Saw this yesterday, I enjoy a good documentary, and this was a great one. Pointed out a lot of problems in the American education system that I believed were problems for a long time, and some things that flat out floored me. I believe the beginning to repairing America's place in the world is starting with reforming education. The movie mostly pointed out the problems, let the experts like Geoffrey Canada and Michelle Rhee answer the problems. However some of things that I believe have to be done (having at least some classes on Saturday, and classes during the summer) were only briefly mentioned. If you're interested in education, or have young kids who are either in school or about to start school, I strongly recommend it.

why in the hell do we need class 6 days a week thats just dumb

I remember we wasted a lot of time during grade school. I'm thinking you could fit your 6 days of education into 5 if you really tried and still give everyone their Saturdays.

[This message has been edited by Lance Uppercut (edited 10/23/2010 3:53p).]

How about start the school days later. My first class was always a blowoff because lord knows I was too tired in the mornings for damn near anything.

Michelle Rhee was recently forced to resign by a newly elected mayor.

going to school 6 days a week is a fantastic way to burn out teachers and students. what i've wanted for a long time (as a teacher and student) is the same amount of vacation that we have now but in different intervals. cut down summer to 5-6 weeks and spread that out over the year. a month at christmas would be awesome.

[This message has been edited by Walter Kovacs (edited 10/23/2010 8:07p).]

I would not be against changing the schedule...lord knows the country isn't centered around agriculture anymore and kids don't need their day scheduled around being able to help Ma and Pa on the farm. But 6 days a week is retarded.

And I'm not so sure that we should jump on every bandwagon sold to us by these companies that have the answers to our education problems if we just use their system (i.e. buy their products). Combine those programs with all of the testing that is mandated by legislators who are basically bought off by testing companies, and you'll see that the problem with our education system is that its for sale to the highest bidder - just like everything else in America.

quote:

---

what i've wanted for a long time (as a teacher and student) is the same amount of vacation that we have now but in different intervals. cut down summer to 5-6 weeks and spread that out over the year. a month at christmas would be awesome.

---

You would think that this would be a good idea and it was given a big try back in the 70's. It was called year round schools or the trimester system. Many schools tried it but after four or five years schools began to change back to the traditional schedule because the public wouldn't support it. Teachers thought it was fine.

That's because too many parents just view schools as babysitters. God forbid school schedules change from the template they knew as children and how their vacation schedules at work are currently set up.

I don't think 6 days is the way to go, but I do think we need to shift to a year-round type system.

Parents/public will Never accept year round school or Saturday school. Not to mention that the increased cost of Saturday school would be very high, (A/C and lights, busses, additional money for teachers working additional days.

We actually already have year round school called "summer school" and anyone that wants can go...it just costs them because of the extra salaries and utilities.

There are some things that schools could do to improve that might work if allowed. Most of these just aren't flashy and are hard.

I usually don't think from an elementary school perspective but I took my four grandkids to breakfast last friday and then to school. They were higher than a kite because they were having the "PTA Fall Festival" after school. The teachers were out directing traffic because the parents won't behave in driving around the school starting at 7:00 AM. They had school all day (I bet the kids were really listening) and then after school they had to direct traffic again and help get everything ready for the "festival". I know that they didn't get home until after 9. I am sure that they were exhausted from that day but they still had to do a great job teaching and be sure to take good care of my grankids!

There is no logical reason why we should still have the schedule we do. The justifications are all political. To put this into some kind of context, while I was still teaching high school I came across a story reporting that in Singapore (I think), students are in school for about 230 days a year. Over the course of the K-12 progression, those students are going to have been in school for 3-4 more "years" than our 18 year olds. Leaving aside arguments about educational quality and local culture/context, it stretches credulity to imagine that American students (i.e., future workers) will not be at a competitive disadvantage in such a scenario.

The answer is pretty simple, actually. You just have to solve the following problems:

- parents who don't care
- cultures that don't value education
- teachers' unions with too much power
- bad teachers who are unaccountable
- schools in unsafe areas
- watered-down standards
- losing quality teachers to better careers

That should take, what, a day or two to fix?

/system's broken

I actually attended a "year-round" school (K-6). They started it when I was in third grade. The schedule was:

- six weeks on, two off (during the two weeks off they had optional elective classes that were geared more towards fun than the usual classes if the parents wanted to send the kids)
- three weeks of vacation around Christmas/New Year
- One month off between grades in the summer

It was sweet when my siblings and I were all in elementary since we could take family vacations when everyone else was in school.

It was the only school in the district with that schedule, but I liked it.

quote:

---

- parents who don't care
- cultures that don't value education
- teachers' unions with too much power
- bad teachers who are unaccountable
- schools in unsafe areas
- watered-down standards
- losing quality teachers to better careers

---

I think you have listed a lot of the problems real well.

The first point you make about parents not caring is not necessarily true. I think parents really do care it is just that they don't really don't know how. I have had many parents in my office that see the school as the enemy and that they have to take the side of their kid regardless of how wrong they are. This is very frustrating to teachers and principals.

Another of your points, watered-down standards, seem to be a knee jerk reaction of a lot of people but we really have pretty good curriculum standards in our schools. I don't know how many folks have read over the state curriculum, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and looked at the types of questions that are involved in the testing for the kids but it is at a pretty high level. It is sure at a higher level than it was when I went to school itn Texas.

You can check out the TEKS at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=6148&menu_id=720&menu_id2=785

Fortunately Texas doesn't have the problems with the unions that many states do. Since they cannot strike in Texas, unions don't have much power in Texas...like they do in New York for example.

To make this post fit with the original posters intent, I think that the idea that charter schools are the winning combination for education is ridiculous. There are some very good charter schools in Texas, just like there are a number of very good regular schools. If you look at the overall success rate of ALL the charter schools you will find a number that are NOT what you want your kid in!


[This message has been edited by oldvalleyrat (edited 10/25/2010 2:57p).]

I think people are misunderstanding the intent of the my post and the intent of the film. The issue isn't just New York vs. Texas or anything else, they feature a public school in Silicon Valley that is based in a very rich neighborhood but students have poor test scores not because of money or schedule, but because of the system.

The movie is talking about competing against the rest of the world. In India high school students take five years of physics, in the United States we take quizzes on how to use a graphing calculator. We have to fundamentally change our expectations and curriculum that we have for our kids if we want them to be competitive in the world wide economy.

couldn't agree more nonreg

I taught in the Texas prison system for many years and, of course, we had year-round school. Our school year was 220 days vs. 180 days for public school. All the state and federal holidays, two weeks at Christmas, a week of Spring break, and three weeks in the summer. It was the rare month that we wouldn't have at least one three day weekend.

Teachers wanting graduate degrees could take classes at night or on Saturdays, and now everything's on the Internet anyway.

Public schools could do very nicely with a schedule like that. The buildings are there year round, the utilities are on year round.

Of course, the current school calendar, firmly rooted in the 19th century, has the ultimate defense: we've always done it that way.

Along the same lines as the graphing quiz bit, I saw one of the district-wide Biology end of term assessments. At least 1/3 of the questions were about lab safety. A student could have lab procedures down cold, guess on the actual Biology questions and still pass.

Edited to add: Champaign, IL has limited school choice (not for educational reasons) and the single year-round elementary campus is one of the two most requested campuses by parents. The families we know that have kids there love the schedule and the flexibility it provides.

[This message has been edited by Univex (edited 10/25/2010 8:15p).]

Nearly 100 Percent Hispanic School District Proves College for All is Possible

Public schools are doing some pretty amazing things too. This school district is the poorest of the poor located just across the border from Reynosa Mexico. You can hear the gunfire from across the border frequently.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nearly-100-percent-hispanic-school-district-proves-college-for-all-is-possible-105770853.html

early college high schools are fantastic. my little sister goes to one and she might possibly enter college as a senior. 90 free credit hours...

Just watched this documentary (finally), and I was floored by some of the statistics shown. I now understand why so many parents clamor for charter schools or choose to home-school their kids.

The part on the lottery was absolutely heartbreaking, even though it was expected, because the long odds are repeatedly shown.

It reminds me of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, except everyone who doesn't get the marked slip are designated for stoning.