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Obama to cut summer vacation and lengthen school day

Well, until I hear more, I'm going to be indifferent. If he's planing on making it a year-round school, aka less summer break but more general days off during the school year, then I'll be fine. If he's going to actually leave it the same but cut Summer, then I'll be mad.

Plus, I doubt he could actually get more time added to the school day. Many people have jobs, and adding time would cut into that. If it's time added in the morning, people won't be learning as well cause many of us already get up at 5:30. Therefore, I believe it would end up being one of the first two I mentioned.
 
It depends. I mean, I don't like longer school days, but if that means lengthing my favorite classes, I guess it would be okay. But if he cuts out the summer vacation
I will be mad. Also, I already suffer from two classes, so if those are lengthened instead, I will scream my head off.
 
For example, kids in the KIPP network of 82 charter schools across the country go to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., more than three hours longer than the typical day
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They go home earlier than two in the afternoon? Bastards.
I don't know much about this initiative and doubt Obama will get it passed but we stay longer over here and it hasn't done us any harm.
 
It's been scientifically proven that the students in schools that open and close later do better than their counterparts in other schools.

If that's true, why not do that instead of cutting summer vacation?
 
No to the longer days. School would just get way too monotonous for me.

Summer is already comparitively short where I live, but I'd be all for the "year-round school" thing. Summer always seems to get boring near the end.
 
This is dumb. Probably because I'm overloaded with homework already but man. Are we really doing that badly compared to other countries?
 
Obligatory "I don't give as much of a shit because I'm graduating after this year". :V

In all seriousness, though, I think this could be a good thing depending on how he's planning to do it. The main thing that would bother me is if he makes it start earlier, because that would be ridiculous. Starting later and closing later would be just right.

As for vacations, I've always heard that year-round school is a lot less stressful because you get breaks more frequently, but I don't think that's what Obama is planning to do. I personally like all the offtime we get, of course, but as far as education is concerned it probably isn't the best thing, no.
 
Longer year, shorter days. I already didn't get out until 4 (16:00) in high school. But now I am out, so whatever.
 
Longer school days? Blech. Terrible idea. Having to stay in high school from 8:00 to 3:25 was almost too long already.

And extending school further into summer... also a bad idea. Maybe it wouldn't be quite as horrible in places with decent air conditioning (or just a colder climate), but in places where it regularly gets to 80 degrees or higher in the summer, that's just asking for trouble. Where I live, we still have shitty schools that either can't afford air conditioning or are just too lazy to bother installing it... pushing school into the hottest part of summer would change it from just plain old "Hell" to "Super Deluxe Hell: Champion Edition -- Now with more headaches, dehydration, and fainting!" And test scores would drop through the floor, too... hard to learn much of anything if you're too busy trying to not burn to death in an overheated classroom packed way too full of other kids.

If they're going to change anything at all about school times, they should push the schedule back a bit so the kids don't have to be there at 8 in the morning.
 
i don't know. i know japanese schools go for i think 11 hours a day, six days a week, 11 months a year, and they do okay, although their students have more incentive to care than american students.

i think it would be an okay idea, but i think you have to push the students a little harder as well. it might just be more torturous for someone to be in school longer if they didn't care in the first place.

i'm speaking as someone on his way out, though. my opinion may not matter all that much, at least not as a student...
 
Currently, I'm leaning on support. A longer school year would be very nice, actually, seeing that it's extremely hard to get through the state-regulated crap and still have time left for the actual good information with our current short school year. I actually wouldn't mind cutting down some summer, winter, or spring break, although cutting down summer might cause some problems because of all the different summer schools and programs a students want to go to may have to change their schedule as well, which will be annoying for quite a lot of people. I generally don't like the week-long breaks much because they don't offer enough time for actual vacation yet they're long enough so that you get used to having a lot of sleep and die on the day school restarts.

A longer day will be good, as long as it does not start so early in the morning (having maths the first thing in the morning is not a good way to start a day). I'm all for the "end school at 5pm" type of thing though. A longer school day will allow the teachers to teach more thoroughly as well as give time for labs in science classes.

platinumlucario said:
It depends. I mean, I don't like longer school days, but if that means lengthing my favorite classes, I guess it would be okay. But if he cuts out the summer vacation
I will be mad. Also, I already suffer from two classes, so if those are lengthened instead, I will scream my head off.
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Um, what. I would think that you would improve in your failing classes if you spend more time learning them, so it would actually be a good thing to have them longer...

About the homework load, I would think that the teachers would give less because there's less time to do them and more time to learn -- the whole point of homework is to help the students learn, and if you're already getting a lot of time in school for that, homework load will lessen.

The whole problem with the whole "moar skool!" thing is that we're not exactly overflowing on money right now, so it's, sadly, not likely to pass.
 
CL's post reminds me: eliminate the state-regulated tests.

They do not affect your grades. Preparing for the test takes up time which could be spent, uh, you know, learning actual math/ELA. Instead, you get bombarded with pointlessly retaking old tests and doing example questions.

If instead, there was a test at the end of the year (say, early June) that recapped what you learned, you'd have spent much less time on test prep, and could actually focus on learning.

I'm all for school beginning later, so long as you get more days off.

--Make the school day begin later
--Eliminate standardized tests
--Get more days off

The Kam method(tm)
 
Well I could hardly give a crap because even if this was passed in time for next year I'd only have 2 more years of school anyways.

The school system in the States is flawed also.

If they made the day start at say around 9:30 instead of 8:00 a lot of students would be fully awake.
 
I actually have no idea where I stand on this issue right now
that's weird for me
 
Kam said:
It's been scientifically proven that the students in schools that open and close later do better than their counterparts in other schools.

If that's true, why not do that instead of cutting summer vacation?
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Our school system was going to do that I think... Something like the younger kids start a little earlier and leave earlier, high schoolers start later and leave later- and free after-school care for the parents whose schedule would be messed up an they wouldn't be able to pick up their older kids until later or something was offered, but parents were retarded anyway and wrote tons of letters ("Who's gonna watch our kids!?" um...) and they dumped it after deciding to do it. They ended up changing their mind three times and things still are the way they are. I think it had something to do with school buses being too old and gas prices too, but yeah.

Our summer is already really short. :c We've got that get-two-weeks-off-between-four-nine-week-grading-periods thing, and summer break is only a month and a half long or so. I think that's fine the way it is, except they should make the days start later. Maybe I'll start falling asleep in physics instead of advanced algebra that way. I don't think the problem lies in how long we're in school during the day... just when school and classes actually happen. Not so much more time, but better time.
 
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Kabigon said:
If they made the day start at say around 9:30 instead of 8:00 a lot of students would be fully awake.
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I start at 7:15 :]

anyway, no to this proposition. I spend enough time at school already with three-hour marching band rehearsals.
 
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