Many New Jersey Parents Say No To Longer School Day

Governor Chris Christie, in between shutting down the traffic to the George Washington Bridge and extorting real estate development projects in Hoboken, decided he would add extra time and days to schools.

The Star-Ledger reports many parents around the state aren't so into that idea:

As they waited outside the Orange Avenue School one day last week for the dismissal bell to ring, a few dozen Cranford parents debated the merits of Gov. Chris Christie’s call for New Jersey students to spend more time in school.

"They’re in class enough," Scott Laniewski said.

"And the little ones need time to play," added Michelle Howlett, a former special education teacher. "They need downtime."

Standing near a swing set a few yards away, Barry O’Donovan disagreed. "I think they should have a longer year. They don’t go to school enough," he said. "And they’ll learn more."

The discussions are happening at schools and playgrounds around the state, as parents, educators and students discuss the benefits and drawbacks of more school time. Some parents welcome the idea, while others complain that summer vacation is too short already. Jersey’s July temperatures are too hot for school, said some. Others said the kids need time to relax.

"By the end of the day she’s tired," Marisol Quintero of Elizabeth said about her daughter in kindergarten.

...

Charles Sampson, superintendent of the Freehold Regional High School District, said Christie’s proposal will result in local districts taking a close look at how they use their time. But he said the first step is to understand the goal.

"What are we looking to improve? If it is to improve academic achievement on standardized tests, that is a more specific conversation than providing extended opportunities for children," he said. "You’re going to have very different reactions across the state, at the local level, and across households."

The goal is control and compliance- to socialize children to expect to be at work for 10+ hours a day, 50 weeks a year when they grow up, working whatever drudge jobs are still left in 15+ years and not complain or rebel against the system.

This jive about making children "competitive" in an increasingly globalized economy is horse bleep.

The economy is increasingly competitive because multi-national corporations use every piece of leverage they have to exploit workers, tax breaks, etc. to make as much money as they can.

The problem is not that children are not growing up knowing enough to do the work companies need them to do.

The problem is the companies don't actually want to pay people (except for the braintrust at the company, of course) and they'll do anything to outsource, automate, exploit or otherwise cut their labor costs.

That is not something that is going to be solved by adding time and days to school - unless by "solve" you mean socializing children to grow up expecting to be exploited and screwed in their work lives.

Bill Thompson Calls For Longer School Day And School Year

His proposals for education, laid out in a speech at NYU, are here.

Here is what he said about the school day and year:

Support Longer School Hours and School Years. It means more time for teacher collaboration. More time to challenge students with new subjects. And more time to identify and help kids – at a young age – who are struggling.

What is unclear - is this for every school and every teacher?

Is this like when Bloomberg and Randi added the extra 20 minutes, then the extra 10 minutes in two consecutive contracts, where everybody had to do the time?

Or is this more like the Cuomo proposal, where certain schools would get the resources to have longer school days and school years but these would not be mandated?

I sat through a Danielson meeting today in which every one of my colleagues looked totally burnt.

The students are burnt too from all the Common Core.

Neither students nor teachers are going to want to do more time.

Not the way things are now with it being all Common Core all the time...

Instead Of Extending The School Day, Why Not Lower Class Size?

I bet you could get much better results if you took the 20 middle schools the city is going extend the school day at and instead lowered class size to the low 20's or high teens.

In fact, I know you could get better results.

But for some reason, education reformers refuse to sell class size reforms and instead go with the extended school day and extended school year reforms.

Even though lowering class size is a proven reform and extending the school day is not.

My brain tells me that education reformers don't really care about improving performance so much, or helping kids, because if they did, they would choose the reform proven to work over the one that sometimes does and sometimes doesn't.

My brain also tells me that there is another agenda behind the extended school day and extended school year movement:

They want to socialize the kids to expect longer work days with no vacation, garbage pay and, as the Daily News put the extra work the middle school kids will be doing as part of the extended school day program, "toil" when they become working adults in our neo-feudal economy.

Quinn, Walcott Announce 2 Hour Longer School Days In 20 Middle Schools

Getting them ready for the 10-12 hour work day they'll have to put in, slaving at Walmart:

School days will get more than two hours longer for 2,000 New York City sixth-graders next fall. The nation's largest city is joining a roster of school systems experimenting with having students spend more time in class.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced the plan Monday.

It will involve about 2,000 students in 20 schools, not yet chosen.

Pupils will get 2½ extra hours a day of reading tutoring and other educational activities, run by a nonprofit group.

The City Council and private foundations are paying for the extra instruction. It's part of a $4.6 million effort to improve middle school reading.

Notice what they're going to spend the time on - reading, tutoring, and other educational activities.

In other words, test prep-related activities.

Drills and skills.

How about saving the regular school day for the drills and skills and putting in some fun activities after school?

How about some games or physical activities?

How about art or music?

How about some social-emotional learning?

How about anything other than test prep?

If you want the kids to read, forcing them to read complex text and do other Common Core and test prep-related activities for 10 hours a day isn't going to do it.

But I didn't fall off a turnip truck.

Quinn and Walcott don't care if the kids like reading.

They want the kids to learn how to obey rules and deal with drudgery, so they can be ready to be good Americans when they grow up.

Shut up and do your test!

Shut up and do your work!

Work longer and harder for less and less every year!

That's the agenda here.

Regents Want To Extend School Year By Four Weeks

Here we go:

The traditional summer break could be history under one of a dozen proposals the state Board of Regents is considering to boost public-school graduation rates.

The measure, among the solutions to the nation's educational crisis touted by President Obama, would lengthen the school year by 20 days -- effectively cutting summer vacation in half -- and extend the school day to eight hours.

While added instructional time has been shown to improve student achievement, it also comes with a hefty price tag at a time when budgets are being slashed across the board.

The Post article goes on to say that parents are opposed to the extension of the school year.

Since the state doesn't actually have money to operate the schools and the school year that they have now, how do they plan to get the additional money needed to extend the school day to eight hours and the school year to 11 months?

And so what if the research on extended school days is inconclusive about efficacy.

This is about socializing children to expect to work longer and harder for less money in the future.

That's it.