I mean, we don’t have to disagree, but if we want to teach more, it’s better to have more time than further throwing kids behind the bus if they aren’t keeping up with the artificial time frame. And I did say either/or. While it varies dramatically from state to state and accounts for different climates, a 10-12 week summer break seems to be more or less the average. And in the US there are a lot of concerns about Summer Learning Loss (though agreed, there does have to be some life-fun-growing balance) given that length of time. Again, I feel 6-8 weeks would be better, and I’ve seen suggestions for 4 (though often with an additional one week break like spring break stuck in there).
I disagree, current movements are totally ON teaching Religion and social grievance while pushing factual information out of school. History, nope, in certain states, you have to teach various “Lost Cause” Civil War philosophies, and can’t mention how bad a slave’s life was, or the genocide of the native population, and of course, teaching “recent” history (anything in the last 40ish years normally) has almost always been ignored. Science? Teach Evolution? Oh, nope, it’s just a theory, and creationism has to be given equal time. In fact, one of the reasons I think English Lit. is often ancient tomes is because they’ve been approved, and getting any agreement on newer stuff is a major challenge.
Sure, finance could conceivably be taught without as much Religious grievance baked in, but there are plenty of sects that are becoming MUCH more mainstream that women, for example, need to be tutored in classic female roles about taking care of house, spouse, and kids, and have no need of such skills. A trend, that if anything, is accelerating right now.
And of course, such things as this long thread:
Show exactly what the intent is for the future of our schools, and I doubt there’s any reasonable assumption of good faith in the fig-leaf they used to pass it.