According to recent reports from the Wall Street Journal, more than 100 school districts in at least 17 states, including Virginia, California, Washington, Minnesota and Georgia, have opted for a four-day system, and dozens more districts are considering implementing this new trend next year.
In an attempt to further cut school budgets to stave off state deficits, the four-day school week is the latest answer in a string of bad decisions for our education system and our kids.
Cutbacks in school are no new topic. Schools always fight to function effectively within budget constraints, as the history of teacher strikes will support. Salaries, time off, professional development and benefits for teachers have been a long-fought topic. Cuts have also hit after-school programs and special classes like language, music and art. With each of these cutbacks, the real victims are the students.
Teachers who are underpaid and don’t receive adequate benefits, like many employees in that scenario, tend to underperform. The trend of the last two decades is many teachers who see teaching as a, well, a job and not a calling to improve students one at a time. This is partially a result of salary cuts.
It has been proven that kids involved in after school activities have a better school experience, so cuts to these programs have a direct impact on their education potential.
As we look at the most recent cutback, the four day school week gives us several new nightmarish consequences to consider:
• Longer weekends mean more time for kids to lose what they learn each week in the classroom. Consider the time it takes for most kids to acclimate to a change in routine, this could cause a lot of double work in the classroom every Monday, decreasing the actual education time to only three days a week. They may be in school 180 days, but 25% of that time will be re-introduction time for many students.
• Working parents who rely on a five-day school week to stave off daycare requirements will now have to assess how to manage the reduced school week. In a time of economic recovery, the added expense of daycare will be hard if not impossible for many parents to meet.
• Leaving school-age kids home alone may become more practice than anomaly, out of financial necessity. Unsupervised children often get into mischief, or worse. The streets are not a safe place for children.
It seems ludicrous to put the potential of our children’s education at risk for financial reasons, but this latest change to the system is too much for our kids, and their parents, to bear. We must speak out against the four-day school week and put the focus back on our kids’ futures, not just dollars and cents
Posted By: Paul Adams
Tuesday, March 30th 2010 at 11:17AM
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