best utilizing their instructional time when they were singing their Obama hymn last week?

All students should definitely have access to extra educational programs if they need help or choose it. But, longer school days aren't going to make children smarter. Keep teaching students the way that we are now and extend the hours. It won't make a difference. Kids who are marking time until they can drop out will continue to mark time until that day comes. There needs to be a difference in the way we teach. Teachers are overworked, underpaid, and sometimes under trained as it is now. We need to get more important things straightened out before we make school days longer. There needs to be more scope and sequence to the way that we teach children as they progress from grade to grade. If it doesn't connect, it doesn't make sense. Working up to an end-of-the-year test doesn't encourage anything but academic bulimia. Cram it all in so they can pass the test and we look smart - that seems to be the policy now. We have to make learning meaningful.

Real Teacher:

Yeah, you sound the kind of level-headed sort I want teaching children.

As to the issue at hand, We might have to deal with that sooner or later. A longer school year would mean nothing in added monies. I already get paid "x" a year. And that 12 month pay is condensed into 10 months. If the school year had a month added to it I would be paid the same rate over 11 months. No additional cost in my salary.

The only additional cost comes from keeping the buildings open longer. And that can be substantial. And let's not make this out to be anything more than it really is. This was a comment from the Ed Sec. and is in no way an endorsement of policy.

Lengthening a school day would be absolutely absurd. In most cases, during the winter, this would force students to walk home after dark. They would have to axe all activities outside of school including jobs, religious activities and the like. On top of that, once students do get home around eight, they would still be doing homework well into the night. With current homework loads, they'd easily be working past midnight, and still have to roll out at seven in the morning. Because of their fatigue, students will be more susceptible to illness. We would end up with entire schools closed down because everyone is sick at once. How would that be for our overall standing in academia? All in all, lengthening the school day, by as much as my kid's school district is planning, would be a big disaster. Instead of lengthening the day, schools should hire better, more highly trained teachers, and use the time that they have wisely. That's my opinion, anyway.

As a secondary teacher, I would not have a problem adding on another class per day IF I could have proper heating and cooling, if the students were actually there to learn, not socialize, and if my administration would start supporting their teachers and come out of their offices to help handle the daily disruptions from students who do socialize instead of going to class.

Perhaps our government should look at the problems we face in our current system that take away from instructional time we do have because even though we are in school for 7.3 hours a day, that doesn't mean I get to teach or the students learn for 7.3 hours per day. If I didn't have an overcrowded classroom (over 35) that creates a more social environment than a learning environment where I didn't have to ask everyone to stop talking or to pay attention or I didn't have to repeat myself because they weren't paying attention the first time, I bet I could get at least an extra 20 minutes of teaching in per day. Then, if you put cell phone scramblers in the school, our students would then be forced to.....oh, I don't know...pay attention? This could possibly add another 30 minutes (at least!) of instructional time. Finally, if the students who are constant discipline problems in every class and who only want to disrupt (in various ways) I could probably have another 10 minutes of time that I use to talk with that student, calling the parent or alerting the office.

That's about an hour for each class period of actual teaching/instruction that I am supposed to get every day that I don't. If all teachers could have that hour, than maybe we wouldn't be in the spot we are in in the first place.

Arne Duncan studies deprivation with the kind of sunny detachment that is only to be expected of a PhD in Education at a major university. If he were a lifeguard he would call the flailing of a drowning person "deeply interesting" and then ask the high-ranking members at the nearest beach club if they would like to pay him to find someone who can teach them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

I'm a real 4th grader. I don't think school should be longer because kids won't have enough time with family, friends, and activites after school. I also think kids wouldn't get enough sleep and I know "Go to bed earlier, then you won't be tired" I hear my parents say that all the time, but then there isn't time for homework and kids would get in trouble at school if it wasn't finished. Then our grades would be longer. It is just wrong to do that to kids. It would cost more money, too. America dosen't need to be the same as other countries either. If they are going to do this to the students, we should atleast get our early release days back. There would also be more drama for girls, trust me, I know. I could go on and on about girl drama. Adding extra hours is just giving everyone more time to argue and fight. Look at half of the great people that didn't have good education. That's how i feel about this.

I am in the 8th grade and I checked this to make sure my dad wasn't joking about it. I think we might get smarter and do better but we would have less inspiration and happiness! We and happy on Fridays because the weekend is right there! We can imagine all of these cool ideas, and try to get them to work, because we see them in a sci-fic movie or read about them! WE need the weekends, afternoons, and summer vacations to help us think and process what we learn! If we were shut in a building all day with only one period of PE, if that, for some fresh air we would be depressed, even more obese, and unhappy! WE would spend more time in a dark room than we do sleeping! Also there would be more initiative to skip school and to make wrong choices! If your stuck in a room all day you might want to rebel. We still got the first man on the moon with this schedule! We should stick with our current schedule, maybe make more selective classes to get the trouble makers out of the high level classes but don't lengthen it!

Hampden James: not sure what you're thinking-- about salary being condensed into a ten month period. Current teaching contracts are for 180 days at a specific number of hours. If this gets lengthened, so also will the pay. Otherwise it simply won't happen.

I have worked at schools with extended days and at those with more traditional days. I have also worked at schools that alter their calendar so as to shorten the amount of time from the end of one year to the beginning of another.

The cost is a major factor - by contract teachers in the City (where I work) must get paid (and should BTW) extra for extra time. At schools with extended days this takes quite a chunk out of their budget. And now that we have "fair student funding" that cost is put at the schools feet. This means that tough choices need to be made by everyone involved in the budget process.

I don't quite get the cost of keeping the building open - we pay for the electricity all the time, not just when kids are there. I do get that there would need to be extra funds for things like custodial staff, school police and snacks.

What I worry about more is the lack of dicussion about the quality of what happens during the extended time. Some have mentioned this in their posts, but more time spent with poor instruction isn't actually better for anyone. And as others have mentioned, there are things that happen after school hours that need to be considered - sporting events and the like.

I would be in favor of extending the hours and allowing schools to make the choice about how that impacts schedules - longer classes, adding a period, adding more electives and so on. Each has positives and negatives.

The reality is, I would expect more income on an extended contract. If it was over 40 hours a week there would be overtime pay. As a teacher I know that the nonsense we have to put up with in the classroom is what really needs to be addressed. Students in other countries WOULD NOT DARE to behave as ours do in the classroom. We are dealing with students whose parents were not successful in school. Hit them where it hurts...make the parent sit in the room as an aide, make them finacially responsible for their student. I'll be able to teach what I need to teach in the time we are presently given if our students and parents do what they are supposed to do.

@Reality Check

I nod emphatically at everything you say and only wish that these parents could sit in with their students. Surely most of them could if they wanted to (most are unemployed.). But the students I have who can't sit in their desks, can't stop fighting, can't stop interrupting me--those students tend to be genuine orphans. And what's heartbreakingly true is that if our city schools can't start suspending or expelling these students, nothing is truly going to change. Get the "stoop kids" (as Bunny in The Wire refers to them) into special programs or let the streets be the streets.

I agree that the most important improvement to quality education would be to ensure that the students in school actually want to be there. Unlike most other industrialized countries, the United States believes in educating everyone for FREE past the 8th grade. Maybe we need to reexamine that system. If education past 8th grade were something that had to be qualified for or earned, we would see changes in the system. Right now, students don't pay for books, lunches, transportation or many other things. It is their "right." Well, rights come with responsibilities. As long as no responsibility is attached to education, students continue to act as though they have nothing to do in order to receive training for a job. Do we really need everyone to go to college? I doubt it but a radical change in approach needs to come along for any real progress to be made.

My two cents for what it is worth:

Lengthening the school year or the school day does have its merits and drawbacks. Keeping students in school longer should provide for an increase in test scores. That in of itself is a loaded statement. If the students are there longer what are we as teachers actually teaching them if we are uninvolved or the students themselves do not want to be there. IF all teachers, administrators, parents and community members were on board with a well thought out plan to keep students in school for an extended period of time beyond what is the national standard now, then I say that it would work. The problem occurs when all of the moving pieces and people in a community are not unified and no meaningful collaboration has taken place in formulating this plan. Everyone needs to be and should be accountable for student learning not just the students and the teachers.

Many individuals are apprehensive to change, which is displayed in the comments section of this blog post. Some are for the change while others are not. This is the problem facing our nations leaders (many of whom do not even send their children to public education settings). How can a politician judge the merit of a school system based on one test a year that doesn't even measure potential and barely approximates higher order thinking skills.

Change is inevitable and if everyone in a particular community has collaborated and is on board with invoking a change, then the change is deemed necessary. Sure outliers will be prevalent from the get go, but the idea is to get the "right" people that are for the change on the bus and let the change happen. With proper planning, collaboration, time, effort and outstanding teachers I do not have a problem with a plan being enacted to keep the students in the school day or year longer.

I'll be the 1st person to say parents in Baltimore City need to step up their game significantly. I've discussed this topic many times over from a cultural and just plain factual standpoint.

However, lets not make sweeping generalizations. *Most* of my students' parents are NOT unemployed, that has never been statistically true in all my years teaching. Additionally, it's relatively easy to become unemployed these days, a friend of mine is an upstanding citizen who did his job very well but was laid off. He is currently working on finding a new job and has been backed into a corner to collect unemployment for a few weeks. His child, however, is still attending school every day and he is in no means a worse parent for losing his job.

Many of my fighting, interrupting, and walking around kids (if not all of them) have family and aren't orphans either.

The problem, I find, is that school isn't taught as an important thing at home to *these* students, not all, and certainly not by a sea of unemployed belligerent parents. Never thought I'd have to step up on inside ed to defend that crowd...

Thanks Brandon -
It was really hard to read all these statement without getting defensive. Sweeping generalizations are hurtful and not very constructive. I could go on about poor teachers or awful principals, but I only know of specific individuals - it's not applicable to the system as a whole.

I wonder if some of the problems schools have with parents that don't show up at meetings is a reflection of the "us vs. them" attitude that I'm seeing here.

FWIW - if you count academic, athletic and social before/after/summer programs as extending the school day and school year, we're already there, so long as there's flexibility I don't see a problem.

people should really think about how their kids might feel about going to school longer than they are already going to school. Ask yourself if you were a kid that already hates school and don;t want to go to school longer. would you really make your child go to school longer than they really need to?

Am I the only teacher who has handfuls of boys coming to my school from boys' homes? Am I the only teacher who has students being raised by adoptive parents? I can think of at least five students whose parents I thought were their biological parents when I first began teaching and turned out not to be. The adoptive parents are often great, but many of the ones I know have been in the kids' lives for a dismayingly brief period of time.

My comments are not generalizations. A generalization spans across a entire social category or place. I'm speaking of the students I have and the people who are or are not there for my students after school. It's silly that you think you have to defend people against the observation I have made. It's useless to defend people who don't exist or who have already been defeated in some way basic by tragic circumstances. The point I really want to make is that many teachers (e.g. you who think I am being alarmist) have allowed slack ideas into your heads about what our city's students really need. As the kids get older, the chances increase dramatically that their parents/guardians will be unable to give them what they need. This is in large part why middle schools and high schools are having a hard time keeping teachers. The kids get more powerful as the adults in their homes get weaker. If that's an unreliable generalization, then what isn't?

Now let me make another speculation about why you could sound so offended by my implying that the success of schools depends on fundamental social change. You want what you're doing in the classroom to be what makes all the difference, and I have a heck of a lot of respect for that. But the people behind NCLB want you to believe that to the point where you think these neighborhoods can be saved by schools alone. The Bush was disingenuously cheap (in both senses of the word), and now teachers need to be holistic in their thinking about what's best for our students. Otherwise Alonso and his cult of polite liars will destroy us.

Funny - most of our local private schools have a much shorter school year than the public schools. It doesn't seem to be hurting them at all - several were just named blue ribbon schools for doing well on standardized tests. Its QUALITY not quantity that counts in schools - that goes for teachers, pedagogy and the learning environment. As many have stated, behavior in schools has deteriorated to a point where hours of instructional time are wasted by disruptive students that are protected by red tape and weak administration. Been there, seen it, lived it!

@a teacher,

Dig back into the logs of this blog & you'll find nothing from me *but* oppinions on parent change/involvement and societal change.

You clearly don't know me, my teaching style, or my thoughts. I was responding to statements like "Surely most of them could if they wanted to (most are unemployed.)" which (by your definition) is a generalization.

You clearly have a short memory if you think my posts over this blogs history paint me as a bleeding heart who wants to save the world. Again, stop generalizing...

@ Brandon

Did I presume to know you? I only know that you believe I am somehow putting parents on trial, and it should be clear that it's pointless to put on trial people such people, existent or not. You would agree, would you not, that Alonso gets away with making people think kids are on trial, and then any disagreement with his sanctimonious prattle is identified by him as somehow "against the kids." Very clever, that. Very dangerous too.

You seem to be reading what you want to read. The comment you quote is not a generalization because I know the that majority of my students' parents are unemployed. And the ones who are employed tend to be single parents who don't have enough time to give their kids the attention they need. They all have the best intentions with their kids, but many parents are simply at a loss for what to do. My interest is not in blaming parents, but in making distinctions between students who are ready for ous classrooms and students who are not. Are we really in disagreement?

Let's not get the twin addictions of trying not to be offensive and being offended. When we disagree with each other, let's try to be courtly. Perhaps the very format of a blog makes this impossible.

I'm an 8th grader currently researching this subject, and luckily my teacher gave me the project to write an essay against it. I truly believe we don't need any more time in school than we already have. I spend enough nights trying to finish all of my work for school and come back the next day completely worn out. My friends do the same and they agree they need their rest