Brigid Schulte moves from "harried," "guilty," "worried," and "panicked" to "angry" over the plight of the latchkey family. Why aren't there any great programs to cover that 3 - 6 pm gap in custodial care for her 11 year-old? She's angry because whoever is responsible for nurturing her child in the afternoon has apparently dropped the ball.
Barack Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan understand this plight and believe that kids should spend most of their waking hours, summers included, in school, anyway. It would "level the playing field" with competing countries.
"Young people in other countries are going to school 25, 30 percent longer than our students here," Duncan told the AP. "I want to just level the playing field."
So much for that precious family time, unstructured play, or hours to linger over a good book. (They'd also like to expand government schooling to include preschool.)
Barbara Curtis argues that the trend to extend the school day, and the school year, should be turned around to allow for more family time, not less. Read Michelle Malkin on the many ways children's school days are filled with nonsense, pernicious and otherwise, that take away from genuine education.
In a related story, the state of Michigan bears down on neighbors helping neighbors with their kids. The woman faces possible jail time. At the opposite end of the childcare spectrum is this service, which requires no human contact whatsoever.
"The U.S. … has less than 200 days [of school], and then they wonder about global competitiveness from Japan," said Robert H. Holster, Passaic schools superintendent. Japan’s schools are in session 243 days. "It's not that their kids are brighter; it's that they spend more time in school," he said.
ReplyDeleteElena Silva, a senior policy analyst for Education Sector, a Washington think tank, said there is evidence that low-income students lose ground against their middle- and high-income counterparts during the summer. "Over time, that gap grows and grows and grows," Silva said. "Kids who don’t have quality learning during the summer fall further and further behind. That has been well documented. Whether or not extending the school year is the answer is still up the air."
COUNTRY DAYS
Japan 243
South Korea 220
Israel 216
Luxembourg 216
The Netherlands 200
Scotland 200
Thailand 200
Hong Kong 195
England 192
Hungary 192
Swaziland 191
Finland 190
New Zealand 190
Nigeria 190
Which is why when blue collar jobs disappeared and will never come back our kids will not find work, but that is good blaming the President for trying to help the country and its children but it appears he needs to start with the parents.