(NAME-MCE) Obama would curtail summer vacation

[Anselmo Villanueva]

More school: Obama would curtail summer vacation

By LIBBY QUAID (AP) – 1 day ago

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iaZ6R77zq5_ZYc77h178ePWRNJwQD9AVLOCG0

WASHINGTON — Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be
sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.

Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a
disadvantage with other students around the globe.

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular
ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not
in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century
demand more time in the classroom."

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, 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.

Fifth-grader Nakany Camara is of two minds. She likes the four-week summer
program at her school, Brookhaven Elementary School in Rockville, Md. Nakany
enjoys seeing her friends there and thinks summer school helped boost her
grades from two Cs to the honor roll.

But she doesn't want a longer school day. "I would walk straight out the
door," she said.

Domonique Toombs felt the same way when she learned she would stay for an
extra three hours each day in sixth grade at Boston's Clarence R. Edwards
Middle School.

"I was like, `Wow, are you serious?'" she said. "That's three more hours I
won't be able to chill with my friends after school."

Her school is part of a 3-year-old state initiative to add 300 hours of
school time in nearly two dozen schools. Early results are positive. Even
reluctant Domonique, who just started ninth grade, feels differently now.
"I've learned a lot," she said.

Does Obama want every kid to do these things? School until dinnertime?
Summer school? And what about the idea that kids today are overscheduled and
need more time to play?

___

Obama and Duncan say kids in the United States need more school because kids
in other nations have more school.

"Young people in other countries are going to school 25, 30 percent longer
than our students here," Duncan told the AP. "I want to just level the
playing field."

While it is true that kids in many other countries have more school days,
it's not true they all spend more time in school.

Kids in the U.S. 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).
___

Regardless, there is a strong case for adding time to the school day.

Researcher Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution looked at math scores
in countries that added math instruction time. Scores rose significantly,
especially in countries that added minutes to the day, rather than days to
the year.

"Ten minutes sounds trivial to a school day, but don't forget, these math
periods in the U.S. average 45 minutes," Loveless said. "Percentage-wise,
that's a pretty healthy increase."

In the U.S., there are many examples of gains when time is added to the
school day.

Charter schools are known for having longer school days or weeks or years.
For example, kids in the KIPP network of 82 charter schools across the
country go to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., more than three hours longer
than the typical day. They go to school every other Saturday and for three
weeks in the summer. KIPP eighth-grade classes exceed their school district
averages on state tests.

In Massachusetts' expanded learning time initiative, early results indicate
that kids in some schools do better on state tests than do kids at regular
public schools. The extra time, which schools can add as hours or days, is
for three things: core academics — kids struggling in English, for example,
get an extra English class; more time for teachers; and enrichment time for
kids.

Regular public schools are adding time, too, though it is optional and not
usually part of the regular school day. Their calendar is pretty much set in
stone. Most states set the minimum number of school days at 180 days, though
a few require 175 to 179 days.

Several schools are going year-round by shortening summer vacation and
lengthening other breaks.

Many schools are going beyond the traditional summer school model, in which
schools give remedial help to kids who flunked or fell behind.

Summer is a crucial time for kids, especially poorer kids, because poverty
is linked to problems that interfere with learning, such as hunger and less
involvement by their parents.

That makes poor children almost totally dependent on their learning
experience at school, said Karl Alexander, a sociology professor at
Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, home of the National Center for Summer
Learning.

Disadvantaged kids, on the whole, make no progress in the summer, Alexander
said. Some studies suggest they actually fall back. Wealthier kids have
parents who read to them, have strong language skills and go to great
lengths to give them learning opportunities such as computers, summer camp,
vacations, music lessons, or playing on sports teams.

"If your parents are high school dropouts with low literacy levels and
reading for pleasure is not hard-wired, it's hard to be a good role model
for your children, even if you really want to be," Alexander said.

Extra time is not cheap. The Massachusetts program costs an extra $1,300 per
student, or 12 percent to 15 percent more than regular per-student spending,
said Jennifer Davis, a founder of the program. It received more than $17.5
million from the state Legislature last year.

The Montgomery County, Md., summer program, which includes Brookhaven,
received $1.6 million in federal stimulus dollars to operate this year and
next, but it runs for only 20 days.

Aside from improving academic performance, Education Secretary Duncan has a
vision of schools as the heart of the community. Duncan, who was Chicago's
schools chief, grew up studying alongside poor kids on the city's South Side
as part of the tutoring program his mother still runs.

"Those hours from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock are times of high anxiety for
parents," Duncan said. "They want their children safe. Families are working
one and two and three jobs now to make ends meet and to keep food on the
table."

Associated Press writer Russell Contreras in Boston contributed to this
report.