More time in class isn’t necessarily the best solution, Mr. Obama
Published: October 7, 2009
Updated: October 7, 2009
There has been talk out of the White House about revamping the typical schedule of American public schools by lengthening the school day and holding class more days a year.
President Obama has been quoted saying, “The challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom.”
Arne Duncan, secretary of Education, has said, “Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy, and not too many of our kids are working the fields today.”
Quotes like these are indicative of how the Obama administration hopes to reform education and make America more competitive in a global economy.
The idea of lengthening the school day and the school calendar is certainly not unfounded; however, this is a typical Democrat solution — focusing on quantity as a means of policy instead of quality. Making students spend more time at school may indeed lead to better test scores, but many things could accomplish this goal.
The question that must be answered before instituting this policy is whether this is the most efficient way to increase the level of education of America’s future. The most efficient way will increase test scores with the least amount of increase in spending in schools.
There are many side effects to our economy if the White House continues to push for a lengthening of school days and years. The most obvious side effect is an increase in costs on local school systems. Schools would be stuck with higher costs from hourly employees, utilities, supplies, and there would be pressure to raise salaries.
School systems cannot afford to handle these cost increases — schools can barely afford to get by as is. If the national government mandates more school time, there better be funding from the national government to back it up.
The federal government would likely give schools funding, but the amount would be absolutely staggering on a national scale. How can our country afford to fund such an undertaking?
Consider that America’s fiscal health is at risk and the federal government is not even enumerated the power to regulate education (unless you argue it affects interstate commerce).
There are many alternatives to improve education in America. Maybe instead of pumping money into school, the White House should look at ideas that do not involve money.
The in-school answer to better test scores lies with teachers. Finding inexpensive ways to improve the quality of teaching and streamlining what is being taught is an easy solution.
However, it should be noted that America has the best teachers in the world — but everything can be improved.
There is also the out-of-school aspect of learning, which also affects learning and test scores — however, the government has little role in determining how parents should rear their children.
The idea of lengthening the school day and calendar, while it might sound like a good option, is in reality a costly solution. It focuses on pumping up the quantity of time and money before focusing on the quality of education.
America has great schools that can certainly be improved, but only efficient means of reform should be used.
Richardson’s column runs each Wednesday. He is a teacher at Floyd T. Binns Middle School.
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I am so sick of hearing about cost rather than what is best for our kids. Cost of summer daycare, cost of our schools sitting idle!! Our kids already get too short of a summer break, I graduated from CCHS over 20 yrs ago started after labor day and grad ceremony was on 6/9—now it seems these kids are going longer and their education has suffered more, so i don’t believe its the longer days, its higher quality of education when they are in school. Our kids are statistics or cost effective tools, they are living, breathing human beings who can learn more on a summer day than in any classroom.
“Writing in circles” was a compliment, given all the disjointed sentences.
I’d be interested in non instructional tasks as well, apart from lunch, before and after, school duties.
reva- If you “live this topic”, maybe you could add more than “the author does it absolutely no good”.....and “yada, yada, yada”.
What non-instruction related tasks are they having to do?
I just love this topic. The author does it absolutely no good by writing in circles and fails to validate his point what-so-ever. Everybody knows that it’s quality and not quantity that makes a difference. Put that into perspective in the classroom by not requiring teachers to do so much non instruction related tasks and supervisions. Pay them a professional salary, yada, yada, yada…
This has been an Internet staple for some time. Snopes has doubts:
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp
So exactly how do you go about “providing a higher quality education”?
Wow. Again with the fumble fingers:
“...quality of education in this country DROPPED during the 20th century…“
I just found this on the web (the formatting was much prettier on the web-site:
———————————————————————————————————————————————-
8th Grade Test from 1895
Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895?
This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, Kansas. USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal.
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, Kansas - 1895
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs, what is it worth at 50 cts. per bushel, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per m?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per are, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates:
1607
1620
1800
1849
1865
Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u’.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e’. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono,super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences,
Cite, site, sight,
fane, fain, feign,
vane, vain, vein,
raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is theocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla,Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.
————————————————————
So much for “basing education around an agrarian economy”. It looks to me like the quality of education inn this country during the 20th century, they were not raised.
To me, it certainly appears that the answer to our “education dilemma” is higher expectations from students AND teachers and providing a higher quality education, not more hours in the class room.
Tired-
First off, not all students have to pass the SOL tests. Technically that comes in 2014, but no one expects that to happen, unless of course the goal all along was to make all schools “failing” and turn education over to the private sector.
Now my solutions?
What should happen to take the emphasis off standardized testing. It will take political will and a changed mindset that accountability isn’t the same thing as stupid accountability. And NCLB is really, really stupid, except for the part about breaking the results down by group, which I’m generally in favor of.
But any system that has one student miss one question too many on one test on one day and that makes the school “failing” while another school is deemed passing even though 30% of their students failed and the passing students only got 70% (often less) of the answers correct. That’s really stupid.
And legislators will go on and on about how they are for rigorous tests, not even knowing that a student can miss over half the answers to a sol test (geography) (history isn’t a whole lot better) and still pass.
The first thing I’d like to see is testing that simply tells the teacher what needs to be taught the next day. Frankly I have a lot more confidence in our teachers to let me know how kids are doing than some standardized testing company based in Europe.
Now Channel One. The contact calls for the content to be aired “between the bells”, meaning it is not supposed to be aired before school starts. I’m not sure when it actually airs, maybe you or I can confirm that.
Yes, they manage to get some good content in there, but far more often they have content that is designed to serve the interests of Alloy- a marketing company where often the “news” is about some of their products such as “Gossip Girl”. Check out:
http://www.obligation.org/channelonehome.php
...if you really want to know what Channel One is about.
And what are the TVs used for otherwise besides Channel One?
Keep in mind that the content is aired to children as old as 18, yet as young as 11. There has been plenty of content not appropriate for 11 years olds, some of whom are in Culpeper middle schools.
I did a little research about Channel One in VA, something the DOE has NO OPINION about, and Channel One is shown at about 200 schools in VA (about 4 years ago). Virtually all are in the poorest sections of the state- Southwest and Southside. Culpeper really stands out geographically. I don’t usually think of Culpeper as being in the same group as Appalachia.
Wow! How’d that happen?
Longer school years certainly hasn’t worked in those countries that kick our butts on those test scores. (note my sarcasm waynes).
This author offered nothing except that whatever Obama wants to do is probably wrong.
More time in class isn’t necessarily the best solution, Mr. Obama
Worth Richardson - Editorial Columnist/dwrich27@msn.com
Published: October 7, 2009
» 1 Comment | Post a Comment
There has been talk out of the White House about revamping the typical schedule of American public schools by lengthening the school day and holding class more days a year.
President Obama has been quoted saying, “The challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom.”
Arne Duncan, secretary of Education, has said, “Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy, and not too many of our kids are working the fields today.”
Quotes like these are indicative of how the Obama administration hopes to reform education and make America more competitive in a global economy.
The idea of lengthening the school day and the school calendar is certainly not unfounded; however, this is a typical Democrat solution — focusing on quantity as a means of policy instead of quality. Making students spend more time at school may indeed lead to better test scores, but many things could accomplish this goal.
The question that must be answered before instituting this policy is whether this is the most efficient way to increase the level of education of America’s future. The most efficient way will increase test scores with the least amount of increase in spending in schools.
There are many side effects to our economy if the White House continues to push for a lengthening of school days and years. The most obvious side effect is an increase in costs on local school systems. Schools would be stuck with higher costs from hourly employees, utilities, supplies, and there would be pressure to raise salaries.
School systems cannot afford to handle these cost increases — schools can barely afford to get by as is. If the national government mandates more school time, there better be funding from the national government to back it up.
The federal government would likely give schools funding, but the amount would be absolutely staggering on a national scale. How can our country afford to fund such an undertaking?
Consider that America’s fiscal health is at risk and the federal government is not even enumerated the power to regulate education (unless you argue it affects interstate commerce).
There are many alternatives to improve education in America. Maybe instead of pumping money into school, the White House should look at ideas that do not involve money.
The in-school answer to better test scores lies with teachers. Finding inexpensive ways to improve the quality of teaching and streamlining what is being taught is an easy solution.
However, it should be noted that America has the best teachers in the world — but everything can be improved.
There is also the out-of-school aspect of learning, which also affects learning and test scores — however, the government has little role in determining how parents should rear their children.
The idea of lengthening the school day and calendar, while it might sound like a good option, is in reality a costly solution. It focuses on pumping up the quantity of time and money before focusing on the quality of education.
America has great schools that can certainly be improved, but only efficient means of reform should be used.
Richardson’s column runs each Wednesday. He is a teacher at Floyd T. Binns Middle School.
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Flag Comment Posted by El Debibble on October 07, 2009 at 7:16 am
Longer school years certainly hasn’t worked in those countries that kick our butts on those test scores. (note my sarcasm waynes).
This author offered nothing except that whatever Obama wants to do is probably wrong.
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