Obama Proposes Longer School Days, Extended School Year

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LuciaDisturbed said:
So do you want to be like China with their dumb 1-child law? Thanks to China's 1-child law, many girl babies are either aborted or abandoned on the streets and many are dropped off at orphanages, and so are boy children who are Deaf or have any disabilities too, as only "perfect boy children" are preferred in the Chinese culture, as a friend of mine is adopting a Deaf little boy from China this upcoming summer, and this is what he told me about the situation in China. Very sad. The little boy was abandoned by his mother when he was 10 months old due to his being Deaf.

I grew up in Milwaukee, and have always been used to being in overcrowded public schools. I have been in classes with 60+ students in every classes. Some classes have even 80+ students, and even one class had 100+ students. That was in high school in Milwaukee. We are overcrowded because there just aren't enough classrooms and not enough schools.
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I think that I didn't explain it clearly. How we tell other people not to have too many children in their family for example 14 children? I think that we have no business to tell them. But, my best opinion is that we need to control the population in our town. More children in a family like 14 which is not normal and it is likely that come from a born in Christian parents. Of course, they forgot that we are paying expensive taxes for their schools because they are greedy. I believe that between 2 to 5 children for a family would be fine. I just found out that my brother-in-law's employee has 17 children now (not adopted). Wow. See what I mean. Of course, we want our town better for us except a problem too many children that create some problems for all of us such as difficult to find a job in the future, more new roads, too many signs pollution, background noise/vision traffic, eliminating wild animals by expanding buildings, etc.

If it is expanding buildings, then we know that the school extended days would force us to pay for new schools for them, and plus we will have to pay more for some schools' new roof replacement (or others) in every 10 to 30 years. Most towns have 2 1/2 override vote every year for the same issue. We were against the override vote three times, and the town announced to lay off some staffs, teachers, fire departments, EMS, etc. One week later, the town recovered that an accountant from the assessor department miscalculated the cost and announced that there was no layoff. Many of us knew that the town employees cheated us every year.
 
um, some of this christian family homeschool their kids (especially Amish). They don't like public school teaching. you need to appreciate some of them because they are actually taking care of the earth. They don't depend on modern technologies too much, and they grow their own garden . And some of them are really healthy so your tax money do not really affect that much.

It's the women who keep popping children from different men you should be concern about. I know several guys who sleep around have about 5 or 6 kids or maybe more from different women. Take that and add it up compare to christian family who are trying their best not to have sex before marriage and trying their best not to get divorce and remarry.
 
jillio said:
That solution kind of goes against the "free and appropriate educational opportunity for all", doesn't it? Our public school system was founded to insure that everyone in this country have the opportunity for education. Would you deny that opportunity to the low income child?
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and the low income children continue to have the opportunity for education. It's absolutely ridiculous and completely naive to demand public education to be on same level as private education. That's like demanding for a better police security as rich man's bodyguard. :roll:
 
jillio said:
Like I said, it isn't the fact that the government is involved. The government has always been involved in public education. Government involvement is the whole idea behind public education. Ever noticed who pays the teachers and staff?

The problem is the so-called solution to the problem. Bush decided that NCLB was going to solve the problem. It made it worse. Obama has to be involved if NCLB is going to be reversed. And NCLB has caused more problems in our educational system than anything else in my lifetime.

Sounds like you are just like the grumpy old guy across the street who doesn't want to pay taxes that are used for education because his kids are all grown.:roll: Educating our youth is what determines the future for us all.

Nor do children become the "property" of the state as a result of public education. That is a real leap there. But I do find it interesting that you would use the word "property" in connection with children.
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then tell me what's the purpose for Department of Education? What's next? President managing Immigration system in place of INS? managing our law enforcement system in place of Attorney General?

Obama - your job is to run the country, not micromanage the country. the country's too big for you to deal with in a very short time. that's why you have Secretary of ----. Appoint them and count on them. thus concludes your introductory management course for the night :cool2:

Beside.... seems like there's a lot of finger-pointing at politicians, schools, and system for education failure. How about.... PARENTS? They're treating our teachers like babysitters, nanny, etc. I think the parents need to step up and actually do their part. THEN we can talk about education.
 
they should lessen the school day to 6hrs and limit holiday vacations to 2weeks or less. This way students will forget less, and anything taught after 6hrs is pretty much goes in one ear out the other due to exhaustion.

I read something in the news awhile back that said workers who work more than 10hrs a day get less done than their 8hr counterparts. I imagine its similar for children/students. Once they become tired, its difficult to teach them anything.

Also, gym is a joke. At my high school, only 20 minutes were actually spent exercising. The majority of the time was spent changing clothes and roll call. People are right, a lot of time is squandered away to buracracy and red tape.

My father went to the proverbial one room country school and still managed to graduate from college in engineering. He was a highly sucessfull at his profession. The thing that made the difference was his parental involvement. I think the majority people miss that fact. They think they can throw a bunch of money at the education system and expect results. If the parents arent involved it will be wasted.
 
jillio said:
Gee, I wish someone had told Bush that education wasn't any of his concern before he royally messed things up with the worst thing that has happened to education in the last 100 years.....No Child Left Behind.

And, where, exactly, do you think the funding for education comes from, Reba? I don't know what century you are in, but for several years now schools have been the the providers of breakfast, lunch, and recreation.

Get No Child Left Behind out of the picture, equalize the funding, and there won't be any more "poor schools." There may be schools in poor areas, but without the idioacy of programs like No Child Left Behind that actually takes funding away from the poorest schools, opportunity for all children will be equalized.
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I have heard of schools providing meals but who foots the bill? The school district or the state or federal? I thought it would be the state but I could be wrong.

Could you please explain how NCLB takes the funding away from the poorest schools? My thinking is that one shouldn't leave any child behind and the child in a poorest shool tends to be behind so the funding must have been going to that child's school. I would like to know this.
 
webexplorer said:
I think that I didn't explain it clearly. How we tell other people not to have too many children in their family for example 14 children? I think that we have no business to tell them. But, my best opinion is that we need to control the population in our town. More children in a family like 14 which is not normal and it is likely that come from a born in Christian parents. Of course, they forgot that we are paying expensive taxes for their schools because they are greedy. I believe that between 2 to 5 children for a family would be fine. I just found out that my brother-in-law's employee has 17 children now (not adopted). Wow. See what I mean. Of course, we want our town better for us except a problem too many children that create some problems for all of us such as difficult to find a job in the future, more new roads, too many signs pollution, background noise/vision traffic, eliminating wild animals by expanding buildings, etc.

If it is expanding buildings, then we know that the school extended days would force us to pay for new schools for them, and plus we will have to pay more for some schools' new roof replacement (or others) in every 10 to 30 years. Most towns have 2 1/2 override vote every year for the same issue. We were against the override vote three times, and the town announced to lay off some staffs, teachers, fire departments, EMS, etc. One week later, the town recovered that an accountant from the assessor department miscalculated the cost and announced that there was no layoff. Many of us knew that the town employees cheated us every year.
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Where I grew up, in Milwaukee, there were so many students in the public schools I went to that came from very large families. I even know many friends and classmates who had like 10, 15, or even 17 siblings. I am not joking. It seemed that every time I blinked, someone in my class just got a new sibling! I was one of the VERY few students that had no more than 2 siblings. Many had over 10 siblings as an average for most of the public schools I went to. It seemed like it was a normal thing for everyone to have this many children back then during my childhood. Nope, this wasn't during the baby boomer days - in fact, this was in the early and mid-1980s in my city while I was a child. I don't know how it was like in other cities and in other areas of the USA, but it was the norm in my city from what I have seen. Maybe it's just Milwaukee, I dunno. *shrugs*

You said that we have no business over how many children people have, but then you say that we need to control the population in our cities and towns. Your statement is contradictory. It makes no sense. You can't control the populations in cities and towns if you do not have any control over how many children people in general are allowed to have. You can't control anyone's family sizes anyway. This isn't China. We do not have a dictatorship.

Besides, I do not think you have to worry about how many children today's families will have anyway because with the economy going down the toilet and the fact that it costs so much more to raise a child from birth to 18 years old today than it did 10 years ago, more and more families are now deciding on a definite number of children they want to have and they stick to that number instead of letting it be (as some crazy fundies like to say) "god's will"...they stop while they are ahead and they get their tubes tied, instead of letting it get out of control because most of us know we aren't cats nor dogs. We now have the technology to get our tubes tied, to get vasectomies, we have birth control, and we have condoms now too. All those are available now. And now more and more people are also making the decision to be completely "child-free" or to just adopt instead. Of course, there are always a special few people who decides to either keep on popping babies out every year according to "god's will" like the Duggars or to even have a litter like Octomom. But there is not much we can do about those people. It's rare today to have a very large family now than it used to be 10 years ago anyway. In fact, 20 years ago families with at least 6 children used to be considered a "large family". Now that number has come down to 4 and that is now considered a "large family", because of the uprising costs of upbringing and child-rearing and medical care and all other children-related expenses. Pretty soon it will be down to 2. More and more people are now making conscious decisions not to have more than 2, they even often go ahead and get their tubes tied or to get snipped right after the birth of the second baby. We do not really need the government to get involved in our decisions of how many children we will have because we are ALREADY doing it now ourselves, at least most of us are. I am seeing a trend already in the USA to have smaller and smaller families than what it used to be in the past where it was a popular thing to have large families - my mother came from a very large family - 7 children. She had only me and my sister, and had no more children, as she could not afford a third baby - and she also felt 2 was more than enough. I've another sibling, but he is my dad's, and he has passed away in 2005 - long story. I have two step sisters as well but I do not talk to them because of their mother who I absolutely hate - if I talk to them I have to talk to their mother (my dad's wife). So, I don't think family sizes are something we all need to worry so much about anymore here in the USA.
 
Jiro said:
then tell me what's the purpose for Department of Education? What's next? President managing Immigration system in place of INS? managing our law enforcement system in place of Attorney General?

Obama - your job is to run the country, not micromanage the country. the country's too big for you to deal with in a very short time. that's why you have Secretary of ----. Appoint them and count on them. thus concludes your introductory management course for the night :cool2:

Beside.... seems like there's a lot of finger-pointing at politicians, schools, and system for education failure. How about.... PARENTS? They're treating our teachers like babysitters, nanny, etc. I think the parents need to step up and actually do their part. THEN we can talk about education.
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You means INS as Immigration and Naturalization Service? INS is no longer to existing and they are replaced into ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2003.
 
Foxrac said:
You means INS as Immigration and Naturalization Service? INS is no longer to existing and they are replaced into ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2003.
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We still have INS here. Their building is about 10 minutes away from where I live. I pass it all the time when I take the bus. And we have checkpoints everywhere from here to Del Rio and from here to Eagle Pass.
 
Reba said:
And the children become property of the state....
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Yeah...by enrolling into their schools. by confirming your SS number, your house address, phone number, etc everything about you as you go to school the government will collect every personal information about each individual.

Children becoming property of the state doesnt mean they are viewed as "things" or "money" or whatever to them. Of course they are people and schools are built obviously for children...what else would they be for?
 
I haven't chimed in on this topic before now because I just don't know if it is a good or bad thing.

Being military and going from station assignment to station assignment, my grandsons have attended both styles of school. They seem to adapt to which style they are in.
I have to say that they did seem to be more consistent retentionwise when in the year round enviroment.

Posters have brought up many valid points.
Even those that are contradictory seem to have a good reasoning.
 
Don't know if we need more school hours for our American education for the kids' sake. Less tv, games, and etc but more reading would be helpful otherwise.

But maybe we really need more moral discipline on those children nowadays, especially! It's out-of-control whack! :roll:
 
just a question, some mentioned about forgotten lesson due to summer and having to teach it all over again, don't you think that is a good thing? I think it is because it will help them remember in the long term. if they decided not to reteach it, and they moved on to another subject, would they just forget anyway?
 
Lighthouse77 said:
just a question, some mentioned about forgotten lesson due to summer and having to teach it all over again, don't you think that is a good thing? I think it is because it will help them remember in the long term. if they decided not to reteach it, and they moved on to another subject, would they just forget anyway?
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That's interesting...

I had a summer school to study in algebra. I enjoyed it. I had some jobs in the past, and I never use the algebra. I just think that it wasted my time.
 
Jiro said:
and the low income children continue to have the opportunity for education. It's absolutely ridiculous and completely naive to demand public education to be on same level as private education. That's like demanding for a better police security as rich man's bodyguard. :roll:
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Exactly where is anyone demanding that public education be the same as private education? What is being asked is that the "appropriate" part of public education be fulfilled.

I really find it odd that you claim to be a huge proponent for democracy while at the same time advoacting for policies that increase stratification within society.
 
Buffalo said:
I have heard of schools providing meals but who foots the bill? The school district or the state or federal? I thought it would be the state but I could be wrong.

Could you please explain how NCLB takes the funding away from the poorest schools? My thinking is that one shouldn't leave any child behind and the child in a poorest shool tends to be behind so the funding must have been going to that child's school. I would like to know this.
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Essentially, the money comes from the state in the case of the public school system. But stop and think: where is funding decided? In the case of the vast majority of situations, it comes from the federal level. And federal funds are quite often used to reimburse states for a portion of the state funds used.
 
Foxrac said:
You means INS as Immigration and Naturalization Service? INS is no longer to existing and they are replaced into ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2003.
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The thing is, ICE is under the federal government, which places the President as the ultimate head of the organization. A President is elected as the leader of the government. That means that all concerns falling under the classification of federal government are his concern. Education of the citizens of that government is most certainly a concern, especially since educational concerns affect all itizens at all levels.
 
Steel X said:
Yeah...by enrolling into their schools. by confirming your SS number, your house address, phone number, etc everything about you as you go to school the government will collect every personal information about each individual.

Children becoming property of the state doesnt mean they are viewed as "things" or "money" or whatever to them. Of course they are people and schools are built obviously for children...what else would they be for?
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Exactly. Public education is for the benefit of the child directly, and the good of all of society indirectly.
 
ASLGAL said:
I haven't chimed in on this topic before now because I just don't know if it is a good or bad thing.

Being military and going from station assignment to station assignment, my grandsons have attended both styles of school. They seem to adapt to which style they are in.
I have to say that they did seem to be more consistent retentionwise when in the year round enviroment.

Posters have brought up many valid points.
Even those that are contradictory seem to have a good reasoning.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Extended school year has numerous benefits for the students. I just don't see how extending the school day alone, without addressing things such as inequities in funding that leaves some schools without up to date textbooks and no technology will improve much. JMO, we need to address the inequities created by policies such as NCLB first, and then move on to the issue of extended school days. Our current use of the school calendar is outdated. It was originally set up with the 3 months off in the summer to benefit those in farming communities. It allowed the children to be out of school during the time that their help on the family farm was most needed. In this day and time, the original purpose is no longer viable.
 
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