Yet another reason I don't like Obama - taking away summer VACATION????

You know, I was raised in Illinois and I only merely thought of year round school as a kid thinking what a horrible thing and I hope it never happens to me. (With the thinking it was like a job and not school -no vacation, as many people think it means) But really, it's not so bad. There are many families that enjoy the different seasons off, as planning a Christmas break vacation can be spread over 3 1/2 weeks, not just 10 days. Basically with a minimum of 2 weeks off per break, you can choose which season would best fit your needs! The reasons with the smaller gaps in breaks have determined that some children (SOME) benefit from maintaining memory easier if not so spread out without any kind of structure, such as 3 months without school. Do I beleive that? Sort of. I had 3 months off as a kid, and I don't really know that if my summer was cut off that I would be all that better off or smarter in the process. But then again I am not watching the statistics of the kids who are having an easier time becuase of the change either. Who tried this theory in the first place? California was one of them, as we produced a low rating near the bottom of the list for the state's elementary achievement scores. Why change a good thing? If your school district is keeping up with state standards, then the only reason I can think of is it is merely for change. Is Mr. President going to check out each county and determine where ones are excelling versus not? No, most likely not. And if you are hoping the President will bottom out, don't worry, he has bigger fish to fry than your little ones. Hopefully, he will keep moving on, unless he screws up his priorities yet again, and then he may think rearranging the school year is more important than stopping this war that we've been dealing with for the last 5,000 years. And yes, I knew you weren't serious about the online thing for kids-I was stating it just as a joke to say that parents and caretakers are constantly remaining disappointed with the school systems and amendments and for good reasons many times-that we all say the hell with it and put our kids where we can learn in a virtual classroom-and even though it seems far-fetched, it will be here before you know it.

The year-round school year does not reflect just the poorer families as you say, "working the Wal-mart jobs, living in crappy apartments, etc." Just to clarify-it has nothing to do with wealth, but all to do at standards. When this happened, though, I am not usre. It has been going on as long I lived here in California, and that has been since 1998. We are on the poorer side of the spectrum though, but we are not underpriveleged, as our needs are met and we go without nothing home-wise. My son is 10 and in 4th grade, and he is reading at the 3rd trimester level of 5th grade. My daughter is in 2nd grade, and they are required to recognize common sight words from a list of over 200. She is to recognize 100 by December (half the year). She only missed 4 out of all 200. The day time schedule cannot be reformed. They can't make the school week run Tuesday through Saturday, just because, and likewise, they cannot extend the school days by 2 or 3 hours a day. Education is protected under federal law. Go to your school board and find these things out. We as parents know our children have to go to to school, but how many days, how long a school day is set by law, and the days set (Monday-Friday) have to be available for parents view, because it can raise concern. They can't just choose what they want-it is federally mandated. And many school years' changes don't happen for years. Even if it hit the school board right now to go to year round school, the chances of it actually going into effect probably won't happen for at least 2 or 3 years, if not longer. I see that you are very upset, and you have reason to be. Call your school board, talk to the superindent (as I have to in regards for my daughter's mishap last Firday as well!) They may be able to ease your mind with some things that are unclear. You need to speak out against what you feel is not right for your children and your family! Remember-they make funding off your children, and need you child there to be a success! They will talk to you as clearly as they can about the pros and cons of what is too happen. Then again, with Obama's great ideas coming along all the time, if this goes federal, than the traditional school year will be history. If that really starts to happen, write Congress! They say for every letter written to Congress about public affairs, it serves as if 5 people wrote it. They will listen if the get a rash of "un-fan" mail!

Oh, I'll write to my congressman. I'll write to the governor too. Let me explain why I used the example of less privelaged kids whose parents both work all day long. These kids are unsupervised for hours during the day. They also receive very little educational enrichment from activities with parents or help with schoolwork from parents. If we get into standards, that is why I said - test the kids. Don't punish the kids who are testing out fine and know what they should by threatening them with extra school, longer days, a longer year. I can totally see how it would help kids who are behind or below average. I see how it will just irritate and bore kids who are not behind or above average. As far as I know, the state standard is 180 days. I have no issue with 180 days. We started at the beginning of August and go until the end of May. I have no problem with that either. I think it is an excellent schedule and I'm happy with it. Like I said too, I decided ultimately on this school based on the fact that kindergarten was still half day. I was glad to find out that it's also a good school, but if I were faced with a choice of two good schools and one was half and the other was full, I'd choose the half on principle. 7:30-2 is a LONG day for a five year old. So far we have arrived at school every day early and not been absent even once. The kids receive awards for good attendance and good behavior and also being at grade level for work performance. I sincerely hope if ANYTHING comes of this, it takes at least 10 years for it to happen. 10 years would have my daughter well into high school and she could take high school online instead and finish early and go to college early. If online high school courses are anything like online college, you just have to complete the syllabus and assignments and final, it says nothing about hours spent doing it.

the kids here in the US spend more hours in school than any other country. they spend 1146 hours compared with Tiawan next at 1050 hours. They do have more school days though. It's in the news section http://www.mylot.com/w/newsarticle/22793229.aspx We need to get back to really teaching the basics as earlier posted the true and real History and science and not this junk math. It also needs o be made more interesting so the kids will pay attention. More days or hours won't encourage then to learn better.

I would venture to say it's more about how education now caters to NOBODY rather than we don't spend enough time on it. It is also - let's face it - sometimes uninteresting to students. Think of something you really do NOT enjoy. Then think of the person you least want to see and listen to for 50 minutes. Then think of the worst assignment you'd have to do with that subject you don't enjoy, after listening to that person you never wanted to see again. Combine that and spoon feed it to several million kids. Rinse, repeat. I'm not saying it's like that for EVERY kid, it certainly isn't, but there are a lot of kids who feel that way. Some kids are visual learners, they have to SEE a concept to get it. Some kids are auditory learners, they have to hear about a concept to get it. Some kids learn only by hands-on or doing something with the information in order to get it. Some kids have language barriers and they may APPEAR dumb but they aren't, they know exactly what you're talking about but they don't have the english equivalent to tell you they know, so they sit there and just look at you. All we have to do is figure out how to combine all those things into teaching. If that could be managed, you could teach a concept quickly to a whole class of students and they'd ALL get it. If you found a way to make it fun, they'd enjoy it even more and not be able to wait for the next concept. Why aren't we doing something like this? It wouldn't take ANY extra time, just extra support staff so you could split the kids into groups. I think that would be a much better use of taxpayer dollars for education than trying to make kids stay at school more hours or more days or both. Length of time makes little difference.

New York, specifically, the southeast New york area - But - if you look at the cost of living here, that'll probably scare you away. In the public schools, the salaries are OK. It is the parochial schools that the salaries are kind of low.The thing is, the starting salary is just OK. It's when you have been with the particular school district for many years that the pay gets good.

I want to know where you live that teacher salaries are generous? I want to move there when I get out of college with my English Education degree. In Florida, teachers with a Master's degree, start out at only $35,000 a year. With a Bachelor's, it's only $30,000. It's above poverty, but it can't support even two people by themselves with bills, food, and the supplies needed for the classroom that the school board won't provide.

That's partially why this doesn't make any sense to me. To make it more global and not just about school, all these programs and 'ideas' Obama has COST MONEY. Lots of money. TONS OF MONEY. Where is this money coming from? US! And none of us have it! That just throws me for a loop. So the government is what.... like 300 trillion in DEBT already? They don't have money for these programs, for these 'suggestions'. The states are all broke too. Unemployment is skyrocketing. And there's a school district hiring freeze, hiring freezes on NURSES and hospital workers... um... okay. So if they want education to improve you have to either improve the QUALITY or the QUANTITY. I vote for improving the QUALITY, not adding more time or days. However, that means like you said that you'd have to remove the hiring freeze and hire back a lot of teachers, hire classroom aides, tutors, spend more money on supplies and activities to help promote the concepts kids are learning. Make it QUALITY education. If your child is spending 4 hours at school, make those 4 hours count. Break off into small groups and learn by level, it is so much easier to teach 5 or 6 kids who are all at the same level a new concept. It is incredibly daunting to try and teach 30 kids a new concept when a third of them didn't 'get' the last concept on which the new concept builds, a third of them get it but need more practice, and a third of them knew it already. How do you effectively handle that? Somewhere in there, at least one group of kids will get screwed. Then you have all the extra work involved in teaching, which IS lesson planning, copying, sorting and organizing for crafts or games for younger kids, planning and making up packets or independent practice worksheets, correcting everything, planning and correcting tests etc etc. That is a LOT of extra work. That is one reason I like teaching but don't want a class. The salaries do not actually 'fit' all the extra hours a teacher works. In CA the average isn't too bad... I think it's like 60K. A lot of teachers make less, a few make more, and it's not the best but it's better than poverty level. With a masters and some experience, obviously you make more, but it also depends on your district. Some districts are poorer and have less funding available, and if the district is really low, they don't get a lot of parental support, which also hurts the school in performance. Back to the extra funding that would be necessary - sorry but you cannot get blood out of a stone. Try as you might, it just won't happen. I believe that American taxpayers are already bled dry and that happened a long time ago. We don't have any more and we don't even wish we had any more because for so long we have not benefitted from the government taking our money. Why would that change now? It won't. We also don't want to be taxed any more, regardless of the reason. We just don't want to be taxed any more. I vote that we shift a lot of the waste of funds for other things back into education, and then if they are able to get the money for optional programs to help kids without taxing us or putting the burden on us, I think that would be acceptable, but it would also have to benefit the teachers, aides, tutors, and administration that would be faced with no time off and see if it was worth it to them.

Well, because I am not petty and closed minded, I chose to rate you positively even though you disagree with me. That isn't the issue, and it's fine if you disagree, but you need to realize that perhaps we come from two different backgrounds. I dislike being lumped in with 'a group' just because 9 out of 10 people have trouble in school or 'lose' what they learned over the summer. If it doesn't apply to me, why the heck would I have to conform? That is really what this is about, giving options, not orders. As far as my comment about Obama's successor, what I'm hoping is that the next person actually has the best interests of EVERYBODY at heart, not some blanket idea that everybody is the same and everybody will benefit from one size fits all campaign of 'you WILL do it this way and this way only'. I have stated repeatedly in this thread that I am totally FOR options! Choices! Sure, offer year round school at SOME schools in each district, or offer it as a choice at all schools - but a choice, not mandatory. I'm sorry, I just bristle when someone says 'you HAVE to do this' when there is no shred of evidence why I HAVE to. I dont' do anything 'just because someone else does' or 'because you're supposed to'. I do things because I want to, because it makes sense to me, because it benefits me, my kids, my family, my friends, etc. Those are the only reasons I do things. If you tell me I have to, that's the first reason I won't. I'm sorry that your experience in school was negative, and I'm sorry that you were anxious because of the time you were off, but not everybody's situation is like yours. Some people work or travel in the summer, go to camp, go on vacation. Some things are specifically planned with that time in mind. My daughter takes swimming lessons in the summer and we also do a lot of activities with friends. This coming summer she may even be able to go to a summer day camp at a new park, and since she now has friends in the neighborhood, they'd all get to see each other every day there and do games and crafts, run and play, and even learn some cool new things. I also think you are confusing being out of school with 'no education'. There is still plenty of learning going on, but it is not book learning, rote learning, sitting in class listening to a teacher learning. There is little to no paperwork but plenty of information out there being added via experiences. As an adult, I can tell you that the majority of what has helped me is internal motivation, persistence, and confidence. You can't teach those things, you have them or you don't. You can learn them but you have to care and you have to want them. School did not 'prepare me' for a job. I got part time jobs as a teen because I knew I'd need the experience in order to land and keep a full time job. I needed the job initially to put aside and save money to support myself. After I was on my own, it was just necessary to continue supporting myself, and the goal of course is to continue up through the ranks, get a better job, get more money. I am extremely grateful looking back that I had those summers to work part time, to goof off with friends, to experience life. I am grateful that I was able to get my work done in school so I had after school time to play with my siblings, my friends, hang out with my parents, read, run around, etc. When I got older I was grateful for that time to earn my own money, to participate in sports, music, drama, scouts, stuff like that. I would never wish I could look back and say 'yay, I spent all that time in school'. You cannot MAKE or FORCE anybody to learn. You can put opportunities out there but only some people will take them. The key here is to encourage opportunities and make them available to the greatest amount of people, not FORCE people to take advantage of them. If you can convince people to care, you've done 90% of the job, but again, it just won't apply to some people. There may be an excellent English language learners program at my daughter's school but we don't fall in that group, so why should someone beat me over the head trying to get me to get involved? I'm trying to get you to see an example of why I believe in choice and not making EVERYBODY do it. Do you honestly think EVERYBODY should have to be included in a program or way of doing something that isn't going to benefit them because they don't need it?

I read the link my dear, and kids in other countries do not go more hours. They may go more days but if we go 180 and they go 200, that's 20 days. Either way, what people are missing is that time spent does not mean the quality of education is any better. If we want to do better, we need to increase the QUALITY, not the QUANTITY. We have already changed the standards so much in the last 30 years that instead of taking Algebra in 9th grade, kids are starting to learn it in 4th grade. No wonder it LOOKS like we are behind, we changed the standards. If we hadn't changed the standards guess what? We'd be at the same level we were 30 years ago. Do you know WHY we spend more money per student on average? We employ more administrative staff. We have costs of running schools that perhaps other countries do not have. We have a lot of waste in our educational system. I am not worried about competing with someone who lives in another country for a job in my country. Unless they come here, there is no reason to consider it. Of course I'd have to compete against someone else here who applied and got an interview, but as far as that goes, all I have to worry about is if I was at the top of my class here and do I have the knowledge and experience and what the company wants in an employee. If the answer is yes, then I have a good chance of getting the job. My point is, I do not believe something like this should have to affect everyone. It's enough that the change in standards had to affect everyone, and that was hardly fair. Think of what YOU learned in first grade. Now in first grade kids are learning what I learned in third grade. Kids today are not different than me - and I was at a private school in an excel program! Just because you can teach a 14 month old to read doesn't mean we should all start doing that, just because it can be done....

LOL! If the school district changed to a year round schedule, I'd put my son and daughter in a different school district. We talked about the issues associated with it because all of our schools start at different times because in order to save money, the district has to use the same buses. They simply don't have enough funding to get more buses and more bus drivers to service all the schools. They sent home a survey asking parents if we wanted to switch to be on the same schedule as another district - and this district did year round. The majority - at least 82% of the parents polled said absolutely not. This was at the high school level. I don't doubt that a lot of the high schoolers had input, but I don't blame them. My son has been trying to get a job every summer for the last two years. He landed one for about a month last summer but it was very temporary. If you have 2 or 3 months off, you have time to get a part time job and work it with reliability. You can even work full time during those months, and drop down to part time and receive work experience credit from high school when school begins again. In order to do that though, you need to have a few hours each afternoon/early evening available to work, and you have to keep your grades at C or above to receive credit or your work experience teacher can recommend you quit. Anyway, if kids do not get that break, no employer is going to hire them, even part time. If kids have to go to school for 8 hours a day, there's definitely no time for a part time job. If you have never worked any job by the time you graduate, it is hard to get your foot in the door, even with a diploma, and even if your transcripts read mostly As. I worked part time in high school and I also did sports. Those things were integral to my sanity while in high school. I'm sure a lot of my friends felt the same way. Without those opportunites and the time in which to do them, we'd all be burned out, long before we should have been. There really needs to be a balance or you get burned out, and kids these days get burned out and bored much faster than my generation ever did. I don't wonder why, I know it's because we had more of a balance. Taking it away is going to wreak havoc we have never seen before. High school drop out rate? I see it skyrocketing.

oh and the schools here tried going year round for a while here. But it did not work. WHy? They only tried it on the elementary school kids. So the parents complained when they had kids in elementary and middle school that did not go on the same schedule. It was confusing on which kid had which days off.The parents liked the year round schedule better. SO the school board meet and decided what to do. They wanted all the schools to go year round.....but the high school kids and their parents threw a fit. so they now all go on the traditional schedule. Shame....studies show kids do better on the year round schedule. On the traditional schedule kids forget so much over the long summer vacation that the teacher have to spend the first quarter reviewing last year instead of doing new material. But in the year round schedule they dont forget so the teachers can move forward with new material. It is not that bad....here they got two weeks off every nine weeks. And one month in the summer. So they still go a summer vacation...just a shorter one.I know kids like their long summer vacations....but we as parents have to think about their futures and what is best for them long term. And yes getting an education is their job. I tell my kids that...they have a job...its called school.

Well... NCLB is partially to blame for some problems I can see. The schools lose more points if a child who is struggling falls further behind than the points they gain if they get an average/proficient child ahead to exceptional. Because of this, the biggest focus is on the kids who are having the most trouble, leaving the ones who are proficient or advanced at a bit of a loss, since you cannot really advance the class of 30 students to something better if you still have 6 students who don't know what their name is.... I volunteer at my daughter's school, and so far what I have seen of the curriculum is excellent. She has a good teacher and school is fun, she is doing things that are consistent with K/1 standards for the end of the year. Budget crises are getting worse, and at the beginning of the year, there were 40 kids in the class. We have a long term sub now so there are 3 kindergarten classes, 2 morning and 1 afternoon, and the class is down to about 27 students. It's manageable, certainly much improved from 40 but it's still 7 more than they told me when I registered in March. Sometimes I want to laugh, you know the guy who touched things and turned them into gold? Well everything this government touches turns into a pile of.... you know what!

But why do you equate more time spent with a BETTER EDUCATION? I don't get that. I do not at all equate more days and more hours with better. Quality can be improved without extending the amount of time. It feels like a waste of time to spend extra time and not see any results, which is what I fear is already happening. There is a lot of waste in our school systems, frankly speaking. The only way to improve the quality is to curb the waste, all of it, and put that money into QUALITY, not quantity. We are now serving NOBODY rather than everybody with this one-size-fits-all approach. Remember when I told you I was so worried about my daughter starting kindergarten? I had been told when I registered her that she would have 20 or 21 students in her class, a teacher, and an aide. I had been told that they followed the state standards and what they were, that the kids would get at least one day of PE per week, that they had a music teacher, etc etc. Imagine my surprise when the first day there were 40 kids in the class. They now have 27 which is better but still not optimal. The school has no PE teacher any more, and kindergarten doesn't really participate in PE anyway. I have researched the standards for kindergarten and thank goodness we do enough other physical activity that if she has to do a state standard test, she'll be able to pass it. She goes to school 4 hours a day. She is FIVE. We have to get up at 6 am in order to be to school by 7:10. Recently the teachers finished assessing kids. I don't mean to sound snotty but she knows everything already. There is actually a good chunk of the kids who know most of the standards already. These same kids, like my daughter, do a lot of extra curricular things that we pay for separately, not related to the school. I don't want any of us penalized suddenly because they decide kindergarteners now need to go a full day. I specifically decided on this school over the montessori school BECAUSE kindergarten was only a half day. I'm not going to complain about first grade, I know that's a full day, but that's also why I put her in morning kindergarten - to give her (*and me) a whole year to get used to getting up and there so early. I do look at the standards and I know what she needs to know by the end of the year. I do some things at home with her but it's at our discretion and optional and fun, not like 'extra school'. It's more or less if she wants to, if we have time. I like having flexibility. Anyway, while I certainly agree that we need to improve the quality of education and figure out how to meet the needs of different levels of students who are all in the same class, to me that does not equal extending the school day or the school year. There are SOME kids who may benefit from that, and I'm not saying don't do it for those kids, but I am not for forcing everybody into it.

Absolutely, lil! After reading the article I really doubt anything will ever be done nationally to make everyone go to school all year round or longer hours but individual school districts may do it which would be fine with me. We go on vacation in the winter so I'd prefer it if they had more time off then than in the summer. My main point, though, is that, as you said, school IS and should be "a job" for the kids. If they had three hours or less of school and no homework not only would they not learn anything but once they got out of school and had to get a REAL job they'd be in for a heck of a shock, wouldn't they? Isn't school supposed to prepare them for life not make them believe life is a long picnic? Annie

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090927/ap_on_re_us/us_more_school%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EI did that work now for you? The article stated that he wanted to do such a thing, and that HE thought it was a good idea, but did you see anywhere that he planned to ASK other people how they felt about it first? Of course not. Each district DOES decide the schedule, as long as it's 180 days total, or whatever your state uses as the magic number. The schools in my district started on Aug 10th and go until May 26th. Wed are collaboration days for teachers, so the elementary school gets out an hour early and the high school starts an hour later. We have a few snow days built into the schedule but we don't usually get a lot of snow here. Last year was a fluke. If our education is NOT better, here are some reasons why which has nothing to do with the length of the school day of the length of the school year. First of all, FUNDING. With all the teacher layoffs and schools being unable to hire or keep tutors or aides, of course the quality is going to suffer. This also means the schools may have trouble having enough school supplies, workbooks, textbooks, etc. Then, along with the funding cuts we have increased class sizes. Don't you think increased class sizes have something to do with a lesser quality of education? Even the proficient or exceptional students suffer if there are 40 students in a class! I simply do not believe that the quality will improve by saying just make the class of 40 students go to school longer, have more homework, or go to school 215 days a year instead. MY solution would be to split that class of 40 into two classes of 20. Add one teacher and one aide or tutor for each class. Test the classes. Put them in excel groups according to knowledge and ability. Each class would have 45 min to an hour of excel a day, focusing on either concepts they need extra practice with or new concepts. Meet the needs of the most students in the most quality way, without waste, using quality personnel. I am sure that in other countries, they do not have 45-50 kids in a class with one teacher, NOT if they are scoring better. They have less waste than we do, probably because they have less to waste. The kids probably care more than our kids, a lot of kids simply don't care about school. Some of them are bored. Some of them don't understand. I doubt any of them would be happy about MORE SCHOOL. I do not see school as optional, I know it's mandatory, from 1st - 12th grade. I also explained to somebody else that school didn't really prepare ME for 'real life'. You do learn some skills of course but the majority of things that helped me land jobs and learn how to manage adults' affairs were NOT things taught in a classroom. If I homeschool my daughter in the future, it will be along the lines of online college - IF online high school is the same thing. This means you sign up for the classes, core classes only probably, like English, creative writing, geometry, history, chemistry, etc and then you follow the syllabus, do assignments, and take the tests. People whom I've talked to who do online schooling do NOT spend hours and hours a day doing it, that's where I got my 3 hours from. If you apply yourself and get straight down to your task, there isn't likely to be much homework at all, because with an online course, there is nothing 'extra' like that assigned. I also have teenagers and high school teachers have TOLD me that they do NOT assign extra work for kids - they only expect kids to take home things they did not finish AT SCHOOL. I'm not sure why nobody seems to believe me about this, I have talked to multiple teachers at multiple schools for multiple years because I want to make sure that I have my facts straight and that is indeed the truth. The teachers know the kids aren't going to do extra assigned homework, and they know a lot of parents are gone all day and half the evening.

I agree completely annie. Education is a job. I homeschool my son. Well his school is online. And we are required to do AT LEAST 5 hours a day by law or we get kicked out of the program. Kindergarten is 4 hours A DAY Elementary school is 5 hours A DAY High school is 6 or 7 hours. I am not sure. I don't have a high schooler. A DAY. not a week A DAY. And they keep a time on it. They track how long you are online doing the classes. ANd don't think you can fool them by just turning on the computer to their page and then walking away. It is a very interactive program. Which means you have to be active in it to get credit for your time. And for our children to get a REAL education that amount of time is needed. Three hours a day? What can they really learn in three hours a day. And how much more could they be learning if they did more. My first grader is doing what they call early algebra...sort of a pre pre algebra. In science he is learning the scientific method.He is also taking a foreign langauage class. People need to get serious about their childrens' education. Don't you want them to have a good life and a lot of opportunities when they are adults? It is just common sense to me.

Thanks for posting, twoey . I never thought about the brainwashing aspect, but fortunately the schools I deal with don't seem to go much in that direction. I was able to object to any political agendas by stating I was going to excuse my daughter from anything of that nature - but her teacher cooperated even more by stating she wasn't even going to alter the day at all OR play any political speech or even mention anything to the kids. KUDOS to her. Most of us parents greatly appreciated it since there were many parents who voiced objections - our children are in KINDERGARTEN. I also checked with my son at the high school and he said they didn't play any speeches. I told him he was allowed to excuse himself from anything of that nature if he wasn't interested, and if the school told hjm he had to stay, he could tell them they were free to call me, because they wouldn't force him to if I came to take him out of class for the day. There ARE some parents who just want to send their kids to school to get them out of their hair. I was worried enough about my daughter being gone just 4 hours a day, EVERY day as opposed to 2 and a half hours a day, twice a week. So far things are fine because I'm at the school at least half of those 5 days, tutoring, helping, etc. The only problem I personally have with homeschooling is that I do not feel I'm qualified to teach as kids get older. I don't remember most of the things I learned in school that were state requirements, and I also grew up in a different state. I could homeschool IF it were an online homeschool program where I did not have to set up the lesson plans and teach and correct the work, just make sure the appropriate sections of each subject were covered for the week and the concepts marked for that week were learned, understood, and practiced so they could be tested on the following week. I would also enjoy secondary lessons - things related to the learning concepts that were real life tasks, not assignments. I would probably supplement with a lot of those. So far my daughter's school is wonderful and she has a great teacher and there is lots of socialization as well as excel so she is able to move ahead because she can. I think older kids who homeschool need to have a LOT of additional socialization opportunities, like maybe to take all their non-core academic courses AT a local high school, like all electives, PE, anything that might be hands-on like bio, chem, anatomy, or things that are geared toward a specific goal - like business courses or auto tech, nursing, psychology, something related to a field in which the student may major in when they graduate and head to college. As far as pulling your kids out when things are just going from bad to worse, some parents don't have a lot of choice. Some don't really notice or care but others are very proactive and very careful about what their kids get exposed to. I will likely be VERY careful about political agendas and make sure that any teachers my daughter has while she is in elementary school isn't going to be a nutjob and start foisting political things towards the kids. I do not feel this is acceptable, relevant, nor is it including in ANY state standard that I have examined, so it does NOT belong in public school education.

You brought up another cost factor that I forgot about in my response above yours - air conditioning. There is the cost of maintaining the units, as well as the cost of the electricity to run them.

I think about that too... the extra cost in maintaining everything year round. It is by no means inexpensive to run a school. My daughter's school isn't even a very LARGE school, but there is a decent sized support staff. They have regular groundskeepers and custodians, there are proctors and cafeteria workers, English/Spanish translators and support staff for special education. This school did get an allotment of funds for after school tutoring, and they have a gifted type of program but as far as I'm aware, the after school tutoring is strictly being used to help the kids who are falling behind or are already below average and only going down. The gifted program I think does not include kindergarten. Electricity and gas is expensive, heating and air conditioning is a daily thing. Bus transpo too, for a lot of kids. That means you have maintenance and gas for the bus and bus drivers and sometimes support staff. The school lost their dedicated PE teacher because they lost funding for it. Tell me there isn't something WRONG with that! Obama is sitting there saying 'kids should be in school more' yet the schools cannot even reliably keep a PE teacher on staff during a regular school year because THERE ARE NO FUNDS FOR IT. We SHARE a vice principal with another school! The music teacher gets one day a week per grade and then they must try and do a music program that fits each grade - but there may be more than 100 kids from each grade! It's just very frustrating. And sadly enough, this school is doing better than other elementaries in the district. If we are being shorted and squeezed that much, what is happening with other schools? Do they even have chalk or dry erase markers for their boards? Do they have enough paper for copies? Are there books for each student? It's a nightmare, wondering about those things which should be certainties. I rant about the taxes because I cannot see a single good thing all this 'government stealing' is doing. I wish they were obligated to show in black and white on a graph with explanations EXACTLY where each of our taxpayer dollars goes. THEN I think we as taxpayers should have the right to VOTE whether or not we want OUR money going to those things, and if we disagree, WE should get to decide where that money gets spent, and the government should have to spend every cent where we want it spent. For instance, I do not want taxpayer dollars being wasted on signs proclaiming that 'the economic stimulus is working'. Seriously, they just wasted 30K on a stupid sign half the population can't even read because they are illiterate or don't speak English! The rest of us? WE DIDN'T WANT OUR MONEY WASTED ON A DAMN SIGN!

LOL! I never got bored. I don't have any idea how anybody EVER does. If there isn't stuff you HAVE to do, there is stuff you WANT to do, and never enough time in which to do it, get it done, enjoy it to the fullest. Take me for example. When I was a kid, I was a voracious reader. I still love to read. I also did a lot of sports. I worked part time as a teen. I did a LOT of babysitting. These days? I have kids and a house and a husband. I have errands, I'm taking a class, I volunteer at my daughter's school, I have friends, activities, whatnot. I have PLENTY of things to do. And I like facebook... and mylot, and gaming. And I still like to read... and watch tv, and movies, and scrapbook, and go to the gym.... Anyway, the point is, I believe people who get bored do it to themselves. There are plenty of things to do to entertain yourself. Plenty of opportunities which are even free or low cost. Plenty of fun stuff, not so fun stuff, and downright NON fun stuff, regardless there is never a reason for boredom. I hate the word. I don't believe in homework at all, not assigned homework. I do believe in kids bringing home things they did not finish at school, because completing your work is important. After 6 hours in school though, I do NOT think it's okay to expect kids to do another HOUR, much less all the THREE and FOUR hours I hear people talking about. Even an hour seems too much, unless it is a major project and your student is a junior or senior in HIGH SCHOOL. This three and four hours I hear about? Get this.... it's like people with second graders. SECOND GRADERS. When my daughter is in 2nd grade, the most I will expect is stuff she did not finish in school, which in my opinion should only add up to 20 minutes at the MOST. Second graders are what.... SEVEN YEARS OLD? Sorry but I don't want my seven year old sitting there doing three hours of homework a night. If she is, then what was the point of the 6 hours at school? Even my husband doesn't regularly work more than 9 hours a day, much less would he BRING IT HOME. I do agree with you that a lot of teens are lazy. They feel entitled, like they don't have to do anything but will suddenly have a 6 figure income job, an ipod, a nice cell phone, a mercedes... need I say more? That in itself IS a problem, one I' not sure how to approach except to tell them that the people who have such things worked for it and did a lot of crappy things THEY aren't willing to do, which is why THEY don't have those things. I think a lot of cause and effect is still lost on teens and they won't see the connections until they are in their early 20s. Fortunately a lot of them are going to college during that time or working full time, and they learn, it just takes awhile. It bothers me because I have some teenagers, and their attitudes toward life are SO different than the attitudes my hubby and I had when we were 16, 17, 18. We knew we could only depend on ourselves and if we wanted to make it, WE had to do everything. So we did. The kids? I don't know where that shorted out. It's like they 'get' part of it but then they regress again.

Someday people will definately learn that quality of timeis much more important than the quantity of time.

I totally agree. I actually have some friends whose kids are bussed to a parent choice school in another district, and so the kids are on the bus for almost 50 minutes each way. Add to that a school start time of 8:45 AM and an end time of 3:30ish and you have kids who have to get up at 6:30 so they can catch a bus at 7:50 and they don't get home till almost 4:30 - and this school gives a lot of extra work. They don't get to play or hang out with friends, they are doing homework until dinner and after dinner they have to shower and go to bed because 6:30 comes too early... One thing that I would concede on if the schools all added ONE extra hour to the school day would be this: NO HOMEWORK. If they added an additional hour to the day, I'd specify that extra hour would be directed as time for kids to complete ALL assignments given for the day. That way if they are not getting home until 4:45 PM, at least they were home free and could go play immediately! I am also not against having teachers, tutors, or other administrative staff on site later or during times when school is traditionally closed in order to service underprivelaged kids, english language learners, or children who are not old enough to be latchkey for hours but too old for daycare (say 9,10,11) AND they need to catch up. I don't think it's a horrible thing to use state or federal funds to create OPPORTUNITIES for people if they want to take advantage of them, but I do not think it is fair to make it a blanket thing that EVERYBODY has to comply with. My son and my older daughter had to attend summer school a few times in order to make up credits, and in her case, she took a class or two early to free up space in her senior year. To me, summer school programs exist to help kids make up credits if they failed, or for enrichment - so you could take a regular level or college level course in the summer and then either have it out of the way or continue to the next level when you went back to school. I don't think it should be used as an attempt to force ALL kids to continue going to school! I never attended summer school, I never had to. I never failed anything and if I wanted enrichment programs, there were always plenty of those during the regular school year to get involved in.

Maybe before jumping to the extreme of year round schooling we should be a little more strict about class sizes, curriculum content, and style of teaching, and they teachers themselves. Maybe its time for parents to become more involved and to reward the students for doing their best, whether it is "A" material or not. I love that you said this! If we reduced class sides, hired teacher's aides and other support staff and also encouraged parents or other community members (older kids, grandparents) to volunteer, it would help TONS. I can see those as positive ways to improve the quality of education. Adding more hours or days? That is not positive, not from a child's standpoint and not from a parent's standpoint either, at least not my own. Even when my son was struggling and he had to go to summer school, I wouldn't have wanted him to go to school year round and only have 2 weeks off at a time. I tried to encourage him to apply himself DURING the school year so that break would feel well earned, which I think it is. Summers for us involved the older kids often traveling to visit extended family, and with the expense of flying as well as knowing we needed at least 2 weeks when they were smaller to get back on 'school schedule', they definitely needed at least a month of time off, if not longer in a block. I wonder sometimes too if in other countries, the parents themselves are more serious about education ie starting to show their kids concepts early and having fun with their kids when they are babies and toddlers. That is a great time to introduce things, shapes, colors, letters, numbers, common things, and then you just build on it. I think one of the problems in this country is that a lot of parents either don't do that, or they don't send their kids to preschool, or they are not involved. I thought it was very important to help prepare my daughter for social things, and then in turn to help prepare her for preschool, then to help prepare her for school. Those things piggyback on each other and if you don't do one of them, you set your child up for problems. I also like to have a lot of free time for her though, because play really IS a child's 'work'. Roleplay and mimicking behaviors, playing with friends, talking about her day, drawing, painting, coloring etc. I think of all the things that kids do during summer break and it's all stuff that you cannot do any more as an adult. You can't just sleep in whenever, get up, stay in your jammies all day, watch tv all day, and eat cereal out of a box. You can't just decide the next day to call up 4 of your friends and drag the tent out of the garage and set it up in the backyard and get your flashlights and scary books, a picnic basket of goodies, and have a campout on the spur of the moment. You can't just go down to the local skating rink in the middle of the day and skate for 3 hours and then go home and take your dog down to the creek and throw a stick for another hour. Those are examples of things that really only kids can do, and there is so much joy in it, so many rich memories later when they are adults and dreaming of taking time off work to take their little girl and boy camping someday... I wouldn't trade any of my memories either and I am bound and determined to make sure my daughter has the same sorts of memories to share with her children down the road when she grows up.

Yep, I happen to agree with you. I see someone or someones around these parts disliked my opinion because my rating here in this topic went down but what can I say, they just probably figure if THEIR kids have to go to more school, then my kids should too just because. Just because is a crappy reason lol. I also do agree there may be more drop outs, more absences, and of course parents pulling kids out for independent study, which is another option. I do like the curriculum, I just don't think more time or days need to be spent. To me it would just be a waste of time. When I worked, I could do 8 hours of work in about 5 or 6 hours. It's what I try to teach my kids. Buckle down, get it done. The faster you finish up, the faster you can get back to the fun kid stuff you deserve to be doing.