The increased time will be funded by money from upstate casinos.
Because is there any better way to fund programs than by taking money from the truly desperate and hopeless in society and using it to make society better?
Of course not!
And what's even better, Gotham Charter Schools reports that Mulgrew loved the idea:
Officials from the state education department did not respond to requests for comment. New York State United Teachers President Dick Ianuzzu and United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew praised the proposals.
“We … applaud Gov. Cuomo for proposing a way for school districts to increase learning time for students through a creative grant program, one that districts could use to restore their enrichment programs in music and the arts,” Mulgrew said in an emailed statement.
Oh goodie - let's add two hours to the school day, we'll still do seven hours of test prep and test drills, but now kids can have two extra hours of school time for music and art and PE and enrichment activities.
At least until we decide two extra hours of school time for music and art and PE and enrichment activities isn't allowing for enough test prep and test drills and we cut back on the school time for music and art and PE and enrichment activities and just go with nine straight hours of test prep and test drills.
And all of this can be funded off the backs of people with gambling problems.
Yeah, sure seems like great policy - the kind of thing you would expect from some arrogant, elitist short-sighted fool like Andrew Cuomo.
It's a shame Mike Mulgrew isn't any wiser than Cuomo.
Hey Mikey, hey Andrew - you want to add music and art and PE and enrichment activities back to the school day?
Cut back on the state and local tests all the year through in every subject in every grade as mandated by your new APPR teacher evaluation system.
And certainly don't add to the problems our society already faces by funding these programs with money from casinos.
If, and I mean IF this extra time garbage goes through, how will it go down? Chicago wanted to add the extra time and the teachers bellowed a massive, "Hell No" to the idea. Chicago ended up hiring 500 extra teachers to work the extended time after the regular school day ended. Thus, the kids stay in school longer but the regular school staff still maintains their regular schedule. Extra time=a change in the contract=rank and file gets to vote on this. Anyway, to pull this off, Cuomo is going to have to get the legislature to agree to adding new casinos in New York. Then the voters of New York get to vote on the idea. Then the casinos get built. Then they spend time collecting the money from patrons that will eventually get to the schools. Seems to me like this "plan" will take quite a while to come to be.
ReplyDeleteHow bout the entire month of July...?
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI say we make kids go to school 24 hours a day its just that their education is so important we have to make them slaves to the education system and force them to spend their entire lives at school. So to ruin their child hood and per-pare them for the misery that it is to be an adult.