Should we lengthen the school year to 240 days?

[techs]

How about this idea to improve education. Lengthen the school year to 240 days like Germany and Japan.
Yes, it would cost money but wouldn't most kids learn more each year?

 

[PKing1977]

no

 

[Strk]

I'm mixed on it. While I do like the idea of more school, there is the bigger problem of teachers who are not capable of teaching. Do I really want 60 more days of school with an incapable teacher? Not really.

 

[PKing1977]

I think it is easy for people to blame teachers. In fact it is sooo easy to blame teachers, parents need not take any responsablity for thier childs education.

PKing

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

How do you link improved education with a longer school year? Anything to back that up?

www.germany-info.org

German children attend school as a rule five days a week, sometimes Saturdays as well. The school day has up to five hours of instruction, divided into six separate teaching periods. There are no homeroom or study periods. Homework, which can be considerable, is usually done at home. Usually two breaks (Pausen) are given during a typical school day, each lasting about ten to fifteen minutes. As a rule, hot lunches are not served at German schools. The children eat their hot meals at home.

Should we also follow that?

 

[Bumrush99]

Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
How do you link improved education with a longer school year? Anything to back that up?

www.germany-info.org

German children attend school as a rule five days a week, sometimes Saturdays as well. The school day has up to five hours of instruction, divided into six separate teaching periods. There are no homeroom or study periods. Homework, which can be considerable, is usually done at home. Usually two breaks (Pausen) are given during a typical school day, each lasting about ten to fifteen minutes. As a rule, hot lunches are not served at German schools. The children eat their hot meals at home.

Should we also follow that?

I'm willing to bet a large percentage of kids in this country get most of their hot meals at school and not at home.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
How do you link improved education with a longer school year? Anything to back that up?

www.germany-info.org

German children attend school as a rule five days a week, sometimes Saturdays as well. The school day has up to five hours of instruction, divided into six separate teaching periods. There are no homeroom or study periods. Homework, which can be considerable, is usually done at home. Usually two breaks (Pausen) are given during a typical school day, each lasting about ten to fifteen minutes. As a rule, hot lunches are not served at German schools. The children eat their hot meals at home.

Should we also follow that?

Nope, not all that. But even that shows they spend more time in the classroom than Americas kids.

 

[Legend]

I believe Japan has nearly as many engineers as we do, with half the population.

Public education doesn't force people to become engineers. It takes personal dedication.

So I think the difference is not so much # of days, but a difference in culture, work ethic and possibly education quality.

For our schools, we should start by changing the school lunches, and offering broad AP classes at all high schools. Give the kids the opportunity to get a higher education, and perhaps try to spark some incentive. But don't try to force it by throwing more of the same at them. Lol, this is just like the medicare for all thread.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: Legend
I believe Japan has nearly as many engineers as we do, with half the population.

Public education doesn't force people to become engineers. It takes personal dedication.

So I think the difference is not so much # of days, but a difference in culture, work ethic and possibly education quality.

For our schools, we should start by changing the school lunches, and offering broad AP classes at all high schools. Give the kids the opportunity to get a higher education, and perhaps try to spark some incentive. But don't try to force it by throwing more of the same at them. Lol, this is just like the medicare for all thread.

Please don't misqoute me. Their is no "medicare for all thread".
The thread suggests allowing indivduals to purchase medicare, if they choose, for their health insurance.

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
How do you link improved education with a longer school year? Anything to back that up?

www.germany-info.org

German children attend school as a rule five days a week, sometimes Saturdays as well. The school day has up to five hours of instruction, divided into six separate teaching periods. There are no homeroom or study periods. Homework, which can be considerable, is usually done at home. Usually two breaks (Pausen) are given during a typical school day, each lasting about ten to fifteen minutes. As a rule, hot lunches are not served at German schools. The children eat their hot meals at home.

Should we also follow that?

Nope, not all that. But even that shows they spend more time in the classroom than Americas kids.

They also spend more time with their family(hot meals at home) which we don't do here. So you trying to use their system and trying to say it would improve education is speculation at best. There are many factors involved, how many days in school is one tiny piece of the puzzle.

 

[PKing1977]

again. a very over simplified solution to a problem..

 

[Inspector Jihad]

motivation is the key...and its sad too cause here, you can actually do whatever you want

 

[Tab]

Originally posted by: PKing1977
again. a very over simplified solution to a problem..

Explain.

 

[PKing1977]

look at his other thread.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Tab

Originally posted by: PKing1977
again. a very over simplified solution to a problem..

Explain.

Arbitrarily throwing more hours into education will be about as beneficial as arbitrarily throwing money at it has been shown to be - useless, if not more harmful.

What education needs is serious reform. There is no "easy fix," no matter how much we'd like there to be. You can't even "fix" the problem by focusing only on the educational system, as it's grown into a cultural issue. In a society that idolizes talent-less musicians and scandalous sports "heroes," is there little wonder why we are falling behind? Now obviously, we can't simply blame our culture and throw our hands up at the whole mess, but must rather work on as many fronts as possible.

Merely suggesting "lengthening the school year" as an improvement is a silly and quite trite notion to such an elephantine problem. In fact, this "quick fix" solution is rather ironic in itself, as this attitude is, IMO, one of the largest contributing factors to the dire situation we are in.

 

[Train]

We need to think Quality not Quantity.

Many people fall into the trap that more time and/or more money will make schools better. Neither have. We need to stop letting so many kids (and teachers) slide by with sub standard results.

 

[imported_tss4]

Originally posted by: Train
We need to think Quality not Quantity.

Many people fall into the trap that more time and/or more money will make schools better. Neither have. We need to stop letting so many kids (and teachers) slide by with sub standard results.

I would agree with this, but I think its too easy to blame the teachers. Ultimately its the fault of crappy parents.

However, It does seem wise to try to more closely emulate school systems that are having better success than ours.

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

Did this thread spawn from your alterworld of the West Wing too?

 

[imported_tss4]

Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
Did this thread spawn from your alterworld of the West Wing too?

lol, I don't think he got this from the West Wing. But there was some debate on education. IT stuck primarily with head start though. In fact, I'd say the repub won that portion of the debate.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: Train
We need to think Quality not Quantity.

Many people fall into the trap that more time and/or more money will make schools better. Neither have. We need to stop letting so many kids (and teachers) slide by with sub standard results.

Again, simplistic reasoning leads to false conclusions. To raise a good child you need quality AND quantity. I don't know about my GenX compatriots but I was educated at school, at home, and at church (not that I'm pushing for more religious turds meddling in public schools). Fundamentally, it's the PARENTS responsibility to ensure their child is properly educated. But if we are going to keep it real, one must acknowledge that a lot of parents just plain sux these days. It's foolhardy to pretend otherwise. Due to this reality schools are forced to become "parents" providing the majority of child's basic nutrition, character development, educational development, and even emotional nurturing. It's a shame but it's a fact.

More to the point the judicious use of MORE time and MORE money has indeed shown benefits. But morons that seek an excuse to reduce funding cling to the notion that every extra dollar in education funding (above subsistence wages for teachers) is wasted.

Well, healthcare and fuel inflation will clearly affect school budgets for 2005-2006. Public schools will spend substantially more to deliver comparable (if not lower) levels of services compared to the previous year. Yet academic performance is unlikely to substantially improve, so tools that want to hack away at education funding will claim that's proof that more money doesn't help.:roll: Let's not forget fed/state/local funding that pays for testing. The testing itself does absolutely nothing to improve student knowledge. If anything, weak school systems/districts actually "teach to the test" by modifying curricula to match the standardized assessments . . . talk about retarded.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: techs
How about this idea to improve education. Lengthen the school year to 240 days like Germany and Japan.
Yes, it would cost money but wouldn't most kids learn more each year?

quantity != quality

You can't fix structural failure by a) throwing $$ at it b) making it longer

 

[Train]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: Train
We need to think Quality not Quantity.

Many people fall into the trap that more time and/or more money will make schools better. Neither have. We need to stop letting so many kids (and teachers) slide by with sub standard results.

Again, simplistic reasoning leads to false conclusions. To raise a good child you need quality AND quantity. I don't know about my GenX compatriots but I was educated at school, at home, and at church (not that I'm pushing for more religious turds meddling in public schools). Fundamentally, it's the PARENTS responsibility to ensure their child is properly educated. But if we are going to keep it real, one must acknowledge that a lot of parents just plain sux these days. It's foolhardy to pretend otherwise. Due to this reality schools are forced to become "parents" providing the majority of child's basic nutrition, character development, educational development, and even emotional nurturing. It's a shame but it's a fact.

More to the point the judicious use of MORE time and MORE money has indeed shown benefits. But morons that seek an excuse to reduce funding cling to the notion that every extra dollar in education funding (above subsistence wages for teachers) is wasted.

Well, healthcare and fuel inflation will clearly affect school budgets for 2005-2006. Public schools will spend substantially more to deliver comparable (if not lower) levels of services compared to the previous year. Yet academic performance is unlikely to substantially improve, so tools that want to hack away at education funding will claim that's proof that more money doesn't help.:roll: Let's not forget fed/state/local funding that pays for testing. The testing itself does absolutely nothing to improve student knowledge. If anything, weak school systems/districts actually "teach to the test" by modifying curricula to match the standardized assessments . . . talk about retarded.

way to fly off the handle. anyways, I've already commented greatly on the differences in school funding in several threads, as well as other strategies (that have been proven to work) that cost next to nothing. Relating to the OP, increasing number of days a child is in school each year won't make better parents.

 

[imported_tss4]

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: Train
We need to think Quality not Quantity.

Many people fall into the trap that more time and/or more money will make schools better. Neither have. We need to stop letting so many kids (and teachers) slide by with sub standard results.

Again, simplistic reasoning leads to false conclusions. To raise a good child you need quality AND quantity. I don't know about my GenX compatriots but I was educated at school, at home, and at church (not that I'm pushing for more religious turds meddling in public schools). Fundamentally, it's the PARENTS responsibility to ensure their child is properly educated. But if we are going to keep it real, one must acknowledge that a lot of parents just plain sux these days. It's foolhardy to pretend otherwise. Due to this reality schools are forced to become "parents" providing the majority of child's basic nutrition, character development, educational development, and even emotional nurturing. It's a shame but it's a fact.

More to the point the judicious use of MORE time and MORE money has indeed shown benefits. But morons that seek an excuse to reduce funding cling to the notion that every extra dollar in education funding (above subsistence wages for teachers) is wasted.

Well, healthcare and fuel inflation will clearly affect school budgets for 2005-2006. Public schools will spend substantially more to deliver comparable (if not lower) levels of services compared to the previous year. Yet academic performance is unlikely to substantially improve, so tools that want to hack away at education funding will claim that's proof that more money doesn't help.:roll: Let's not forget fed/state/local funding that pays for testing. The testing itself does absolutely nothing to improve student knowledge. If anything, weak school systems/districts actually "teach to the test" by modifying curricula to match the standardized assessments . . . talk about retarded.

way to fly off the handle. anyways, I've already commented greatly on the differences in school funding in several threads, as well as other strategies (that have been proven to work) that cost next to nothing. Relating to the OP, increasing number of days a child is in school each year won't make better parents.

Really, what are those strategies?

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Truth hurts don't it.

Simplistic arguments are just that . . . it's all simple minds can handle. There's no debate between quality and quantity. If all education in America was of uniformly superior quality, who would argue that restricting it to just over 5hrs x 5 days makes sense?

Clearly, we need better teachers and more school to try and compensate for the low quality parenting. Naturally, the best investment is then to extend such programs to younger ages.

OK top-rated preK

The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) report ranks Oklahoma #1 in high standards and access to Pre-Kindergarten. Currently, 30,180 four-year-old children in Oklahoma are attending voluntary Pre-K classes with teachers that have a bachelor's degree and are early childhood certified.

Quality costs money, it's impossible to do it on the cheap without cutting corners.

Fundamentally, I agree that just lengthening the school year (adding Saturdays or summer months) is not a solution. But I know of several programs that have been successful by increasing "quality time" with children, either afterschool or on Saturdays.

 

[Tab]

Anyone care to comment on the NCLB Act?