
 |
|
May 20, 2013
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Oct. 8, 2009
/ 20 Tishrei 5770
It's time to get smarter on extended school day
By
Michael Smerconish
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Last week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and odd couple Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich were in Philadelphia to promote President Obama's education overhaul. Their first stop was Mastery Charter School's Shoemaker campus. Students there attend class until 4 p.m. — more than an hour past the typical public school dismissal — and on Saturdays.
The same day, our 13-year-old was on his school bus by 7 a.m. School began at 8. His classroom instruction ended at 2:45 in the afternoon. He then had mandatory after-school athletics — a cross-country match — and got home around 4:45. It's a long day.
Not all school days are as long or as rigorous as our son's, and so the president wants schools across the country to add hours to the day or days to the year. "Young people in other countries are going to school 25, 30 percent longer than our students here," Duncan said recently. "I just want to level the playing field."
"Six hours a day just doesn't cut it," he added on the day before his Philly visit. "Our school calendar's based on a 19th-century agrarian economy. I'm sure there weren't too many kids in Philadelphia working in their parents' fields this summer."
He makes sense, but the current system is not a failure for every child in the city or its suburbs. And while the outdated U.S. curriculum can certainly be tweaked, it shouldn't come at the expense of teachers already burdened with filling a void that some parents' inattention leaves. Already we ask them to play the role of social workers, therapists, health-care providers and disciplinarians.
And not everyone agrees that the academic surface is unlevel. Tom Loveless is an education policy expert at the Brookings Institution and a former public policy professor at Harvard. "American kids actually go to school more than the international average," he told me. "When you add up all the minutes in a year, their number of minutes in school exceeds the international average."
So what explains the lagging U.S. education efforts? "We probably don't use our time in school as efficiently as some countries, so we're not as focused strictly on academic matters. We do a lot of other things in schools that other countries don't do," Loveless told me. Foreign over-achievers, meanwhile, also dedicate more time outside the classroom to what Loveless called "academic pursuits." Not homework, but not Halo either.
Two days after Duncan, Sharpton and Gingrich visited Philadelphia, another news item caught my eye: A Washington Post article detailing how new U.S. Census data provided a first-time glimpse at the makeup of stay-at-home mothers. Far from the conventional wisdom that they're career women who hopped off the fast track, the census data showed that stay-at-home moms are more likely to be younger, less educated, and from families with lower incomes.
Which got me thinking. It's those elements — less education, less money, less experience — that make it more difficult for families to reinforce a child's education. Those children are the ones with the most to benefit from longer school days and years. Arguably they're better off at school than at home when it comes to academics.
Which is why Loveless believes that President Obama and Secretary Duncan are proposing a culture shift. Years ago, he pointed out, wearing a seatbelt was considered an afterthought and a hassle. "Today it's simply part of what a person does when they get into in a car. And that was promoted by the government, so we had a change in the culture."
"Now obviously the government can't cram things down the public's throat," he continued. "But what they can do is just — in a very rational manner — ... take academic excellence more seriously, and one way we can do that is by increasing the amount of time kids spend in school ... if we take it more seriously as a culture, we're going to do better in terms of academics."
All of which makes sense. But if Loveless' observations are correct — and efficiency and after-school pursuits are the real issues — why expand the time all American kids spend in school? Not every student's culture needs to change. And keeping students in school longer forces everybody to compensate for a relative few.
It also shifts the burden of afterschool enlightenment from parents to teachers when some of the parents are themselves in need of a bit more adult supervision.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Previously:
09/03/09 What a summer of eulogizing flawed public figures reveals about society
08/12/09 It's time for cyclists and motorists to reconcile
08/05/09 Faces have changed, but vitriol remains
06/25/09 Fair comment or foul? Warm up the Muzzle Meter
06/08/09 Believability is key in crime-hoax villains
05/14/09 Did Hollywood inspire the meltdown men?
04/20/09 Let's give killers their due: Anonymity
03/12/09 Uninsured who can't afford medical care lose a lot more
02/06/09 My debate with Musharraf on hunt for bin Laden
01/29/09 Torture must remain an option
01/15/09 Making a case for suing Madoff
12/22/08 A difficult but rational chat about plans
12/17/08 Facebook epidemic: More than 120 million have joined, many too old for this nonsense
12/01/08 The high price of downsizing the news biz
11/14/08 Prescience on greed, arrogance of a system
09/29/08 Closer look at party lines
08/26/08 Obama's pick creates GOP opportunity
08/21/08 Fishing with the Angry Everyman
07/31/08 The perils of e-mail: Ponder, then click
05/22/08 Two very different sides of the Internet
02/12/08 Sublimely ridiculous suits
11/28/08 Cell phones cut out secondary circle of kinship
09/26/07 What do we owe those who have died in Iraq?
08/30/07 A Navy SEAL's gut-wrenching tale of survival
07/30/07 First it was a faux pas, now it's a new word
© 2008, The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|