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¨Her school is part of a 3-year-old state initiative to add 300 hours of school time in nearly two dozen schools. Early results are positive. Even reluctant Domonique, who just started ninth grade, feels differently now. "I've learned a lot," she said.
***
¨Regardless, there is a strong case for adding time to the school day.
¨Researcher Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution looked at math scores in countries that added math instruction time. Scores rose significantly, especially in countries that added minutes to the day, rather than days to the year.
¨"Ten minutes sounds trivial to a school day, but don't forget, these math periods in the U.S. average 45 minutes," Loveless said. "Percentage-wise, that's a pretty healthy increase."
¨In the U.S., there are many examples of gains when time is added to the school day.
***
¨Disadvantaged kids, on the whole, make no progress in the summer, Alexander said. Some studies suggest they actually fall back. Wealthier kids have parents who read to them, have strong language skills and go to great lengths to give them learning opportunities such as computers, summer camp, vacations, music lessons, or playing on sports teams.¨*
* ^^These are not the ¨wealthier¨ parents who sit back and complain that their kids cant get ahead because the government isnt handing out vouchers. These are parents wealthier in caring, not nec. in money, who contribute to their kids´schools.)
"The numbers get worse when you look at specific subject areas. American high school students ranked second to last in advanced mathematics and last in physics among a survey of 16 nations, and the students who took the test were in advanced mathematics and advanced placement classes."
Students Lag Behind Other Nations in Science, Math - WTRF-TV - WTRF.com (http://www.wtrf.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=42855 - broken link)
The middle, yes - their achievement levels have dropped. The lower, no - That's the only group whose achievement levels have actually risen.
"While students in the bottom quartile have shown slow but steady improvement since the 1960s, average test scores have nonetheless gone down, primarily because of the performance of those in the top quartile. This "highest cohort of achievers," Rudman writes, has shown "the greatest declines across a variety of subjects as well as across age-level groups." Analysts have also found "a substantial drop among those children in the middle range of achievement," he continues, "but less loss and some modest gains at the lower levels." In other words, our brightest youngsters, those most likely to be headed for selective colleges, have suffered the most dramatic setbacks over the past two decades--a fact with grave implications for our ability to compete with other nations in the future."
The Other Crisis in American Education - 91.11 (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/educatio/singalf.htm - broken link)
Location: The Chatterdome in La La Land, CaliFUNia
39,031 posts, read 23,018,776 times
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Originally Posted by odinloki1
Agreed to a point. A lot of studies have shown that mainstreaming kids benefits the low end a lot, they learn from their high achieving peers, while the high achieving kids lose only a fraction. This should stop in 6th or 7th grade and let the high achievers go.
I want to know where you're going to find the staff for this. In a 30 kid classroom, no matter how you group them, you're going to have a spectrum of learners and some are going to get bored or left behind.
Maybe if we got rid of some highly paid educrats maybe we can have enough funding for this. I think benefitting the low achievers at the expense of the higher achievers is not really fair way of educating our children. I do like the idea of separating them in middle and high schools.
I'm not insulting you. You said conservatives wanted to inject the Bible into education. Conservatives had the chance to do that and took a pass.
That's utter tripe. George W. Bush may not have attempted to legislate the bible into schools, but many, many, many school districts and school boards across this country have been doing just that, and continue trying to do so. Nor does the fact that he didn't attempt to legislate it contradict exactly what I said, which is that Conservatives think it's just peachy to inject the bible and creationism into public schools, and that includes Geroge W. Bush.
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President Bush invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution in public schools with remarks saying that schoolchildren should be taught about "intelligent design," a view of creation that challenges established scientific thinking and promotes the idea that an unseen force is behind the development of humanity.
These are not the ¨wealthier¨ parents who sit back and complain that the government isnt helping their kids by handing out vouchers.
Gosh - why in the world would the "wealthier" parents want their school tax dollars to go to schools that actually educate their children? They have some nerve, don't they? /sarcasm
Maybe if we got rid of some highly paid educrats maybe we can have enough funding for this. I think benefitting the low achievers at the expense of the higher achievers is not really fair way of educating our children. I do like the idea of separating them in middle and high schools.
I´ll bet you do.... You´ve been getting what you want for several years now.
I would of rather privatize education and allow parents to choose their schools but I do like the Obama education plan (I do oppose the socialistic Obama government health care plan)... I like to point out the few things mentioned in the article...we should NOT be comparing other countries to our own... other cultures taking education very seriously whereas our culture does not... do not compare apples to birds...
1) Full year schooling: I like it! That's how schools should be run from the beginning... I understand back in the old days, kids were suppose to help harvest and stuff but we've grown beyond farming communities... Education doesn't stop at the beginning of summer... More is done with a longer period to study the material
I am fine with year round schools, but I do think kids need a 4-6 week break in the summer. Kids area not little adults. They need time to "process" things, and time to explore other activities. Plus in many northern areas, the schools are not air-conditioned. Not much learning can get done when it's 95 degrees inside the classroom.
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2) Longer school days: I like this as well! Parents work 8 hour days 9-5... kids school days ends around 3 PM... that's two hours of time that parents don't get to keep an eye on their kids... besides that... the extra two hours can be EXTREMELY useful... imagine one hour devoted to "mentoring" where kids can help kids with various subjects... another hour could be devoted exercise regimen to help keep kids healthy! Or you could offer additional classes for kids who need remediation without holding them back a year... or offer advance placement classes for kids who are great in school and can take advantage of starting earlier...
I think longer school days for young kids is a bad idea. Their attention spans are just not that long, particularly the youngest of the young. In my district, the high school students are already going 7 1/2 hrs/day, including lunch. I'm not a real flag-waver on this "personal responsibility" stuff, but the schools are not supposed to be babysitters for working parents.
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3) Open weekends?: I am not so crazy about this one because there is less bang for the buck... who is going to supervise the kids? Weekends = increased taxpayer liability... I think if there is a weekend open, it should be community sponsored (ie local property taxes voted on by the community)....
The disadvantage would be of course, the cost ... teachers don't want to work for free and expect to be paid adequately for their time... Teacher's pay varies so much due to different costs of living in various regions... Considering they worked "six-hour" days and work only 3/4 a year... I would have to look at pay schedules more carefully so that they aren't way overpaid and aren't given the shaft either... Principals and Superintendents on the otherhand are grossly overpaid...
It would be fine with me if schools were open on weekends; kids could use the gym, library, etc., but you are correct that this would all involve additional funding. If the year-round schools increased the # of days the kids go, the teachers would expect more pay, ditto the longer school day.
Again, I am no flag-waving advocate for teachers, but they do work a full 8 hour day, before and after the students leave, and many take home work, as well. I think it's unfair to say they only wok 6 hours. That is the student contact time, but there's more to a teaching job than that.
Gosh - why in the world would the "wealthier" parents want their school tax dollars to go to schools that actually educate their children? They have some nerve, don't they? /sarcasm
Ive answered you at length in that other thread on this topic. Education begins at home. Basic middle class parents should be able to give their children the fundamentals of a decent education (a love for numbers, a love for science, a love of reading) and to oversee what education they receive outside of the home. If they cant, or they dont know what that means... maybe they´re overpaid at their jobs?
In which case Im not surprised they´re whining for help.
Where are your schools? In all the towns around us the students are grouped according to skills as soon as they hit 2nd grade. Add to that Talented and gifted programs for the better students. In high school there is the honor programs and AP classes.
You think it is wonderful but it isn't as great as you think it might be.
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/sarcasm
