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So you don't really believe the Education czar, Natalay. I don't want to believe it but I did have some of those kids very near 11 hours a day when I was an athletic coach. Well, I didn't have them but they were at the school about that long.
I think you may find that Google will uphold these people unless you use the normal liberal kind of prompts for them.
Well, for high school kids doing sports in-season, yes, they are at school for a large portion of their waking hours. Same with kids doing theater when a play is being rehersed. That's not what the articles I have read talked about; they talked about having the library open, and/or the gym open after hours.
You're pissed because they want to extend school hours?
Really? Our kids need more education, have you seen our grades compared to other countries? I've long been a proponent of a year round school schedule.
You realize that the "summer vacation" was originally put in place so your kids could help you farm, right? I've seen studies that show that students lose up to 30% of the knowledge they learned the year before on their summer breaks, which causes teachers to spend the first 6 weeks of school playing catch up. Some kids never do catch up.
And the idea that they are making teachers read some communist manifesto is asinine, and has no basis in reality.
Your opinion piece is biased, and ignores the reality we find ourselves in educationally.
Maybe I should allow you a chance to see what NEA is all about so here is a farewell speech from their longtime main legal man about what they really are. If you can't stand him reading his speech begin at about 1:35 and hear him tell one of their lies about just what drove me out of the group. He is obviously nothing but a union crud who admits that they are a union and the cheers he gets when he mentions that Bush is no longer around tells me so much about them.
Remember catch him about 1:35 on. A union is a union and when the NEA gave $4.5 million to Jimmy Carter to campaign with some of us demanded our share of that money back. All I got was $4.65 but they never got another penny of dues money from me either which Chanin brags about the millions of dollars people pay them to be their union. Hey even my wife belongs for one reason, only, they have a $1 million malpractice insurance for their members. I don't know whether they would pay but they might.
Anyway they gave that money to Carter and got by with it. In the same election the Americans Against Union Control of Government gave $250,000 to Carter's opponent. Well now that wasn't allowed by the Carter appointed FEC but Carter's money from NEA was deemed (there that Democrat word is) as legal and ok. I wonder why that was. The FEC managed to fine and punish the AAUCG enough to drive them out of business. Mark up union as 1 - 0 even back then.
Where did the original link prove that there is a communist agenda, like it said?
The proof is in the pudding. If you are in a liberal part of the country and pay attention closely to what your kids are learning in the public schools, the agenda is blinding.
If you are incredibly liberal/progressive and have socialist leanings, you will probably embrace the idea of turning your children over to be indoctrinated by the government for 12 hours a day, 11 months a year. (That is, unless the tides turn and the public education system takes a far turn to the right, then you may not be so happy with what you are stuck with.)
But at the moment, if you are conservative, with traditional family beliefs, be very cautious in accepting this plan. There is a great line in an old movie called "The Prime of Miss Jean Brody," starring Maggie Smith, who plays a narcisstic, aging school teacher, who has incredible influence on her students, to the point of one of them, heading off to war and getting herself killed fighting for the wrong side all because she is influenced by her teacher. The line the teacher, Miss Brody says is, "Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine forever."
The point is, be careful who you entrust your children to for such extended times. If there is an agenda (and in some cases there most definitely is) your children will most definitely be indoctrinated. They will be spending more waking hours under someone elses influence than the family's. And as the public schools become more and more Federally Controlled...Well, it leads to a whole country of students learning the same government mandated lessons. Math - ok, but what about History/Social Studies/Civics? What about Core Values being taught? Does the whole country agree on all of these?
I really don't think more hours in school is the answer.
The proof is in the pudding. If you are in a liberal part of the country and pay attention closely to what your kids are learning in the public schools, the agenda is blinding.
If you are incredibly liberal/progressive and have socialist leanings, you will probably embrace the idea of turning your children over to be indoctrinated by the government for 12 hours a day, 11 months a year. (That is, unless the tides turn and the public education system takes a far turn to the right, then you may not be so happy with what you are stuck with.)
But at the moment, if you are conservative, with traditional family beliefs, be very cautious in accepting this plan. There is a great line in an old movie called "The Prime of Miss Jean Brody," starring Maggie Smith, who plays a narcisstic, aging school teacher, who has incredible influence on her students, to the point of one of them, heading off to war and getting herself killed fighting for the wrong side all because she is influenced by her teacher. The line the teacher, Miss Brody says is, "Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine forever."
The point is, be careful who you entrust your children to for such extended times. If there is an agenda (and in some cases there most definitely is) your children will most definitely be indoctrinated. They will be spending more waking hours under someone elses influence than the family's. And as the public schools become more and more Federally Controlled...Well, it leads to a whole country of students learning the same government mandated lessons. Math - ok, but what about History/Social Studies/Civics? What about Core Values being taught? Does the whole country agree on all of these?
I really don't think more hours in school is the answer.
"Conspiracy theory?" I'm afraid I don't understand. There really is nothing conspiratorial about it. Its all out in the open. For example, on the "Students for Obama" or I believe its now called "Students for America" internship application form passed out at some schools, I saw Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" recommended. It wasn't in code. It was plainly printed for all to see. Another example is the book called, "Que*ring Elementary Education," with a foreward by Kevin Jennings our school czar. This is a published book, with a pretty straightforward title that describes it's intent, which includes a chapter on "unstraightening the thinking" of elementary school children. This isn't a secret document. It is a well written, published book promoting the desire to change the thinking of school children. Finally, I wouldn't call it a secret conspiracy when I asked a teacher at my child's school, why the class was reading a book with so much graphic violence in it and I was told by the teacher that the book was chosen to help dissuade students from following in their fathers' footsteps and joining the military by enlightening them into the realities of warfare.
Like it or not, schoolchildren will be indoctrinated. Young minds are impressionable. Its no secret. No one is whispering.
Can that statement be true? Well the Education Czar said in a speech not long ago that schools should be running 11 or 12 months for 11 to 12 hours per day. Yep, we don't have our kids in school long enough for them to keep up with the world's other kids. They need to be in school more total time with teachers who have read Alinsky's, Rules for Radicals as is suggested by the NEA.
Actually, I heard from a missionary at our church last week that China's school system is pretty close to that--they go for 12+ hours a day.
Interestingly enough, the school where she and her husband work at is growing more and more popular and the students are out-performing the kids in the government schools, despite less hours in school.
Actually, I heard from a missionary at our church last week that China's school system is pretty close to that--they go for 12+ hours a day.
Interestingly enough, the school where she and her husband work at is growing more and more popular and the students are out-performing the kids in the government schools, despite less hours in school.
Can you please provide some information about that?
And thats great, and it would be awesome if most Americans could afford private school.
However, they can't.
Did you even read my post?
Kids lose knowledge when they aren't in school
University of Missouri Research
Harris Cooper, Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri, states that summer loss in knowledge is approximately one month overall. So, taking three months off in the summer cuts the school year down to 8 months. In math, students lose 2.6 months. [Center for Summer Learning, jhu.edu]
Johns Hopkins Research
Karl Alexander and Doris Entwisle, sociologists at Johns Hopkins University, found that there is a difference between lower income students and middle class students with knowledge retention over the summer. While both groups improve at similar rates during the school year, low-income students lost more knowledge over the summer. By the end of 5th grade, low-income children fell more than two years behind middle-class students in verbal achievement and 1 ½ years behind in math.
Read more at Suite101: Summer Vacation Slide: Research Shows Loss Of Knowledge Over Summer Months Summer Vacation Slide: Research Shows Loss Of Knowledge Over Summer Months (http://educationalissues.suite101.com/article.cfm/summer_vacation_slide#ixzz0vNIWDcm3 - broken link)
Lets be real about this. I don't know if I would support a 12 hour school day, maybe 9 or 10, but thats not the main thing they are advocating. They are advocating a year round school schedule, which most of the industrialized world follows.
Read the links, learn the studies, year round schools are needed NOW. This isn't a liberal or conservative issue, like the OP and his opinion piece are trying to make it. This is a real problem, and the real solution is year around schools. A month longer, with two week breaks periodically throughout the school year, in order to keep the knowledge in the childs head, while still making sure they have plenty of relaxation time as well.
I think they are basically trying to keep low income people from having to compete with school kids for jobs. They are the left leaners you are standing with, you know.
The first link crashed my computer before I had read more than a few words; I'm not going to try again, thank you very much. The second link is not very relevant to the thread title.
What I have read many times before from many education people is that schools should be utilized more. We have these expensive buildings with all sorts of nice amenities such as gyms, libraries, etc open in the case of elementary schools ~ 7 hours/day, maybe 8-9 hours a day for middle/high schools, for 10 mo/yr max. If an elementary school has after-school care, the only area open is the care area, and no one is allowed in except the kids, workers, and the parents. Kids aren't supposed to play on the playgrounds when school is not in session. It would, of course, cost money to keep these buildings open, say, from 7AM to 7PM daily, and open up the libraries and gyms for public use, but it may be money well spent.
Do you know about the move to 4 days per week to save money in my part of the world? Every year some more schools go to 4 days so they don't have to use electricity and heat on Friday. It is the sh*ts for teachers but kids don't mind getting that extra day. I know this because my wife's school district did just that last year and they think it saved them money. Does this make it obvious that money is the main thing to school boards? It sure does to me.
I think they are basically trying to keep low income people from having to compete with school kids for jobs. They are the left leaners you are standing with, you know.
Oh, baloney, roys! This stuff has been talked about in educational circles for years. My server recovered and I read the article. It talked about keeping schools open 12-14 hours/day. No one in their right mind would suggest that kids receive instruction that long. The purpose of keeping the schools open for that many hours is to utilize the resources of the schools, e.g. libraries, gymnasiums, auditoriums and so forth.
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