Wow, this is a doozy. The LA Times got the scoop that LA Schools Superintendent is considering shortening the school year.
Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines has asked his chief financial officer to study the possibility of shortening the school year to offset part of an expected shortfall of at least $500 million, The Times has learned.
The strategy, if adopted for the 2010-11 school year, would run counter both to the direction of national reform efforts and to the wishes of Cortines, who agrees with research touting the benefits of an extended academic calendar. (LA Now 10/29/09)
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t even be discussing shortening. We would be talking about moving to year-round schooling. Instead of loading down our students with ridiculous amonunts of homework, we would increase the number of school days, scatter the vacation weeks, and do what is most effective, not what is cheapest.
But, we’re settling. We’re settling for a dimmer future where our children our lest educated and less prepared for the future.
I, for one, am looking forward to the day when the least common denominator can get elected to the Presidency. Oh…wait…
The local school district here on the Monterey Peninsula is looking at closing more schools, in order to save money. This despite the fact that we have some small neighborhood schools with small class sizes – precisely the kind of educational environment that the studies recommend, especially for elementary school students.
Education ought to be one of THE top issues in the 2010 campaign. Let’s hope Brown and Newsom understand this and use it to pound the anti-education Republicans into the ground.
True, he doesn’t have any real accomplishments prior to or since being elected President, but he is bright, well-educated, and a very good speaker.
Err, those were intentional, right?
I don’t think that year-round education would be any better than the current system, especially if the extra school days consisted of more of the bizarre “teaching to the test” fetish that has been so in vogue this decade. Our European allies don’t force children to sit in classrooms for twelve months out of the year (Finland, for example, has approximately 190 days- or 38 weeks- of instruction in their primary system). Then again, Finnish workers are granted by law five or six weeks’ paid vacation annually after only six months on the job, so there’s no need to start teaching children that they must be productive every second of every day.
It is, upon reflection, more than a bit jarring for children to go from having three months’ vacation every year to working themselves to the bone at a job without even a paid sick day, which is what a significant percentage of American students will face upon graduation (if they can find a job, that is). So maybe year-round schooling in the US would be suitable after all- teach ’em to give up hope even earlier.
The damage that is being done to our school systems will be very expensive to reverse.