Should schools have longer school days with less vacation time in order to provide more instruction for disadvantaged children and to provide more childcare assistance for working parents?
25 thoughts on “Question of the Day — Extended School”
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Apt. 11d 
Um . . . yeah. But I understand what you’re saying in your comment to the previous post about not wanting to have your child sit it rows for two more hours in the day. I think schools need to get creative about how they would do this. Maybe students could be provided with a multitude of activities–art, music, dance, karate, etc.–or given extra help in areas where they’re struggling. Of course, I realize this costs money, but you know if we channeled money from the whole testing scheme we have going now into more creative outlets, I think we could have full day school that is much more enriching and that parents would love having their kids in.
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Yes. I don’t think they should be mandated, but they should be an option for families. The funding formulas for these schools versus traditional schools would be tricky to figure out, but if that issue could be resolved, I can’t imagine why any reasonable person would argue against such schools.
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I think that some should and some shouldn’t. This is an area where there should be diversity and freedom of choice, especially since many families would not be pleased to have their freedom of movement curtailed by a year-round schedule. Incidently, I read somewhere recently that there is a tendency for Spanish-speaking immigrant parents to pull their kids out of school around Thanksgiving, travel to Latin America, returning only in January. My child’s public school in DC has a lot of Europeans, and I’ve noted that they seem very comfortable pulling their kids out of school for a month or two for travel back home. Likewise, from what I hear from that side of the family, you need about five weeks to properly observe Christmas in Bavaria from St. Nicholas’s to Epiphany. It might be more sensible in certain locations and populations to create a slightly shorter “summer vacation” in the winter and have school run through the summer.
Oh, and schools need to provide more choice generally, more information, and more transparency. There’s getting to be more and more information available at places like greatschools.net, but textbooks, but there’s still nowhere near enough information. Every school should provide information on their website about which curriculum and which textbooks are used for each grade, as well as sample weekly schedules. It should be much easier to compare schools.
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The “testing scheme” may be messy, but it’s the only instrument we have for figuring out how exactly public schools are failing disadvantaged children.
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In response to Laura, the conventional wisdom is that extended school day and year should incorporate the kinds of activities and experiences that “middle class” kids get as a matter of course in their family lives — time with books, museums, etc, and lots of casual individualised attention.
Me, I already think the school day and year are too long for my kids, I’d rather have them with me more. But I see the reasons for extending both.
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Hmmm. I’ve been thinking about this one myself.
In our case we live in a nouveau riche suburb where 99% of the kids get the full hothouse treatment of lessons and activities and sports after school. So, no need for extra hours, right? Except for one thing: my kids come home with a shitload of homework, which leaves me wondering what the hell they are doing during all day. I’d prefer that our schools add an hour or two with the caveat that **all** work must fit within the school day. In other words, if my kids get out at 4 instead of 2:30, they must be completely done for the day.
And really, that’s what kids in impoverished areas need as well: to have the school take complete responsibility for the teaching rather than expecting a chunk of it be done by the parents during homework time at night.
I don’t know about longer school year per se, but I’d rather have vacation restructured to give us chunks throughout the year. I like to travel and hate that the only time we can go anywhere for more than a week is summer.
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Artemisia,
Amen to your comment on homework. And that goes double for any “fun” projects involving spray paint or papier-mache.
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Laura, would 8:00-5:00 really solve all these problems? 5:00 is a pretty early quitting time for most jobs, I think, then adding travel time… I think if you want to make school into a functional daycare you’d have to make it available until 6:00 at least. But I don’t blame teachers for not wanting to take on such a long day. And I certainly would not want my own elementary school child to be out of the home for so many hours every day.
It’s been very instructive to observe you negotiate these obstacles as you move into the work force; thanks for blogging this transition so candidly. I sympathize with the frustration you feel; *everything* is harder with two working parents, and harder perhaps than it needs to be. But it has also illustrated for me just how real the tension is between working and at-home parents, in their priorities, interests, needs, and lifestyles. Not too long ago you and I were in in essentially the same boat (not that you know me from Adam, of course): PhD working independently from home with small kids, husband with hugely demanding job. Now your life (or what you’ve revealed of it on blog) is substantially different from mine in most particulars: from class markers like domestic help, to expectations for school policies, to leisure and recreation interests. Yes, we all love our children; yes, we all have an interest in the wellbeing of our neighbors’ children, too. But I don’t think that’s enough to bridge the very real divergence between the interests of working and at-home parents.
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Rosalynde, I vaguely agree with you, but what do you see as SAHM needs and priorities that the schools might meet or cater to?
I didn’t work full time when my kids were little and was very involved in their schools. This is what I saw: being a familiar face within the school meant that no one would try to place my child with the grade’s requisite crappy teacher. That my kid was more likely to be chosen for video announcements or to lead the Halloween parade. In our system, parents definitely buy better treatment for their kids with involvement. It totally works against two-career families.
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I volunteer weekly in my first grader’s class. My scheduled time is right at the end of the day, so I see them after nearly 6 hours of school time. They get a 20-30 minute recess, they get gym 3x a week, they get music 2x a week….
And by the end of 6 hours (that’s 6 hours of schooling – many have a 30 minute bus ride first, and that is *short* for this district) they are coming unglued and bouncing off walls.
I don’t know if more recess and more down time would help. It might, but honestly, some kids just aren’t wired to be able to spend all day in a large group, taking directions. It’s overstimulating and at some point they just stop taking it in….
I’d question how much could be drilled into the head of a student with extended hours. At some point, my kid just stops recording because the effort of keeping it together is too much.
That said, I think there is a lot of outright disrespect for — well, I was going to say “working parents,” but lets just call it like it is and say “working mothers.” The constant stressing of how much everyone needs to volunteer, the cliquish PTA ladies, the intimations that your child won’t do as well if you’re not totally familiar with the school and all classmates. I don’t know how this could be fixed by the school alone, because it really needs to be worked on from the other side – from teh employers. What if employers offered every employee (including childfree) time off to volunteer in the local public schools? What if there were similar expectations of volunteerism for men as well as women?
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My bias is that longer days won’t be utilized efficiently, and tend to turn a 6h day plus 4h homework (already sweatshop hours) into 8h a day plus 5h homework.
If the goal is to provide more cultural capital, the programming needs to reflect this, not just have more time in seat.
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Being around people all day is hell for introverts, who need solitude as much as air, food, and water. Your garden-variety introvert is not going to appreciate a longer school day.
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I think the other way to go, of course, is to have more job flexibility so that parents could be home with their kids after school if they wanted to be. Either option, extending the school day or changing the work schedule is a huge culture change. I think what we all want is the choice. I may choose for my kids to stay in a school-like environment until I get home from work while someone else may prefer to have their kid at home with them after school is out. Still another may choose a little of both. I’d like to see those choices as options regardless of whether you’re a two-income family or not.
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American (English, too; probably other countries’, but I don’t know about them) schools have become so dysfunctional that it’s hard to see that condemning children to spend more time in them can be a solution to any problem.
This problem is not just that many families have two working parents. It’s also that work is far from home (and thus from school). It’s that working hours are nonnegotiable. It’s that daycare alternatives are diffuse, uncoordinated and scattered (and often expensive). We as a society have spent a lot of time and a lot of effort getting ourselves into this situation. It’s unlikely there’s an easy fix available.
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[edited comment. One should not comment after 1/2 pot of coffee.]
I agree. I think that the longer school day should be optional. But I think that schools are going to have to change in major ways in the next few years. There’s been lots of moaning about why women aren’t better represented at higher level positions in the workplace. Lots of blame has been placed on on men and the workplace. Well, right up there has got to be the schools.
There’s no reason that more time at school has to mean more desks and worksheets. There can be organized nature walks or basketball in the gym or homework help. However, the school system has to bend to modern life. They cannot expect that the mom at home has infinite free time and a flexible work schedule.
My lifestyle has changed quite a bit since I started work. Some has been for the good, as well as the bad. Things are also unusually crazy around here, since the first semester at a university usually involves large amounts of prep work. Life will normalize fairly soon.
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Happy Giant Killer Bunny Rabbit Day!
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Hi,
So I’ll chime in for the boarding school crowd, where school is 24X7: We had school six days a week and techers were avaialbe at all hours of the day. What did work is the quality teachers and it is what works. Higher pay and longer term fiscal planning that benefits teachers and the school systems will be the only things that work. Private schools have to worry about staying within budget and to be effective with capital.
Here’s what needs to happen: Parents need to give a shit and teachers need to communicate with other subject teachers at any school and no child left behind needs to be dissolved.
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Kip,
Can’t the schools just walk away from (the rather modest) federal funds if they don’t want to comply with NCLB? If it is really such an impediment to education, why not pull the plug and walk away? Furthermore, NCLB uses tests chosen by the states themselves. If the tests are objectionable, why not put in better tests? The states have a lot of power in this situation. Also, NCLB does not mandate the lengthy test practice sessions that a lot of people dislike.
We’ve known for many years that (for the most part) our public schools serve disadvantaged children very badly, and that educationally speaking, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, with the gap between children from different socioeconomic strata becoming wider and wider as the years go by. Dissolving NCLB would make it much easier to sweep that fact under the carpet.
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Wouldn’t have wanted the longer day, myself.
By eight years old I was home alone, and loved it.
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No- my kid droops at the end of long, demanding school days and she is almost 14. Last year, when the school day was 8 to 3:30, with 35 minute commute at either end, was a nightmare. Some kids just can’t take more school time.
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The school day is long enough. I don’t want my kids to be required to spend more time at school, just to make life easier for other parents.
I also doubt that longer school days, by themselves, will raise test scores. The charter schools which have posted higher test scores, with longer days, put the extra time to good use. I have the impression that many of them use the time for targeted tutoring. I cynically suspect that extra time across the board at public schools would translate into more study halls and *inane* classes.
The “extras” may be fun, but they’re not a compelling argument to raise taxes. I also doubt anything along those lines would succeed at the ballot box, as a frequent critic’s description of extending early childhood education is, “it’s just taxpayer funded daycare.” Baby boomers are entering retirement; they are not looking to increase spending on education. If anything, I’m afraid of radical contractions in existing school budgets, as the conflict between the generations takes hold.
Working parents don’t have the clout to change the school day. You are required enroll your child to a school. Boycotting education is not an option. The choices are public, parochial, private, or homeschooling. Of those four options, public has the advantage: it’s free, and the public system must accept your child. (Homeschooling has a significant opportunity cost for the parent who teaches at home.)
If you want longer school days in a school your child attends, you should be in favor of vouchers, or a “funding follows the child” system.
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as myself i am in school…and like i dont think we need to add anything on because i get home at 3:00..and i have home work like intill 6:00 and i do track and basketball….soo like i dont need to spend all of my time on something that has to do with school….i know its important and all but i do have a life out side of the class room…i spent alot of time with my family!!..I love them! and i do have friends and i wanna go out but if they do add another hour…HOMEWORK should be apart of the past!!!
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Extending the school day in general is a bad idea. Other countries have longer days but part of that day is not spent on curriculum. I favor quality instruction over quantity.
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tolikfoghotjho
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what about extended school days with more vacations. this would give the structure kids need and also give the time for a kid too be a kid with other kids
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