Teachers, some research questions effectiveness of extending hours...

      I found this article in one of my local newspapers about a week ago and thought it was worthy to pass along.

    "States and school districts nationwide are moving to lengthen the day at struggling schools, spurred by grim test results suggesting that more than ten thousand schools will likely be declared failing under federal law next year."
     "In fifteen years, I would be very surprised if the old school calendar still dominates in urban settings," said Mark Roosevelt, superintendent of schools in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania which has added forty five minutes a day to at least eight of its lowest performing schools and ten more days to their academic year."
     And the purpose of extending the normal school day is to accomplish what? To whose benefit? Which schools will be extended and which ones will not? I was under the impression that all public schools were nationalized to conform to the same standards, studies and hours? Is this to add more control over the child by the schools? Does this diminish the parental control over the child or children?
      My youngest son was enrolled in private school at the start of his graduating from sixth grade because I just could not see how he was getting an education. We looked around and collected information on a variety of private schools in our area until we chose the one he would be attending.
        The first few years went very well, he was afforded very well educated teachers with a variety of subjects for him to dabble in. As time passed they decided it was time to extend the school year to benefit the children. They extended it by two hours in the morning to accommodate the many parents who drove their children to the school before they were to leave for work.
        After about the first four months another letter was circulated to all the parents. In the letter contained the information that they were going to also extend the school day by an additional two hours in the afternoon. Now a simple six hour day turned into a ten hour day and we were lucky if we could pick him up at school and get home for dinner.
       This made things a little difficult not just for us transporting him, but for him too. Let me see, do we work ten hour days as a normal routine? Where is the logic to keeping these children in the classroom for ten hours a day except to extend each class period which was really pointless. We were also informed that the tuition for the school year was being increased by one thousand dollars to accommodate the teachers having to work longer. This just was not going to do.
      I did my "homework" as I call it and searched around for another school for him to attend. I began to look into home schooling because I had heard so much about it. We found a very good program through Texas Tech, he agreed to try it and we signed him up. This was working out well because he was home more and that helped him to unwind and relax.
     We began to socialize with other parents with children who were home schooled and set up many activities for the children to get together. My son was involved in a football team, baseball team, swim team and bowling team and he enjoyed each and every one of them. It afforded him a release from just books.
      Texas Tech to this day is recommended by me to anyone who asks. They have a great program and teachers are qualified in the subjects they teach. There is an online program where students and teachers can get together and discuss anything days, night, weekends and holidays. They also offer private tutoring if it is needed.
      Are they accredited, yes and their entire program runs from kindergarten through college. If you are wondering about the cost, it is about one third the cost of public education per student and it does not come from tax dollars.
     "The interest in longer school days has been spurred largely by the federal "No Child Left Behind" law, which required annual testing of students, with increasingly dire consequences for schools that fall short each year, including possible closure."
     Does that mean that teachers are now being pressured to set aside the normal school program and teach the students how to pass this exam because if they do not their school could be shut down? Who does this hurt in the long run?
     "Pressured by the demands of the law, school officials who support longer days say that much of the regular day must concentrate on test preparation. With extra hours, they say, they can devote more time to test readiness, if needed, and teach subjects that have increasingly been dropped from the curriculum, such as history, art and drama."
      No longer are many of them teaching reading, writing, history, math, algebra, science?
Now they are concentrating on saving their schools and ultimately their jobs? Well, that explains why so many children graduate without knowing how to read and write, doesn't it?
     "But some educators question whether keeping children in school longer will imporve their performance. A recent report by the Education Sector, a centrist nonprofit research group, found that unless the time students are engaged in active learning, mastering academic subjects, is increased, adding hours alone may not do much."
     "The trend could accentuate the differences between poor and middle class students, with low income students forced to spend longer hours behind their desks, said An Me Chung, an officer at the C.S. Mott Foundation, which does education research."
     "She noted, though, that middle class children "basically have their own extended day that their parents have put together for them." The virtue of the extended day, educators say, is that it forces children who might not otherwise attend voluntary after school programs to spend time on studies."
     I believe that all of these educators need to get together and decide what is important and beneficial to all students, now and in the future. Thank you for reading and listening.