4 Day School Week in Some Parts of the Country

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Deokoria
After a certain length of time, people - especially younger children - just shut down. That's why there are so many breaks, recesses, whatever in school.

Originally posted by Cyrinne
I worry about how young children would handle such a long day. My first graders already seem tuckered out by 2:30, and they still have an hour to go.

I agree that an extra hour per day is rough. Frankly, I think they could easily just shave off the 5th day and not even worry about making it up.

Giving teachers a free day to plan, help kids that are falling behind, etc. probably adds enough efficiency to the whole process that the "lost day" is not really lost. Almost every public school teacher I have ever known laments the fact that the slower students have an extremely negative impact on the pace of the entire class. In public school, there is not much they can do about it.

There were three main reasons I raised the whole homeschooling issue:

1) It shows that it is very easy to do a lot more educating in half or even one third as much time.

2) It shows that piling on tons of homework is not the answer.

3) It shows that throwing more money at the problem is not the answer. Homeschooled kids get a better education for about 1/10th the cost. Every time I read this, it strikes me as a brutally harsh indictment of our fradulent public education system: "The average cost per homeschool student is $546 while the average cost per public school student is $5,325. Yet the homeschool children in this study averaged in 85th percentile while the public school students averaged in the 50th percentile on nationally standardized achievement tests."

Regarding testing:

I think testing is a poor way to bring accountability to education, but unfortunately it is the only way that the populace has been able to blast through the NEA juggernaut.

More bad teachers need to be fired. A LOT more bad administrators need to be fired. The whole concept of tenure in lower, middle, and high school is ridiculous. The reason tenure exists in college is to protect people from being fired for ideological reasons. Ideology should not even be a part of the K-12 education, so this should not be a factor.

If a teacher sucks, they should get sacked. Period. Why is teaching a magic profession where you work hard a couple years and are then guaranteed a job for life? That's lunacy.

Vouchers are a much better way to have accountability. It allows parents to make a decision based on the whole array of factors related to the quality of education they are receiving. It allows these decisions to be made on a case-by-case basis after analysis of all the details (including how the details pertain to a specific child).

I agree that it is impossible to analyze the quality of education solely by a bunch of test scores. This is particularly true when schools start focusing more on the tests than on an actual education.

What is really sad about the whole thing is that the reason teachers like yourself, Cyrinne, have to spend so much time on testing, is because the school districts know they are doing a shitty job of educating the children they are in charge of. They know that if they simply stuck to their normal curriculum, lack of discipline, and misguided methods, the kids would simply fail the testing like crazy. They can't have that happen, because then their schools gets NCLB failing grades, and parents are suddenly given the FREEDOM to move their kids to a good school of their choice.

The majority of teachers are probably very good. But it only takes a few crappy ones to completely ruin a school. Similarly, it only takes a couple of crappy administrators to ruin the school even more.

Give parents the power to vote with their feet, and the terrible schools will be revealed very quickly and a lot more accurately.

[Cyrinne]

I think there is a great misconception about the tenure system, and what it means for a public school teacher. Public school teachers with tenure can be fired. They do however, have the chance to fix whatever the problem is before that takes place. Should a teacher's performance be lacking in my county for example, they are given a "consulting teacher" from the County Office, the same as they'd have as if they were a new teacher. That person serves to help them meet the standard through observations and feedback. If after a designated amount of time (One year at most for a tenured teacher) that has not happened, then they are given a chance to resign, or they are fired.

As far as I know, nothing happens to a bad administrator. I've known of principals who have had several union grievances filed against them who have still gone on to interview at more pristigious schools and get hired.

As for testing children being the only way the populace has been able to blast through the NEA juggernaut, I'm afraid that isn't true. The NEA has long supported measures to encourage teacher accountability and standards that use a variety of measures to evaluate the -teacher- not the children. National Board certification is one example of this, and though the groups are not affiliated, the local NEA branch in my area heavily praises systems that help teachers pay for certification and increase the salaries of NBC teachers. Unfortunately, this is more expensive than simply having the kids bubble in more copies of the CTBS.

I am unsure how I feel about vouchers for a variety of reasons. However, I am in high favor of school choice. The ability to choose between public schools in your area based on the success of the programming it offers does motivate schools to create successful programs, and allows for more variety in what public schools can offer.

I am currently teaching at an elementary school where some students are there by choice because of our Chinese Immersion program. It is piloting this year, and while I think it will be wonderful there have been snags in getting it started. Because of that, some parents have chosen to pull their students out of the program and return to their home schools. And I do agree that has been a great motivator for the program designers to make improvements.

What I love about it though is that it is accessable to all children. There is no test to get into the program. There is no cost that a voucher may not cover all of. Any interested parent may apply, and the students involved are a mixture of abilities, backgrounds, and income levels. Does that mean the class doesn't move as quickly as it could? Yes. But I believe strongly that we have a legal and moral obligation to provide the best and most enriching education possible to all students, regardless of what talents they enter our schools with.

[Lokrian]

If you're still paying attention to this thread at all,

Originally posted by Jidoe
Sounds nice. Kids up (?) are still go(?) through a 6-day week (friday being half a day) which really really sucks.

I don't quite follow the sentence here. They go every day except Friday, which is only a half day, or they go Sunday through Friday with Friday being a half day?

I suddenly noticed this post after rereading a bunch of stuff here, but it is interesting that one of the solutions to our lagging educational performance in this country was often to suggest that we go without summer vacations. Now all of a sudden gas is expensive and it turns out we would have better results with a 4 day week.

Originally posted by Aristotle
"The average cost per homeschool student is $546 while the average cost per public school student is $5,325. Yet the homeschool children in this study averaged in 85th percentile while the public school students averaged in the 50th percentile on nationally standardized achievement tests."

This statistic seems more opaque the more I think about it. How are they going about determining the cost of home schooling? Are they taking the loss of time at work for the parent who stays and home schools at all? Are they talking about food in either statistic, or only in the one dealing with the public schools?

It also turns out that voucher resistance is coming from a whole different sector than one might at first have suspected.

Sweeten the pot for middle America: to make school vouchers truly popular, make sure there's something in them for suburbanites

It's hard to find just one thing to snip from this article, but the gist of it appears to be as follows-

American Enterprise Article Quote

Imagine a hard-working couple, the Grays, who own four season tickets on the 40-yard line for the local pro football team. They invested lots of money and sweat in obtaining the seats, and now use them to share a special experience with their two children. The Grays value these hard-won tickets highly.

Now imagine that the Grays show up one Sunday to find that the stadium has adopted a first-come, first-served seating pattern. What do you predict their reaction is likely to be? Will they smile and say, "Oh, then that's all right!" after the stadium management explains, slowly and in few words, that the old system had produced inequitable results for the poor? Seems unlikely, doesn't it?

A great deal of American family life is now driven by the quality of the public schools in the district where a family happens to live. Parents who have sacrificed to purchase an expensive, heavily taxed home in a better school district have often done so largely because it confers a ticket to the local classrooms for their children. From their perspective, school choice proponents are suggesting that their tickets be torn up.

Originally posted by Cyrinne
"As for my opinion on testing an accountabily, I am now beginning the second month of school. I have not been able to hold even one session of small group instruction because I am so busy with testing. The pendulum has swung so very far towards testing/accountabily/performance that there is no time to teach. It is a sad situation for our students, and I hope very dearly that some kind of balance is struck soon.

This is what I wanted to hear more about. What are the suggestions for how to improve performance and yet decrease the constant testing that are floating around amongst the teachers themselves, or perhaps the unions, or even other professional organizations teachers are part of that I don't know anything about? One of your posts states the NEA, "has long supported measures to encourage teacher accountability and standards that use a variety of measures to evaluate the -teacher- not the children." The problem as I understand it is that the concern is with the outcome after all, and not the methodology. If the students are still underperforming, it hardly matters what method is being used.

And you're very welcome to the compliment. You don't seem to post much at all outside things that have to do with kids, but when you show up it is always a good read.

[Dalaena]

I think, as usual, we leave out the most important part of the school system: the parents.

When you have concerned parents who give a crap about their children's education, they will do better in school than parents who see school as day-care already paid for by their taxes. How much do you want to bet that the biggest concern for 4-day school week is "Well, where am I going to put my kid for that day then?"

This statistic seems more opaque the more I think about it. How are they going about determining the cost of home schooling? Are they taking the loss of time at work for the parent who stays and home schools at all? Are they talking about food in either statistic, or only in the one dealing with the public schools?

They go about the cost of determining home schooling by the cost of books used, school supplies (such as art supplies), hours spent in lessons, and field trips. Keep in mind that a home schooled child has NO transportation costs at all. That alone reduces the cost of each child going to school quite drastically. Also, the home school child do not get calculated for the cost of food for the same reason they don't calculate weekend meal costs for a public school child.

I highlighted a sentence above because it bothered me greatly. Why would you calculate hours lost in a job someone never had or deliberately chose not to have? The assumption that all families are and SHOULD BE two income families bothers me a great deal. Some people have deliberately chosen to have one spouse to stay at home and have less luxury than if they were working two jobs. It's impossible to put a price tag on people (usually women) who choose to take this role. It is often a deliberate sacrifice when one person in a parenting unit decides to stay at home with the children. How can you put a pricetag on that when so many of the benefits are completely nebulous?

We can complain all we want about teachers and administrators, and I'm sure that there are truly some problems there. However, until society starts putting a greater emphasis on education and reward children for excelling at school as a whole, the parents need to be the ones to step in and put that pressure on their kids. When teachers are seen as nothing more than glorified babysitters, they will act accordingly. Teachers were once valued as the important people that they are, people who have a great impact on our children's lives and who need our help to keep our children in line. Now, a teacher is weighed down by the threat of lawsuits and parents claiming that what happens at school is "not my problem." When I got in trouble at school and my parents were told, I got owned at home as well as at school. Now, there's a good chance that the teacher is the one getting owned for the discipline that they try to do, which is severely limited now by the multitude of lawsuits that stretch across the country.

This problem is so huge that there's a lot of people who deserve finger-pointing: lawyers, parents, useless administrators, etc. I don't think the problem can be boiled down to a few set of people to blame.

[Lokrian]

Originally posted by Dalaena
I highlighted a sentence above because it bothered me greatly. Why would you calculate hours lost in a job someone never had or deliberately chose not to have? The assumption that all families are and SHOULD BE two income families bothers me a great deal. Some people have deliberately chosen to have one spouse to stay at home and have less luxury than if they were working two jobs. It's impossible to put a price tag on people (usually women) who choose to take this role. It is often a deliberate sacrifice when one person in a parenting unit decides to stay at home with the children. How can you put a pricetag on that when so many of the benefits are completely nebulous?

Because it makes the statistic more or less useless. The supposed cost of home schooling is $500 roughly, when what really has been sacrificed is substantially more than that. There's no useful information in the comparison if they are taking the cost of paying teachers into the school acount but simply assuming the home school parent's labor is worthless.

Put another way, you can well imagine what the cost per child would be in public education if the teacher/student ration were increased to 1/5, or 1/3, or even 1/1 for those families who only have one child at home being home schooled.

It's one thing to stress parental responsibility. It's another to blame parents in general without accurate understanding of which parents are guilty of what, when where how and why. A lot of people curse statistics just in general. I think they are invaluable, but you have to know how to use them. The statistic I am talking about there, as I said, appears entirely opaque to me. It has no real, discernible meaning whatsoever. It simply fails to give enough useful information.

[Lokrian]

Originally posted by Dalaena
Teachers were once valued as the important people that they are, people who have a great impact on our children's lives and who need our help to keep our children in line.

Teachers were actually once the lowest paid educated professionals in America. I'm not sure where you are getting this perception.

[Dalaena]

Originally posted by Lokrian
Because it makes the statistic more or less useless. The supposed cost of home schooling is $500 roughly, when what really has been sacrificed is substantially more than that. There's no useful information in the comparison if they are taking the cost of paying teachers into the school acount but simply assuming the home school parent's labor is worthless.

I disagree with this completely. It does not make the statistic useless in any way. There is no way to compare what you might have with what you've decided to do, and again, you would have to assume that all families are two income families. Statistic are compiled by what is true for a family not by guessing and assuming. The fact that you want to throw it out based on something so nebulous makes me suspicious of your whole argument. It is not assumed that it is worthless becuase the figures for homeschool children are LOWER than the figures for a non-home schooled child. That argues strongly in the favor of the parent who decided to home school.

Originally posted by Lokrian

Put another way, you can well imagine what the cost per child would be in public education if the teacher/student ration were increased to 1/5, or 1/3, or even 1/1 for those families who only have one child at home being home schooled.

Rather, you just make an argument on why the home schooled children might be way better off. How do you compare 1/30 with 1/1 or even 1/5?

Originally posted by Lokrian

It's one thing to stress parental responsibility. It's another to blame parents in general without accurate understanding of which parents are guilty of what, when where how and why. A lot of people curse statistics just in general. I think they are invaluable, but you have to know how to use them. The statistic I am talking about there, as I said, appears entirely opaque to me. It has no real, discernible meaning whatsoever. It simply fails to give enough useful information.

It seems to me that you conviniently turn to statistics when they support your argument, and you're just as quick to throw out statistics for whatever reason you can dream up when it doesn't support your argument. That, to me, makes statistics completely useless in discussing anything with you. When you say "You have to know how to use them.", what you're really saying is "Use them the way I deem you should use them."

When you get to be a parent and do in-depth research because your child is directly affected by these statistics and the problems in the school system, then you can help determine what the problem is. When you've seem the time taken away from your child by a teacher because another parent doesn't believe their child should be disciplined by the teacher, then you can tell me how I may or may not point out that parental responsibility is a HUGE problem. You speak as if you're the only one who knows anything about this issue, and another person's evaluation is useless. That makes for extremely poor conversation. Unless you can prove to me that my assessments about parental involvement are wrong, don't post that it is inaccurate or that I have no knowledge of what the parental problems are. There are plenty of studies and plenty of stories that indicate that they are not inaccurate at all. Ask a teacher how many times they've discussed a problem with a parent and the parent completely denies that his/her child has done any wrong. Then you may have some clue why parental uninvolvement is a HUGE issue, not only for parents who are involved but also for the teachers who suffer the consequences and take the blame.

There are plenty of single moms working and going to school who are more interested in what their children are doing and plenty of two parent families who don't know what the hell is going on with their child. It's not even a matter of staying at home with a child. It's a matter of disciplining your child and knowing what's going on.

[Lokrian]

*blink blink blink blink*

Okay, one of my first posts here was that one of the main problems appears to be discipline in the class.

My problem with the statistic is it gives ME no useful information. If the goal is to convice ME, then the statistic needs more information. Sorry.. Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.

[Dalaena]

Ah, sorry. The problem with forum posts is that it's not a conversation. People move along, and then it can get confusing.

Once I addressed how the statistic was built, I moved on to my own thing which I feel is a bigger problem than the unions, administration, etc. I wasn't still talking about the statistic.

It's one thing to stress parental responsibility. It's another to blame parents in general without accurate understanding of which parents are guilty of what, when where how and why.

I must have misread this. I felt like you were saying, "Your assessment of the situation is too general and blames parents too much," and I had no idea where you were coming from with this. It seemed like you were saying, "Your opinion = worthless." Does that make sense?

Anyway, sorry about the rant. You've managed to be involved in two topics near and dear to my heart! I promise I'm not usually this crazy.

[Lokrian]

Originally posted by Dalaena
Ah, sorry. The problem with forum posts is that it's not a conversation. People move along, and then it can get confusing.

Once I addressed how the statistic was built, I moved on to my own thing which I feel is a bigger problem than the unions, administration, etc. I wasn't still talking about the statistic.



I must have misread this. I felt like you were saying, "Your assessment of the situation is too general and blames parents too much," and I had no idea where you were coming from with this. It seemed like you were saying, "Your opinion = worthless." Does that make sense?

Anyway, sorry about the rant. You've managed to be involved in two topics near and dear to my heart! I promise I'm not usually this crazy.

Yeah it makes sense. I was really getting paranoid there for a minute though because I figured if I couldn't stay out of trouble even when largely agreeing with you, I was going to have to just hush.