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Ain't gonna happen. The main reason is because the systems can't afford it if "longer school year" means more days in class. In MD increasing the school year by 20 days (1 month, 200 days or so in class) would mean a salary bump of $5K to $10K per teacher.
Fighting against that, in addition to many teachers, would be the industry, at colleges, that's grown up around teachers having to attend classes in the summer to retain their certification.
If by "longer school year" you mean that you get rid of summer and do shorter breaks throughout the year while keeping the 180 days in class then you aren't "increasing" the school year, just rearranging it.
Honestly I think we should just do away with schooling altogether and make homeschooling the norm. Any teacher will tell you that most of class time is wasted on classroom management. Students could learn three times as much by the same age if they didn't have to sit through classes that are mostly spent on telling Johnny to be quiet and Sarah to pay attention. Also the social atmosphere distracts from learning. Instead of giving learning a social structure, it makes much more sense to have structured time for learning, and then structured time for socializing with other kids.
I wish you would try that in your State. Then when all the unemployable, uneducated desperate mobs wreak havoc on your neighborhood you can erect 15 ft barbed wire wall to keep them out.
Then all the World will come to your State because it's such a great place to raise a family and it has so many skilled workers!
Oh God for once let these selfish, greedy right wingers get what they ask for!
Honestly, we've had a few year-round schools around here. They've been proven to be better than normal public schools.
We have a couple of schools here that run that way and the kids seem to prefer it.
Much less 'start-up' time each fall, and it reduces the need to compress so much material into each semester.
Right now in Georgia our teachers and staff are facing 10 furlough days (that's without pay). How could they be expected to lengthen the school year when they can't pay for it now and there have been no raises for several years.
More obligations need to be placed on parents. The schools are not there to socialize students, but to educate them. If teachers could just teach, that would solve half the problems.
"Pro-family policy. Long summer vacations are a big disruption for working families. Census data shows that two-thirds of American children live in homes with a single parent or where both parents work. An Urban Institute study also shows that over 40 percent of working families pay for child care during the summer--amounting to 8 percent of their summertime income. Extending the school year will help these families by lessening that burden and stress. Likewise, latch-key kids are more likely to get mixed up in juvenile crime. Another month of school will help reduce this problem and assure parents that their kids are in a safe place."
As one of the few year round employees at a school, i am all for longer school years.
...and longer school days as well.
I see school busses driving around at 1 pm dropping kids off. WTF? I know these kids don't start at 4 am, so what's with this 4 hr day cr@p. No wonder they are all lazy idiots by the time they graduate.
I see school busses driving around at 1 pm dropping kids off. WTF? I know these kids don't start at 4 am, so what's with this 4 hr day cr@p. No wonder they are all lazy idiots by the time they graduate.
Obama presses for longer school years - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100927/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama - broken link)
"We have got to identify teachers who are doing well. Teachers who are not doing well, we have got to give them the support and the training to do well. And if some teachers aren't doing a good job, they've got to go," Obama said.
Now the Republicans are going to whine that Obama wants to further educate the kids. Wah wah!!
I can hear the whining already. Music to my ears.
I don't disagree that teachers who aren't doing a "good job" should go, but the last 15 days of school are wind -down days anyway. Field days, trips, half days, etc. I don't know that it would really make a difference.
And as far as educational "tools" being available to the "poor" - local library? Maybe even the schools could open up their school libraries one a week with volunteers to GET those kids some books to read.
And like others have said, extending the school year in states that aren't used to it would mean an increase in salaries which would mean, for people who live in a state where property taxes fund public schools, higher property taxes.
It would hurt and could put a lot of "summer businesses" out of business.
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