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Education United States News

Boston Elementary, Middle Schools To Get a Longer Day 161

Posted by timothy from the am-I-being-detained dept.
Many public elementary- and middle-school students in Boston may soon have a longer time to spend in school each day. A change, announced Friday by Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh, though yet to get final approval from the city's school committee and teachers' unions' full membership, would add 40 minutes to the schedule at schools not already under an extended schedule. Currently, most elementary school students have a 6-hour day, and middle school students' is 10 minutes longer, which means that high schools will now have by default the shortest day (six and a half hours) in the Boston public school system. From the Boston Globe's coverage: Teachers in the 60 schools would get an annual stipend of $4,464 for the expanded schedule, the mayor’s office said. The plan would be rolled out over three years, beginning with about 20 schools in the 2015-2016 school year, the statement said. Officials said it wasn’t clear which schools would be in the first group. Once fully rolled out, the plan, which would add up to about an extra month of learning per year for 23,000 students, would cost about $12.5 million per year. How long is the school day in your neck of the woods, and do you think it should be any longer?
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Boston Elementary, Middle Schools To Get a Longer Day More

Boston Elementary, Middle Schools To Get a Longer Day

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  • Ouch (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anrego ( 830717 ) * on Saturday December 27, 2014 @07:57AM (#48679265)

    This all makes sense and is probably a good idea.

    That said, despite school having literally been decades ago, I find myself empathizing with the kids on this one, who I'm sure arn't seeing this as an investment in their future but rather yet more time spent in the dungeon. I didn't exactly hate school growing up, but damn if I wasn't ready to get the hell outa there when the bell rang.

    Maybe it's because we just had Christmas and that always puts me in a nostalgic child like mood. I'm sure if they announced this in September when school is just getting back into session and screwing up my morning commute I'd say to hell with the kids, but for now, the kid in me say: BOOOO!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by TBoon ( 1381891 )

      I find myself empathizing with the kids on this one, who I'm sure arn't seeing this as an investment in their future but rather yet more time spent in the dungeon.

      The question is what they'll do with that extra time. And how it affects homework. IIRC in Finland (or maybe Sweden?) Primary/Middle school takes up a fairly large chunk of the afternoon, but there is virtually no homework until the kids reach High school.

      Of course doing something like that would require a rather drastic reform, so the Boston kids in question are probably just stuck in the dungeon longer, and get home loaded with even more homework...

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Anrego ( 830717 ) *

        I'm really all for that.

        Kids have very diverse lives out of school. Some have sports or other activities after school, some have shitty home situations that make doing homework harder, etc. At least if most of the learning happens at school, kids get mostly the same shot at it.

        Personally I always hated homework growing up. As an adult I've fought hard not to take work home with me. A few people at work have my cell number for absolute emergencies, but that's about it. Webmail access? Company laptop? Nope an

        • Teachers' prestige, not their pay (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Increasing hours is rather less important than increasing the prestige of teaching as a profession (note: this does not and should not mean paying more to teachers). The total time in instruction is in the OECD 2012 report [oecd.org] [PDF], at chart D1.1, while the rough breakdown into subjects is in charts D1.2a, D1.2b, and D1.2c for different age groups.

          In summary, Finns spend among the lowest formal instruction [theconversation.com] times in the OECD. For example, 9-11 year olds in Finland spend 640 hours per year at school lessons, whi

        • At least if most of the learning happens at school, kids get mostly the same shot at it.

          Those who aren't bullied, at least. Those who are get to spend some more mandatory time in Hell. And longer school days mean more stress and thus more bullies and less teachers willing to do anything about it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The only benefit to this is for parents using school as a babysitter.

    • Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Free Censorship ( 3961451 ) on Saturday December 27, 2014 @09:56AM (#48679507)

      This all makes sense and is probably a good idea.

      Only if you're foolish enough to believe that quality = quantity. But that is false. What really needs to happen is to get rid of rote memorization-based standardized tests, the ridiculous amounts of useless busywork that don't help people truly comprehend the material, propaganda trying to teach kids that authority is best, the ridiculous amounts of unnecessary rote memorization in general, and the one-size-fits-all nonsense that plagues the school system.

      More schooling (which is just tantamount to brainwashing at the moment) will not fix any of this trash.

      • Kids should be excited to go to school. They should be dreading the long boring summer.

        Rote memorization along with having classes slowed down to accommodate the slowest 20% of kids just makes school into one long evil hell that should be burned with fire to ensure it never exists again.

        It is amazing that there are ever any technological advances at all.

    • They went from starting in September to early August here in the late 90s. All in all the kids have about an extra 6 weeks of school now compared to when I was in kindergarten. This is Texas, not sure if it's a state or local thing.

    • Very little useful learning goes on in school. And the top students need time outside of school to visit libraries, pursue intellectual hobbies, do independent reading, and generally do all the academic stuff that will actually matter in their lives later on (and matter to society later on).

      By continually extending the school day and the school year, we increasingly ensure that we lock our best and brightest into mediocrity by tying up all of their time in institutionally managed busywork designed to ensure

    • Something tells me elementary school students already run into attention span issues, and making days longer certainly isn't going to help with that.

    • This all makes sense and is probably a good idea.

      That said, despite school having literally been decades ago, I find myself empathizing with the kids on this one, who I'm sure arn't seeing this as an investment in their future but rather yet more time spent in the dungeon. I didn't exactly hate school growing up, but damn if I wasn't ready to get the hell outa there when the bell rang.

      Maybe it's because we just had Christmas and that always puts me in a nostalgic child like mood. I'm sure if they announced this in September when school is just getting back into session and screwing up my morning commute I'd say to hell with the kids, but for now, the kid in me say: BOOOO!

      Its not a bad idea. Our kids start at 8:15 to Noon, and 12:45 to 3:30. They are in public school, and half the day is taught in French, and the other half in English. The kids learn maths, science, and all the social studies that go along with multiculturalism. What does suffer somewhat is spelling, because of the doubling up and not dubling up. example department and département. We pay for extra curricular activities (1 hr twice a week). Its alloted for extra sports, a third language, or religio

  • No need for school to start at the absolute butt-crack of dawn. It's actually been shown to be harmful for teenagers. Their natural sleep cycle involves sleeping in. Many of them simply physically cannot function so early in the morning. (Thinking is a physical process...)

    If high school started an hour later, the kids would be on the streets less while parents are off work, too. So it seems like a win-win, without actually increasing the number of hours of instruction.

    Increasing the duration of school won't automatically improve education. "No Child Left Behind" certainly didn't, but it did require greater duration to the school day if you actually met all of its requirements.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anrego ( 830717 ) *

      Well, the problem there is diversity.

      I'm one of those "afternoon thinkers". During my first year of high school, we did split shifts with another school that was undergoing renovations. They had to be bused in, so we got the early shift. Class started at 6am, which for me meant getting up around 5am. Looking back I would love to see stats on the grade average from that year. I know my marks were down across the board. My physics score was so low they didn't want to let me take the advanced course the follow

      • But that said, some people are morning people. They are weird but they exist. They get up by their own preference at like 5:30 am

        ***raises hand***

        That's me, folks. However, a qualifier must be added. I didn't start behaving that way till I stopped ALL caffeine intake. Back when I did coffee/pepsi, getting me out of bed before noon involved liberal use of dynamite. A couple decades back, for reasons I no longer recall, I decided to stop with the caffeine. And since then, waking up is like flipping a

      • I wake up somewhere between 3 and 5 pretty much no matter what. No signs of sleep apnea. But in High School I was like most other teens, and it was hard to drag myself out of bed before 9 or 10.

    • High school in my suburban town starts well before the butt-crack of dawn, for much of the year. The bus picks up kids on my block at 6:30 am, and it's not a long ride.

      But then, my Mondays start at 4:00 am, when I get up to drag my ass to Scranton for the first three days of my week, so fuck 'em. :-)

    • No need for school to start at the absolute butt-crack of dawn. It's actually been shown to be harmful

      4 hours of school here (at times)

      Being an Air Force dependent I spent a lot of time overseas. The schools we attended couldn't handle the load, so the school days were split in two.

      8-12 and 1 to 5 pm's it was so nice, in the Philippines I had the second "shift" and the base swimming pool was across the street, I'd swim all morning and then off to school.

      My brother and sister had the first "shift" so we never saw each other till the evening.

  • Where I live, the elementary schools are roughly 8am-335 pm. They vary by 10 minutes earlier or later to accommodate the bus schedule. The elementary schools also get out at 1pm every Wednesday. The junior high is 805am-328pm and the high school is 8am-325pm. I used to work at the junior high and it seemed it wasn't long enough. For instance, lunch at the junior high had shove three grades of kids through in less than an hour. After standing in line, kids were lucky if they got 10 minutes to eat lunch.

    Wh

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Back 15-20 years ago it used to be all 9-15:30 in my neck of the woods. Now it's 8-14:30(highschool) and 9-15:30(K-8). Why you ask? Buses. That's the only reason they did it, so they could stagger the bus schedule. Then again the distance that kids get buses are pathetic, it used to be that I walked ~5km in g1-5 to head to school in the 80's. Anything over 1km(0.62mi) now can get a bus. It's similar to snow days, freezing rain, and fog. Merest hint of it, NOPE they either cancel buses or school altog

  • I'm in Orange County California.

    For grades 1 – 5 [schoolloop.com]

    7:45 AM – 2:05 PM (M, Tu, Th, F)

    7:45 AM – 12:50 PM (Wed)

    That short Wednesday is baffling. On the longer days mom and dad can maybe stagger their schedule so they can handle it if they've got flexible employers, but that 5-hour day just looks like a gift to the local after-school care programs.

    • That short Wednesday is baffling. On the longer days mom and dad can maybe stagger their schedule so they can handle it if they've got flexible employers, but that 5-hour day just looks like a gift to the local after-school care programs.

      Dang, I thought our school district pioneered it. They certainly are alone in our area doing it.

      Yeah, it sucks. Supposedly it is to allow time for meetings, paperwork, administration, etc. That countless school districts everywhere get by without it apparently doesn't matter.

      Then there's all the crazy time off ... every break is at least a day or three longer than when we were kids. WTH is "mid winter break"? Oh no, it's been a whole month or so since the two weeks off at Christmas. We need another break

  • It is ludicrous (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ClaraBow ( 212734 ) on Saturday December 27, 2014 @08:26AM (#48679327)
    It is ludicrous to make the assertion that adding 40 minutes of time to the school day will magically add a month more of learning. The mentally that more time in school equals more learning is very flawed. We have setup our school like little prisons with strict rules and rigid schedules. Real learning doesn't take place while students are sitting at their desk listening to a teacher droning on an on. Real learning takes place when kids are actively engaged. They should invest their money on creating an alternative, project based educational program.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Anrego ( 830717 ) *

      It doesn't even have to be project based, you just need good teachers who arn't stressed and completely burnt out.

      For instance, I hated history up until grade 11. The difference? The teacher still used a mostly lecture style, but she made it interesting, and engaged the class in discussions. She knew the material backwards and forwards and so she could (and did) let the class go off on unintended tangents. Up until that point history had mostly been about memorizing names and dates and arbitrary facts assoc

      • You are spot on! Many teachers are burnt out. The No Child Left Behind regulations have created an educational system that only care about scoring well on high-stakes, standardized tests. Curricula across the country has become more and more homogeneous and creativity has been sucked out of our public educational system. Teachers and schools are being held accountable based on these high-stakes tests. Schools now focus on teaching to the test and get passing scores so they can get regulators "off their

        • and creativity has been sucked out of our public educational system.

          You can't suck out something that never existed. Our school system was and is geared towards creating worker drones and rote memorization 'geniuses.' NCLB made the problem a bit worse, but only a bit.

    • It is ludicrous to make the assertion that adding 40 minutes of time to the school day will magically add a month more of learning. The mentally that more time in school equals more learning is very flawed.

      I agree, but even if it did work, what would be the point? More unemployed degree holders?

      I suspect the the US is on the verge of a "job creator" induced brain drain, as well educated students find that working at McDonald's isn't the career they had spent those longer days studying for.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Anrego ( 830717 ) *

        The really terrible thing is they are cutting things like shop and metal working, which is really what we need.

        Not saying high school should become a pre-trade school, but they shouldn't completely ignore the fact that there are non-university career paths, and in the current job market, they may even be a better choice.

        • We should just offer a trade school option starting in high school, like some other countries do. That's where people can have the shop and metal working classes.

          • We should just offer a trade school option starting in high school, like some other countries do. That's where people can have the shop and metal working classes.

            Problem is, we still have College uber alles guidance counselors and administration. We had a technical school, an dI took a modified curriculum of Academic plus Electronics. But it was a fight the whole way - the counselors discouraged it, and I even got a sit down with the school Principle, where he told me I was such a smart boy, why would I make people think I was one of those dumb "teckkers".

            I didn't listen, and haven't regretted it for a moment. It wasn't easy, and my schedule was weird and full

        • The really terrible thing is they are cutting things like shop and metal working, which is really what we need.

          Not saying high school should become a pre-trade school, but they shouldn't completely ignore the fact that there are non-university career paths, and in the current job market, they may even be a better choice.

          All part of the "College education is a must" thinking. Even when I was in High school, 40 years ago, they were working at getting rid of them, Shop wasn't available for the Academic students.

          Fast forward to today, we have kids with degrees, graduating with over 100K debt, getting their job at McDonalds, and applying for government aid.

          And they can't figure out how to fix a leaky faucet.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mallyn ( 136041 )
            Vocational shops (metal, wood, electrical, auto, etc) were never available in the private schools (Choate, Andover, Exiter, Milton, Tabor, etc). Even back in the 1960's. The only shop class that Tabor Academy (the prep school that I went to) was repairing the sailboats that are used by the sailing team. Now, I have heard that was eliminated and they have a hired crew do it.

            • Vocational shops (metal, wood, electrical, auto, etc) were never available in the private schools (Choate, Andover, Exiter, Milton, Tabor, etc). Even back in the 1960's. The only shop class that Tabor Academy (the prep school that I went to) was repairing the sailboats that are used by the sailing team. Now, I have heard that was eliminated and they have a hired crew do it.

              And how weird - to the way I think. It's the concept that certain types of knowledge somehow makes you inferior. And that somehow if say, you know how to repair an alternator on a car, it will be blocking more important knowledge?

              Which brings me to a Simpson's reference

              Homer: "And how is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?"

              Marge: "Th

  • are less than this already, on average.
    this discrepancy can only grow.

  • Dont add time, use it better. (Score:3)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Saturday December 27, 2014 @08:52AM (#48679369)

    Meh, quality is what it is about, not quantity - the school I went to had a 9am to 4pm school day and was doing well in rankings, but they decided to do a fairly major restructuring of the school day in order to shift more lessons before lunch (they had a research project for a year prior, which showed the two lessons after lunch had a much lower engagement level than lessons before lunch). By starting 20 minutes earlier (8.40 start) and cutting 20 minutes off of the hour lunch, they managed to have four lessons before lunch, one after, and actually managed to shave an hour off the school day, meaning we got to finish at 3pm. Even the kids loved it, and the study done after showed a massive uptick in engagement in both the single lesson after lunch, and the one that had been moved to before lunch. The school is now topping rankings in the area as well.

  • People get less productive as the day gets longer, especially students. I think there would be far more benefit to extending the school year and abandoning summer holidays than there would be to extending the school day.

    • Ha ha! Go to a school board meeting and suggest that.

      The parents would murder you.

    • People get less productive as the day gets longer, especially students. I think there would be far more benefit to extending the school year and abandoning summer holidays than there would be to extending the school day.

      And exactly what part of working for minimum wage (or less if we eradicate it) requires year round schooling?

  • Keep the kids longer and don't send homework (Score:5, Insightful)

    by watermark ( 913726 ) on Saturday December 27, 2014 @09:04AM (#48679387)

    Keep the kids longer and don't send homework.

    For many children, success in school depend on 1-on-1 help with homework. In many households, parents are not able to provide that help due to work schedule or their own lack of education. Depending on homework seems to disproportionally affect children living in poor, uneducated households. Those children grow up less educated and end up with a lower paying job, so when they have children of their own, the cycle continues.

    A great example of this is the very debate over "the core curriculum". The debate's loudest voices are from parents that just don't understand what the new methods are trying to accomplish. The parents all agree their child should be taught math, so the debate should be between educators on *how* to do it. I guarantee you that there would be next to no debate if parents were not asked to help with homework. If we limit what we teach to what all parents understand, then we're done. Turn the lights off and crawl back into our caves.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anrego ( 830717 ) *

      Not only that, but classrooms tend to drop to the lowest common level. The kids who are behind because they can't get their homework done (due to as you said, shitty living situation, both parents busy or just unable to help, etc) drag the whole class down with them.

      Limiting homework would serve to level things out a bit, and honestly as a kid I think I would have preferred more classroom time if it meant no homework.

    • Re:Keep the kids longer and don't send homework (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Saturday December 27, 2014 @11:23AM (#48679791)

      he parents all agree their child should be taught math, so the debate should be between educators on *how* to do it. I guarantee you that there would be next to no debate if parents were not asked to help with homework. If we limit what we teach to what all parents understand, then we're done. Turn the lights off and crawl back into our caves.

      This got me to thinking, and I would love to see it tried in a classroom as an experiment

      I positively stunk at math and algebra. It didn't help that the teacher was as inspiring as poi, but still I stunk.

      Then in my electronics courses, our teacher taught us how to use the slide rule. At that point, the mechanical adaptation of numbers to most functions just made something click in my mind. I did a 180 on math subjects - even without using the slide rule. Just by luck, I was in on the last class to learn the use of slide rules in my area.

      This isn't a get off my lawn thing. I just think that the way the slide rule presents the numbers, and the obvious relationships between the different rules, and the way it trains you to use notation are just something that might help students learn math subjects. To this day, I keep a slide rule in the garage. The batteries on those things seem to last forever.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nemyst ( 1383049 )
        You're almost on the spot: the thing isn't the slide rule or the core curriculum or anything. It's that different people learn differently. As it is, there is only ever one (two if you're lucky) method taught at school for any given subject. If you don't get it with that explanation, you're relegated to the bottom of the barrel and need out-of-school-hours help, if you can even get it. Most students aren't motivated enough to do so and just fall by the wayside.
        • No, he/she IS on the spot. Remember, the slide rule was mainly a source of inspiration, which help the GP understand relationships between numbers and motivated GP to learn more. Choice quote:

          I did a 180 on math subjects - even without using the slide rule.

          It is not a "learning styles" issue. Learning styles is a fiction.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shados ( 741919 )

          The only issue I have with this (and its just a minor hiccup), is that once in the real world, you won't always be able to get things just the right way that suits you. If you're a software engineer, yeah, you probably can hop around until you find just the right thing... Same if you can make your own company, to some extent, and make it successful.

          But for most people, they end up having to deal with shit that doesn't suit them. In a way, the one most useful skill you gain from school is just that: learning

      • To this day, I keep a slide rule in the garage. The batteries on those things seem to last forever.

        That was back when they made REAL batteries. Nowadays, the batteries have to be RoHS compliant and the quality suffers. ;)

  • ... of our agrarian past.

    It was there so children could help their parents on their farms. This was at a time when between 60 to 80 percent of the labor force was involved in some kind of agriculture.

    Since none of this is applicable and the students are generally agreed to be in need of more education... the conclusion seems rather obvious.

    The teachers won't like this being the lazy union shit heads that they've become in many cases. And politically the issue will get attacked although perhaps subtly. But i

    • I don't think everyone agrees that students need more of their shitty education. Honestly, if you can't teach it in ten months, you can't teach it in eleven months either. Poor educational results are a thing of standards, not lack of time.

      Despite possibly being a remnant of an agrarian past, you have to look at what's more useful. As countries that favor creative thinkers over merely competent automatons, education during summer vacation may be more effective than a month of extra school.

      Mind you, sitting

      • You're assuming that students study art or something during their summer break. They don't.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lehk228 ( 705449 )
      the last thing our kids need is 2 more months of liberalism being shoved down their throats.

    • A warning to anyone that does want to make such an argument... I will bury your ass alive in facts.

      As far as I know, or at least in my area, the contracts with the individual teachers are for the term of the school year. Roughly 9 months. 3 months not.

      Unless you are suggesting a massive pay cut, the cure is simple. Extend the contract to year round, and make the pay reflect that period. This would not be unlike a regular 32 hour, or 40 hour contract with an employee. Where I worked we had a type of employee who was essentially full time part time. Every year, they signed a contract for a specific numbe

      • In some districts the grade school teachers literally have "tenure".

        So... think about that.

        • In some districts the grade school teachers literally have "tenure".

          So... think about that.

          Do think that not answering any point I make is burying my ass alive?

          Anything you want to address in my post? Or just the typical, and now intellectually bankrupt and remarkably cheap and non sequitar "Talking point" union hate. I didn't mention anything about unions, merely what would seem to be a normal contract issue. And very simple at that, Time and compensation, and not a thing about tenure.

          • I thought my point was self evident, but perhaps not.

            [quote]As far as I know, or at least in my area, the contracts with the individual teachers are for the term of the school year. Roughly 9 months. 3 months not.

            Unless you are suggesting a massive pay cut, the cure is simple. Extend the contract to year round, and make the pay reflect that period. This would not be unlike a regular 32 hour, or 40 hour contract with an employee. Where I worked we had a type of employee who was essentially full time part tim

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nemyst ( 1383049 )
      So instead of students working during summer, they'll... not work at all? What's more likely to happen is that they'll work during the school year, which is known to severely impact grades. Teenagers want to have some spending money and many parents consider them old enough to start working to earn it. Good luck changing that sort of mentality on both points.

      Also, it's cue, not queue and even less so que, which isn't even an English word.

      • Require that students work during their summer break and I'll compromise. As a further sign of my willingness to compromise... simply require that they do something constructive. Anything. Sitting on their asses eating potato chips is not acceptable. Change nothing and I'll assume a lot of students do not do anything productive during their summer break and maintain my position unchanged.

        Deal?

  • Probably Deeply Flawed (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    While i may not be familiar with the American high school system where i went to school (the UK) school ran from 08:45 to 3:15 and to most able students 50% of that was totally pointless. I would find myself, and many of my friends covering the material and the assigned homework within the 1st 30 minutes of a 60 minute lesson. However i can see how this might be beneficial to those less able.

    Luckily at a post-16 level my school had a more university like attitude and we actually went down to 2.5 hours of te

  • Quality Vs. Quantity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Saturday December 27, 2014 @09:38AM (#48679443) Homepage Journal
    I moved every three or four years growing up -- I was a military brat. Luckily for me, Dad was stationed at a post in upstate New York for most of the time I was in high school. I attended a very high quality high school there, so I have a first-hand basis for comparison between good educational systems and bad ones. The school in New York could get more done in a 40 minute class than the bad schools I attended down south could manage in an hour. We'd get in, get right down to business and get out before we had time to get bored. Class sizes were smaller and the teacher didn't have to spend 20 minutes getting everyone to settle down.

    The difference in focus was apparent as soon as you walked into the building. The school in New York had posters for good colleges and educational awards on prominent display and had very little focus on sports. Despite this, they had a much better PE program -- they had an Olympic-sized swimming pool and offered elective options for cross-country skiing and archery, among other things.

    The schools I attended in the South had larger, longer classes and were entirely focused on football. If your aptitude didn't fall into the range of something to do with football, they pretty much just wanted to waste your time until they could kick you out into the real world with a promising career as a gas station attendant to look forward to. You were either a future football player or a future football viewer. That's all they knew how to do.

    What no one in any school ever told me was that I was the captain of my own fate. We all are. So if your school is bad and you don't want to grow up to be a gas station attendant, you'd better find some other way to learn the math and science that today's careers demand. The world isn't going to get any easier.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alomex ( 148003 )

      Yeah, yeah, but did you make the team?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Greyfox ( 87712 )
        Haha nope. Undiagnosed asthma and poor eyesight saved me from a few years of concussions. Years later Lasik fixed the latter and the former is mostly under control. Technically right now I believe I qualify as an extreme athlete. That'd blow the minds of some PE coaches from a couple decades ago, I'm sure.

    • ____What no one in any school ever told me was that I was the captain of my own fate. We all are.___

      This.

      Self-schooling, self-empowerment, was a concept not even mentioned until the 4th year of college (and that was only because I complained that a course listed in the catalog had never actually been offered.) No other single idea for educational change is more important than this one.

  • Public education is a farce. A kid sitting by himself in front of a computer with an internet connection for an hour a day and with zero direction is likely to learn far more than in an entire day spent in most public schools. Any encouragement or direction that the parent(s) can muster is icing.
  • Yes, my same rant and yes I realize school is largely day care for older kids. Good, got that out of the way. So I look at this the same way I look at hours at a job. You can't get more than 40 hours a week of physical labor and you probably get far less than that with knowledge based labor.(Yes, that means overtime is actually pointless.) I wonder how many hours of school they should shoot for to maximize learning, my guess is it's probably less than 6 hours and most likely more time won't result in more l

    • A great deal depends upon how much you like what you're doing. One summer job of assembly line labor left me refreshed at the end of each day. The last job I had, designing integrated circuits, had me working 60 hours a week just because I could.

      Some of the great advances are the result of people obsessed with their work.

  • I work in a school but am not part of the teacher's union. Teachers, and their unions, are like doctors, lawyers, hackers, and all other walks of life--some are good, some are bad, but most are somewhere in between. In the end, though, they want to get paid like anyone else. Teachers get summers off, all student breaks, snow days, and some personal time. When I read the article and see they'll be getting an extra 4k a year I can't help but cringe. Is this really about what's best for the kids, or is it

  • The real issue (Score:3)

    by psnyder ( 1326089 ) on Saturday December 27, 2014 @11:16AM (#48679763)

    I'm certified to teach K-5 in one of the US states but currently teach in another country. I've looked into this idea quite a bit.

    There is evidence to show that extra school time benefits children in families that don't give much academic support at home (especially prevalent in poor, inner-city neighborhoods). For example, standardized test scores in reading often rise after summer vacations in affluent areas, but not so much in poor areas. The assumption is that many affluent parents tend to read and encourage their children to read during the summer. It's simply a disparity of time reading. To combat this, some experimental, inner-city schools have had success raising scores with very long days. However, I haven't seen anything showing that longer days help elsewhere. Homework (no matter how many hours) has been shown to have no significant effect raising scores for elementary students. (Up to 2 hours helps high school students, but over that seems to give no additional benefit.)

    Honestly, I would first look at reducing time giving children tests. In many schools, children are given about an hour of tests a day, on average (amount varying from day to day, class to class, school to school). Tests are specifically to help adults (administrators, teachers, parents). Children are not allowed to practice their weak areas (the main thing that helps them learn) during a test. Although tests give children goals to strive for, motivational goals can be given many other, more effective ways. That's often 180 hours of test time a year (36 days of school, considering 5 hours a day of "in-class" time).

    In my school we give 1 standardized test a year, and no testing outside that. Our scores are usually average or better than average on the standardized test (despite having many special-needs students). The teachers have more time to work with the students (and therefore know exactly where each child is). We also have more time to plan (instead of correcting tests during prep time).

    Common questions we get are about how we communicate a child's level, without grades (given from tests). Simply put, we give more in-depth reports to parents & other schools. It works, but this is the part that scares most administrators and parents. Frankly, this part is more work for the adults. But if the main focus is on what's best for the children, frequent testing should be abolished. From the perspective of a child's education (practicing difficulties and learning new things), testing is one of the least efficient uses of time. And if we truly want more class time, that's where educators should start.

    • Erh... no. Of course I cannot talk about the teacher's view, but I sure can talk about the "other end". On both accounts.

      First and foremosts, tests don't motivate students. They are, generally, a nuisance and something you want to get out of the way. Basically your goal is to get a passing grade with the least effort necessary. Unless of course the subject interests you in the first place but then you sure as hell don't need any encouragement, let alone in the form of a test. So what do you do? Well, you st

      • My first day at school was in 1958. With pop quizzes and weekly progress tests in all 5 classes I imagine we spent a cumulative 1 hour a day in testing. Without testing how do you know if a child is learning? I took a semester of college classes in 1997. Each class was four hours a week with the fourth hour spent in testing.

        My exposure to today's education system is a daughter who teaches college English and a son in his junior year of college. From what I see even though actual education spending has doubl

        • As I explained above, the tests don't show whether the student is learning. The tests show whether the student understood the underlying system. I can honestly say that I don't have any clue about bookkeeping despite allegedly learning it for 5 years and passing with a B average.

          Tests have a fundamental flaw that they are testing whether you can work as a sponge. Soak up any and all crap and reproduce it at request, without the need to retain anything of it for any longer period of time.

          • The real world need for sponges is far greater than the need for people who have been taught how to learn but can't prove it. If you're teaching someone how to learn how can you know if you have succeeded? How does someone prove that they can learn without actually answering any questions? How can a student prove he can retain knowledge without retaining any?

      • By "weak area" I meant (for example) the 5% a student gets wrong when they score 95% on a test, not a "subject" they're weak in. This weak area could be in a subject they are very good at and enjoy. And when you talk about tests not being an effective form of motivation, that's exactly what I meant too. Unfortunately, the argument that students wouldn't be motivated to learn without upcoming tests is one I've heard numerous times, and it's just wrong. In fact, I agree with everything you say. If there

  • Wrong Way On A One Way Street (Score:3)

    by Jim Sadler ( 3430529 ) on Saturday December 27, 2014 @11:34AM (#48679843)
    These new school hours are awful. The high school youth need a far longer school day. Programs and services for students have been cut supposedly for economic reasons. They cut the hours as they cut the programs. Students have no worse enemy than their families and neighbors. Getting high school kids absent from their homes is a positive goal. My high school day consisted of getting up at 6am and eating, driving 15 miles to school and being in place at 7:20 am.. The day ended at 3:20 pm. but was far from over. One night a week we had concert band practice or marching band practice from 7 PM unril 10 pm. We also had either a marching event or a concert event about one night a week and sometimes traveled for a weekend for regional contests and the like. Band students tended to go to college and had grades and health reports superior to the school population. That is despite the fact that many of us would be forced to study all night and be on our feet for two days running at times. Musical training and phys-ed are both vital programs that every student should be involved in. And guess what programs got cut the most!

  • If the goal is improving grades (which it seems to be from TFA), then you have to get the kids interested; they'll learn far more if they aren't just being lectured at. The best way to get them interested is to let them direct at least some of their own education. It's been shown that kids (or people in general, for that matter) take a larger interest/initiative when given freedom and personal control. Let them define something they want to learn about in an applied way, then connect it to regular core cla

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