[DaniellaG]

Don't you get out earlier though in June? In FL they go back I think in Aug but they got earlier in June then in MI.
Growing up in MI we went back after Labor Day but now many go back before. I think even my last year or two we did I can't recall.

[canudigit]

In 2005, Michigan passed a state law that states that public schools cannot start before Labor Day. The point was to help out the tourism industry, so that families with kids could still take vacations throughout the entire month of August. Private schools don't have to adhere to this, only public ones. I did hear something a couple of years ago about repealing this law because Michigan could only be in the running for a certain amount of federal money if they extended the school year, but so far I believe it still stands and schools aren't allowed to start before Labor Day. The public schools here in Monroe County go into mid-June. I think our local district had their last day around June 14 this year.

[YAZ]

I dug the summer vacation....but even better?

Seein' how the girls "grew" during that time......

P.s.....

Glad that MI went back to the after Labor Day thing.

[tjay]

Originally Posted by Retroit

The only reasons kids got summer off is:

1. When we were mostly rural, kids were needed to work on the farm, and
2. They didn't have air conditioning back then.

So...since hardly any kids still work on farms and since most schools are air conditioned, the reason for not having kids in school is?.....

...so they can learn to have more fun than the Japanese?

no. academics are not all they are cracked to be.

[LondonUSA]

In England we have just broken up for summer and we go back on 7th September. We have no air con, nothing except the occasional crappy fan. The hottest we have had it this year is 29C but a few years ago we did have 35/36C when we were in school. We just had to deal with it.

[Retroit]

The American school year is 180 days long.
The Japanese school year is 240 days long.
The Korean school year is 250 days long.

Think about that the next time you use your Toyota, Kia, Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, LG, Honda, Hyundai, etc.

[Bydand]

Originally Posted by Retroit

The American school year is 180 days long.
The Japanese school year is 240 days long.
The Korean school year is 250 days long.

Think about that the next time you use your Toyota, Kia, Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, LG, Honda, Hyundai, etc.

You might want to rethink that argument. You don't need longer school years or higher education to work on an assembly line ANYWHERE in the World. What you need is cheep labor, longer working days, and less gov't safety controls on business for business and manufacturing to thrive. Those companies are not huge and global leaders because the school year is longer, it is because they are cheaper products, while still maintaining some resemblance to reliability.

[canudigit]

Originally Posted by Retroit

The American school year is 180 days long.
The Japanese school year is 240 days long.
The Korean school year is 250 days long.

Think about that the next time you use your Toyota, Kia, Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, LG, Honda, Hyundai, etc.

But...during America's most productive era, the 19th and early 20th century, people like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, and all of the other great inventors/manufacturers who came from that period were either schooled at home or in one room schoolhouses with liberal amounts of time left for chores on their parents' farms, etc. and they still had the brains and ingenuity to invent and manufacture things that changed the face of the entire world and made America the overwhelming world power that it still is. Is it really about hours spent behind a desk and how much money is thrown at each student by the taxpayers, or is about a good work ethic and strong families who taught their kids to work hard instead of goofing off all day? Maybe America's educational decline has more to do with X-boxes and lazy work ethics than actual hours spent in the classroom. I can't say for sure, but I just have a hunch that Korean and Japanese students don't spend their math classes sleeping or sending text messages and playing video games on their i-phones.

[Retroit]

Originally Posted by Bydand

You might want to rethink that argument. You don't need longer school years or higher education to work on an assembly line ANYWHERE in the World. What you need is cheep labor, longer working days, and less gov't safety controls on business for business and manufacturing to thrive. Those companies are not huge and global leaders because the school year is longer, it is because they are cheaper products, while still maintaining some resemblance to reliability.

There is so much truth to what you said, it's almost difficult for me to respond without sounding stupid, but...

The average education level of workers does have an effect on the quality of the product produced. While every assembly line worker may not need a high level of education, the higher the average level of education, the better they are able to understand the technical aspects of the modern assembly line. It's true that cheaper labor, longer working days, and less government regulation all help lower the cost of production, but due to politics, it's unlikely those things will change in this country. However, children can't vote politicians out of office if they lengthen the school year.

[Retroit]

Originally Posted by canudigit

But...during America's most productive era, the 19th and early 20th century, people like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, and all of the other great inventors/manufacturers who came from that period were either schooled at home or in one room schoolhouses with liberal amounts of time left for chores on their parents' farms, etc. and they still had the brains and ingenuity to invent and manufacture things that changed the face of the entire world and made America the overwhelming world power that it still is. Is it really about hours spent behind a desk and how much money is thrown at each student by the taxpayers, or is about a good work ethic and strong families who taught their kids to work hard instead of goofing off all day? Maybe America's educational decline has more to do with X-boxes and lazy work ethics than actual hours spent in the classroom. I can't say for sure, but I just have a hunch that Korean and Japanese students don't spend their math classes sleeping or sending text messages and playing video games on their i-phones.

There is so much truth to what you said, it's almost difficult for me to respond without sounding stupid, but...

Those great inventors/innovators would never have been able to succeed if it weren't for the high level of education of their fellow countrymen. They were geniuses (at least in their area of expertise) and geniuses don't need to be encouraged to learn. However, they benefited from the wealth of knowledge that was created by the not-so-genius, yet well-educated co-inventors/innovators. Consider this: if they had been living in a 3rd World Country, how successful would they have become?

As a side note, I don't believe in public education (with the exception of orphans). I believe that education is the parents' responsibility and that education is not as valued in our culture as it should be.