Longer school year...Is this really the way to make it better?

So this blog is essentially dedicated to the things that make me go Hmmmm....and often there is a long lag between those things.

I am a fan of Obama as most of you know but I am not a fan of his choice for education secretary, Arne Duncan, for one simple reason. Duncan has extensive experience in educational policy and management, but has not been a teacher. This is a step that many of our school districts have taken to in the recent past, hiring people to run school districts that have no experience (what I really wanted to say was no idea) with how things go in an actual classroom. Now, I am no seasoned veteran teacher with only 10 years in various classrooms but I have been in a LOT of schools and several districts. Each time you find someone in public education who seems to know how to fix all the problems with low test scores and problem children in the classroom you often find out that he/she has an MBA or an administrative degree with no classroom experience. I would not hire someone who had studied methods of practicing medicine but no hands on experience to be my doctor, WHY would we hire someone who has studied METHODS of education to change our deperately faltering school system!? ok- enough of that... I don't like the pick Obama made but I can't change it so I am going to try and figure out how to live with it.

Duncan is speaking out currently about some of the ideas he has for improving US graduates' ability to compete on a global level for jobs. He is proposing that children are not ready to compete in a "world economy" and that the one way we should work to fix that is to lengthen the school year. Here is a quote from Duncan in an interview with CNN this week,

"American students are 'at a competitive disadvantage' because the United States has shorter school years than other countries such as India and China. It doesn't matter how poor, how tough the family background, socioeconomic challenges, where students have longer days, longer weeks, longer years -- that's making a difference."

As someone who has taught in schools where the children came from tough family backgrounds & socioeconmic challenges I have a real problem with this statement. More than 50% of the children in my 1st classroom were receiving free or reduced breakfast and lunch from the school district. Many of my kids had one or more family members in jail. Some of them had been taken from their homes because of neglect or abuse at least one time. Some of them had parents who were working so hard to keep their kids fed and clothed and in a decent home that they did not spend any time with their children and the children were fending for themselves to get to and from school, make dinner and put themselves to bed.

I do not think that a longer school day, week or year will keep these children from feeling hungry during the school day, worrying about who will be home when they get there or if they will get dinner when they get home. The only thing more time at school will do, in my opinion, is send dollars marked for education to the overhead required to run schools on a longer day, week or year. These dollars must be sent to districts with requirements for meeting children's needs first. Children must have their basic life needs met before they can function at a higher level in the classroom and I hope that somehow Mr. Duncan can see this before he requires our nation's schools to be in session longer.

Karen