# Is it a good idea to have longer school days? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 29, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926 "2009-09-29T00:29:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/41 "2009-09-30T20:43:30Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > I used to volunteer at a “Big Brothers” type program and let me tell you there are lots of places for these kids to hang out if they don’t want to get into trouble. > > The trouble is most parents refuse to do anything about it. The attitude seems to be, “As long as my son isn’t doing anything wrong, he shouldn’t be subject to any kind of punishment.” > > I would say “Your son is hanging out with gangbangers, every friend of his is a gangbanger…” The answer was alway “Stop judging me, you can’t judge me or my son who has a right to hang out with whoever he wants if he ain’t doing nothing.” > > Then you see that mother on the news crying “My son was killed he wasn’t no gangbanger.” > > OK you insisted your son has a “RIGHT” to hang out with whoever he wants, now he’s dead. You let your son die all for the sake of making a point. > > Oh she was right, her son should not be judged by who he hangs out with, but now he’s dead. > > It’s sad, I’d walk in and talk to these kids and in 5 minutes you can tell who is going to be behind bars in a few years. It truly is the parents. And it bunk if you say it’s socio-economic. I have seen mothers on welfare in projects that make damn well sure their kids are attended to. > > Of course the majority of them are spouting off about their rights to safety. > > Again it’s not blame the victim but it’s like if I take $100 bill and hold it in my hand and walk through Humbodt Park in Chicago. Chances are I’d get mugged and get that $100 taken off me. And people would say “That’s what you get for flashing money around in a bad neighborhood.” Do I deserve to get mugged? No. Do I have a right NOT to get mugged? Yes. And if I did that I’d be $100 poorer all for the sake of making a point. > > We spend all this time teaching people their “rights” but fail to teach them there are consequences to exercising them. We don’t live in a nice world, so when you exercise them you may get into a mess. > > I talked to one lady who’s son kept skipping school. I asked her, “Why don’t you walk with him and make sure he gets into his class.” She said “I wouldn’t embarass him in front of his friends, besides I’m too busy.” I was like “Doing what?” You don’t work, what are you doing from 8am - 8:30am that you can’t see to it that he gets into class? > > Of course it’s “Don’t judge me.” > > I had another lady, she said she had to go to work, I asked her if she could explain and change her start time. She said, “No,” she did ask they changed her start time and she still didn’t follow through. > > If you’re gonna use schools as “prisons” to keep them safe, I can agree as a stop gap measure, but you really aren’t addressing the real problem > > I disagree kids forget in three months what they learned. Most of what you learn in school has little value anyway. At least the facts are. I teach my kids two things: 1. You can do ANYTHING you want to do 2. Everything you do has consequences. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/42 "2009-09-30T20:49:44Z")
> [@Brandus](#): > > To get a better education, simply spend more time in school? That has got to be the most ill-thought out idea ever. The solution is to teach better, not teach longer. I was extremely bored for the vast majority of school. At times it felt more like a holding pen than an educational facility. > > For the record, the school day needs to start later anyways. School is there for the kids, not the teachers. Kids don’t wake up at 6am naturally like old people. Ha, I am 31 and my daughter wakes up at 7. I wish she woke up later. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/43 "2009-09-30T20:51:04Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > No, I am very uncomfortable with the notion of decoupling children from family life for the sole purpose of making the state more competitive in the global market. But if both parents work a full day, it’s already de-coupled. I’ve always thought having kids in school 9-5 makes sense, with room for homework or school-based after-school activities for the last couple of hours. When they get home, they have more time available to just be a kid with the family, since their “work day” is done. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/44 "2009-09-30T21:52:53Z")
> [@Cyberhwk](#): > > My change would be to move high school start times back AT LEAST two hours… This would be beneficial especially to adolescents, because of the physiological changes they go through. It’s for a reason that they would rather sleep a lot in the morning, and studies have shown that they become more alert and better able to concentrate later in the day. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/45 "2009-09-30T22:37:07Z")
You know, people complain that American workers are lazy, but American workers work more hours with less vacations and lower pay and benefits than European workers. This sounds like the same thing: people are saying American students should be in school more to catch up when they are already in school more than their peers. To me, it sounds like the solution is ‘work smarter, not harder.’ Were Obama posting here (maybe some day…), I’d ask him for a cite on the idea that American kids spend less time in school than their peers. The article contradicts him: > [@](#): > > U.S. kids spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days). That’s about 9 percent more school hours than Taiwan and 27 percent more than Singapore. Granted these are averages and I’m not sure which schools they are from and so on. But my conclusion, from this article and from my own experiences in school, is that kids do not need more time in school or longer days. They need better instruction. I might get behind having a _few_ more days and slightly longer school periods, but getting rid of summer vacation sounds like a terrible idea. My experience is that students are overworked as it is. My high school had, I think, eight periods of 48 minutes each. You didn’t have to take a lunch period. They’ve changed that system now, and I think it’s become nine periods of 43 minutes each. So my youngest brother gets a lot more electives and AP classes than I did, and is still getting more time off during his senior year. (Bastard.) And I think our district already had more than 180 days per year because - here’s a shocker - they could get more funding. I’m guessing plenty of schools already work this way. The idea of keeping school open at nights and on weekends to provide a safe place for kids to go, I’m fine with. You have to pay teachers or advisers to handle that and so on, but it could work, and more after school activities is never a bad idea. But if you think they just have too many days off and more time in school will fix it… I doubt it. Have a heart already. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/46 "2009-09-30T23:20:00Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > What schools really need to do is stop with this ADHD bell system where you spend 5-10 minutes getting the kids to calm down, get them into the curriculum and by the time they are engaged the bell rings and off to another class. Instead of having say five or six classes a day, how about two classes a day with subjects staggered around? Its called block scheduling. Some schools already do it, but it has it’s own downsides. For one, kids can’t focus on one thing for all that time (usually), so you wind up doing several different things in that block just as if you had the shorer schedule. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2009, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/47 "2009-10-01T00:59:11Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > I teach my kids two things: > > 1. You can do ANYTHING you want to do > > 2. Everything you do has consequences. Last year, one of my second graders remarked to her mom, “You know, I can do whatever I want. But there will be consequences.” In other words, nearly verbatim what you said. I try to get this idea across to my students, as well. I give them directions, and if they hesitate, I absolutely validate their power to choose not to follow the directions. I remind them that such a choice will have consequences, and that choosing to follow the directions will have a different set of consequences, and that they know what both sets of consequences will be, so there are no surprises. Some kids get the idea faster than others :). ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2009, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/48 "2009-10-01T01:17:01Z")
> [@](#): > > To get a better education, simply spend more time in school? That has got to be the most ill-thought out idea ever. The solution is to teach better, not teach longer. I was extremely bored for the vast majority of school. At times it felt more like a holding pen than an educational facility. AMEN! Most of the stuff I learned I just picked up…I even taught myself to read when I was three (no mean feat for a late dx deaf kid who’d just gotten her hearing aids, and who also has a syndrome that can and does cause mental retardation) You know…my girlfriend was unschooled and is very smart and well educated. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/49 "2009-10-01T01:37:04Z")
Oh…and maybe a good idea might be to put kids with legitimate documented special needs in specialized programs/schools. Right now, we have the kneejerk response to think " Oh kids with disabilites need to be mainstreamed. The mainstream is the BEST thing in the world!" What happens is that the teachers (including sped teachers) really don’t have the training in how to teach kids with more classic disabilites. So those of us who are “classicly disabled” don’t achieve as well as we could. Like I know that research from Gallaudet University says that kids who attend special (non public especially for a disabilty) schools do better then kids who attend public schools. I also know of countless parents whose kids were in regular classes, regular school and were just floating along in the mainstream. They got transferrd to a deaf school/program and started REALLY doing well! Seperate programs/schools would raise test scores since the mainstream teachers could concentrate on the mainstream kids, instead of expending all the energy on the speical ed kids. (and even a lot of the kids with "just physcial issues, may act out or not do as well as they could under a teacher really trained on how to teach kids with their particualr issues) ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2009, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/50 "2009-10-03T10:57:44Z")
Personally I think that kids spending more time in a structured environment rather then hanging around on street corners unsupervised can’t be an entirely bad idea. As to the arguments put forward that kids need more time for socialising,kissing members of the opposite sex and SLEEP for gods sake. Kids at school ARE socialising for much of the time. As for kissing other kids, apart from the emotional trauma that so many seem to go through because of trying to act like adults when they are in fact only older children,maybe the underage pregnancy rate might go down a tad. And the “sleep” thing sounds more like the excuses of lazy parents who are thinking about their own lie ins,not their childrens. Kids usually never want to go to bed early,nor to get up early(Not all but many of them) so the last ,so called plea for childrens rights,is an insult to peoples intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/51 "2009-10-03T16:20:42Z")
> [@Palo\_Verde](#): > > What do you think about this proposal? I thank my lucky stars I didn’t go to school under Obama. More school time? My god, I thought this board was against cruel and unusual punishment. By the end of the school day kids are either bored to tears or ready to burst at the seams. ---
**Author:** ![Add99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/977dab/32.png) [@Add99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Add99)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/52 "2009-10-04T00:46:56Z")
1. Drastically increase pay. 2. All wannabe teachers (fresh from college) must first pass a battery of tests: Mental ability, knowledge in their field, psychological evaluation, communication skills, criminal background, etc. 3. All candidates must attend the National Teachers Academy, where they will be taught all aspects of the trade by the best educators we have: Grading, ethics, interaction with parents and administration, behavioral sciences, psychology, self defense, communication, etc. You will ONLY teach in your field. Coaches will never teach class. 4. All school administration wannabes must attend the National Administration Academy, where they will build on their minimum 10 years of teaching experience with applicable courses. 5. All schools will be given equal funding. All classes will be taught from national textbooks. All testing will be nationally distributed. Schools which do not “make the grade” will not be punished. They will be visited by experts who will assess and resolve the issues on a case by case basis. /waves wand… Forget college. Ever have a good highschool teacher? They are rare. I had two. Ever have an unqualified/psycho/jaded/horrible/lazy teacher? I had eight and I went to an exclusive $12,000/ year private school (for free, my father was head of history dept.) There are no real standards, not enough weeding out. We all know why. It’s the low pay. (My family are all teachers.) The best teacher I ever had later turned out to be a horrible total molester of dozens of kids and died in prison. He was a coach who taught science. His communication skills were amazing, however. Every single student actually UNDERSTOOD what was taught and, as a result, everyone in the class made straight A’s, every year. And he was lazy as crap. He simply had communication skills and enthusiasm. Most teachers seem to become teachers by default. The previous 3 career tries did not work out. They also seem to have more psycho’s per capita than any other job. Yeah, I know, blame the teacher. But, a great teacher can inspire students even if all they have for a classroom is a stump under a tree. There simply aren’t enough great ones. Let’s make more. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/53 "2009-10-04T13:47:10Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > And the “sleep” thing sounds more like the excuses of lazy parents who are thinking about their own lie ins,not their childrens. > Kids usually never want to go to bed early,nor to get up early(Not all but many of them) so the last ,so called plea for childrens rights,is an insult to peoples intelligence. What? The drop in sleep over the past few decades may not be causally linked to the increasingly early school start times, but there’s a pretty nice little correlation there. [Cite](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/07/earlyshow/contributors/emilysenay/main700043.shtml). **Add99** interesting ideas, but I think you drastically overstate the problems with the current field of teachers. It’s not that most teachers are lazy psychos, it’s that too many teachers are simply unqualified. People go into teaching sometimes because it’s a calling, sure, and those tend to be pretty good teachers IMO; but some people do go into teaching because it’s the best-paying job they can get, and that’s a scary thing. People who are looking for good pay will go to the best job they can find, and when you have such low pay relative to jobs with similar education requirements, you get the bottom of the barrel in the teaching profession. I certainly agree that we need to tie pay to a concomitant increase in qualifications. Make teaching competitive with other professions. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/54 "2009-10-04T13:49:34Z")
> [@Palo\_Verde](#): > > [http://azstarnet.com/news/310869](http://azstarnet.com/news/310869) > > "The president… wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go. > > ““Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy, and not too many of our kids are working the fields today,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.” > > What do you think about this proposal? Kids need parents and friends to be raised, not handed over to the state. The need less time in schools, not more. - IMHO ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2009, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926/55 "2009-10-04T14:53:49Z")
> [@Add99](#): > > 1. Drastically increase pay. This will happen when every citizen votes in favor of funding schemes that make it financially feasible for salaries to increase. Some districts, for example, have a lot of older residents who don’t have kids in public school and who see no reason why they have to pay taxes to educate someone else’s kids. How do you get around that? > [@](#): > > 1. All wannabe teachers (fresh from college) must first pass a battery of tests: Mental ability, knowledge in their field, psychological evaluation, communication skills, criminal background, etc. Already happens. In Pennsylvania, where I live, prospective teachers must take the Praxis I, which tests reading comprehension, basic math, and writing. They must also take the Praxis II, which tests specific knowledge in their subject areas. Finally, they undergo three separate background checks: one through the state police; one through the Department of Public Welfare’s abuse database; and fingerprinting through the FBI’s criminal database. Communication skills are assessed through student teaching, as well as the Praxis III, which is done during the first year of teaching. The rest of it is handled during teacher training. As for the psych evaluation, who decides what qualifies as acceptable and who doesn’t? Would a person under treatment for bipolar disorder be permitted to teach? And who would pay for it? > [@](#): > > 1. All candidates must attend the National Teachers Academy, where they will be taught all aspects of the trade by the best educators we have: Grading, ethics, interaction with parents and administration, behavioral sciences, psychology, self defense, communication, etc. You will ONLY teach in your field. Coaches will never teach class. Isn’t that what college and continuing education are for? > [@](#): > > 1. All school administration wannabes must attend the National Administration Academy, where they will build on their minimum 10 years of teaching experience with applicable courses. Isn’t that what advanced education is for? In Pennsylvania, principals and superintendents must go through a program above and beyond a master’s degree in order to be certified. > [@](#): > > 1. All schools will be given equal funding. All classes will be taught from national textbooks. All testing will be nationally distributed. Schools which do not “make the grade” will not be punished. They will be visited by experts who will assess and resolve the issues on a case by case basis. Where would this equal funding come from? Would it be restricted to certain uses, or would districts be able to use it as it sees fit? In the US, textbooks may as well be national. Texas has a huge influence over the textbook market, and many publishers just use the Texas editions nationally. If by “national” you mean “one textbook that every school would have to use”, you’re seeking to strip states, districts and teachers of their academic freedom. States should be free to adopt books based on their own needs, and the same holds true for individual districts. Finally, teachers must be free to use what they prefer, and not all use the assigned textbook, or any textbook at all. In terms of assessing problems, too much has to happen before that can become reality, and not all of it is politically palatable. And, frankly, some problems can’t be resolved through experts. If you have a school full of parents who can’t (or won’t) take the time to get involved in their kids’ education, all the experts in the world can’t fix things. You can’t force people to give a shit. > [@](#): > > /waves wand… I’m glad you understand that part. > [@](#): > > Forget college. Ever have a good highschool teacher? They are rare. I had two. Ever have an unqualified/psycho/jaded/horrible/lazy teacher? I had eight and I went to an exclusive $12,000/ year private school (for free, my father was head of history dept.) There are no real standards, not enough weeding out. We all know why. It’s the low pay. (My family are all teachers.) > > The best teacher I ever had later turned out to be a horrible total molester of dozens of kids and died in prison. He was a coach who taught science. His communication skills were amazing, however. Every single student actually UNDERSTOOD what was taught and, as a result, everyone in the class made straight A’s, every year. And he was lazy as crap. He simply had communication skills and enthusiasm. > > Most teachers seem to become teachers by default. The previous 3 career tries did not work out. They also seem to have more psycho’s per capita than any other job. > > Yeah, I know, blame the teacher. But, a great teacher can inspire students even if all they have for a classroom is a stump under a tree. There simply aren’t enough great ones. Let’s make more. It sounds like you went to a bad school. There are some out there. And I’m not saying the education system is perfect; in fact, it’s far from it. But all the money in the world, and all the experts in the world and all the nationalization can’t change things if people don’t want things to change. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-a-good-idea-to-have-longer-school-days/511926.md?page=2)