Obama is planning on making school longer

[cheezdue]

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.

source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090927/ap_on_re_us/us_more_school)

Is Obama serious on this? I don't know if I would be able to stand being locked up in school for almost a whole day.

[Timo]

The school year here is 40-45 weeks with 9-3 days, what is it over there?

[flibitijibibo]

Hey, if they could have made classes long enough to keep homework from being a necessity, I wouldn't have minded high school all too much. I'd rather keep work for school at the school, rather than the teacher getting lazy and having me just learn it all at home so he can just sit there pulling his prick 7 hours a day. No offense to Ifafudafi, who seems to do his job correctly.

Timo: It's 180 days, I think >=6.5 hours a day.

[Ganon]

all for it

[Sel]

Uh, you're arguably the dumbest nation around, so you probably need it.

Or better teachers!

[BobtheGreatII]

My school consists of (High School BTW)
5 days a week
8-3:20
With 3 Months (roughly rounded) of summer break

[Mass]

Hey, if they could have made classes long enough to keep homework from being a necessity, I wouldn't have minded high school all too much. I'd rather keep work for school at the school, rather than the teacher getting lazy and having me just learn it all at home so he can just sit there pulling his prick 7 hours a day.

this 10000X

[FRain]

At first I thought Dane made this thread.

Then, I realized he's banned.

But no, school does not need to be longer unless I can actually like get a fucking study hall class do do some of my homework at school. FRuck.

[Saggy]

But no, school does not need to be longer unless I can actually like get a fucking study hall class do do some of my homework at school. FRuck.
We have that here in Ontario. It's an hour "class" devoted to completing homework and studying for test's or finals. It helps ALOT, as now that I have that "class" I rarely have homework. Plus, it's something you get every year and have to go to, otherwise it could affect your overall grades.

Also, at my school (high school) our day is 8:45 - 3:05

[FRain]

Our day is right now 8:15 - 2:45.

[ICEE]

Couldn't say for the rest of the states, but cali highschool was the biggest waste of my time. Virtually everything i learned in middle and elementary school was unnecessarily re-pounded into my skull, then the latter 20-45 minutes of each class period was empty space. I was usually able to get my homework done in class if i gave enough of a shit to, followed by napping and snacking. I think Obama's focus should be not to make school days longer, but rather more intensive. Actually fucking teach me something, don't just give me mandatory babysitting. Few of my teachers really wanted to (and were capable of) teaching.

E: and where is he going to get the money to pay school staff for the extra time? Teachers already make far less than they should (Provided that they aren't in the poor category of teachers I mentioned before), is he going to slash hourly wages to increase working time without changing total pay?

[Ifafudafi]

Obligatory teacher's perspective:

Quite frankly, I'd say we need the opposite. Kids (and teachers) these days are stressed out of their fucking minds with the massive workload and long hours as it is. Adding more time won't result in the spreading out of curriculum, it'll just prompt states & districts to shovel in more shit to cram down the kids' throats. I've ranted about this before, so I'll spare everyone another wall of text, but suffice it to say that we don't need to be focusing on how to take the goddamn material and force it to output better grades; we need to be focusing on how to make the material itself more efficient, more manageable, and more in line with exactly what kids need to actually do something later.

[Horns]

Hey, if they could have made classes long enough to keep homework from being a necessity, I wouldn't have minded high school all too much. I'd rather keep work for school at the school, rather than the teacher getting lazy and having me just learn it all at home so he can just sit there pulling his prick 7 hours a day. No offense to Ifafudafi, who seems to do his job correctly.

Timo: It's 180 days, I think >=6.5 hours a day.


^^This

I dred homework so much. It's the only reason i fail any classes and I tend to fail a lot of them. I just have so many other things I find to do at home that are better then homework.

Plus i have this one fat ass teacher who needs to get a fucking life who doesn't even teach. All she does is gives homework and we have to learn it on our own. Worst part is that it's my favorite class too.

E: Dont' get me wrong here. I not at all for making the days were in school longer. What I would suggest as a good idea would be to add one extra hour to each day. And that one extra hour wouldn't be for the teacher to teach anymore it would be for homework only.

[cheezdue]

Not to mention of how rowdy your teachers will get at the end of the day. One kid might have been acting up and the teacher gets all pissy about it and takes it out on the other class. Then they might get tired of standing up the whole day giving lectures and grading massive amounts of paper.

[Horns]

Not to mention of how rowdy your teachers will get at the end of the day. One kid might have been acting up and the teacher gets all pissy about it and takes it out on the other class. Then they might get tired of standing up the whole day giving lectures and grading massive amounts of paper.

That's no excuse. Teachers are supposed to be strong adults who shouldn't let some teenage punk agravate them. And they surely shouldn't take that anger out on innocent victums.

Sure, there's people out there like that, but those people shouldn't be teachers.

[rossmum]

My school consists of (High School BTW)
5 days a week
8-3:20
With 3 Months (roughly rounded) of summer break
Wow, are you fucking serious?

We got a month and a half, tops.

[Rob Oplawar]

Obligatory teacher's perspective:

Quite frankly, I'd say we need the opposite. Kids (and teachers) these days are stressed out of their fucking minds with the massive workload and long hours as it is. Adding more time won't result in the spreading out of curriculum, it'll just prompt states & districts to shovel in more shit to cram down the kids' throats. I've ranted about this before, so I'll spare everyone another wall of text, but suffice it to say that we don't need to be focusing on how to take the goddamn material and force it to output better grades; we need to be focusing on how to make the material itself more efficient, more manageable, and more in line with exactly what kids need to actually do something later.

^This. We should be spending the effort on better teachers for the people who need it-- I was a straight A student, and I had all the best teachers, which was all well and good for me. But lots of people I knew who needed it more had all the worst teachers. It's a retarded system.
Quality, not quantity.

[Timo]

Damn, so you guys get a month extra of holidays D: Our curriculum is ridiculously easy though, finishing high school down here requires next to no effort if you have half a brain. Although a friend did his second to last year in San Diego California (?), and found everything even easier than his previous year :x (sans Physical Education which isn't mandatory here - they shat their pants when they found he hadn't done PE for a few years).

[Horns]

^This. We should be spending the effort on better teachers for the people who need it-- I was a straight A student, and I had all the best teachers, which was all well and good for me. But lots of people I knew who needed it more had all the worst teachers. It's a retarded system.
Quality, not quantity.

I also agree with this. Tbh, I wouldn't mind school at all, even classes that I hated, as long as there was a decent teacher who inspired you to do well and wasn't just there to earn their pay each week. Out of all 7 of my teacher's There's only 3 of them that actually seem to like their job and like teaching. All of the others seem like they're just there to yell at some kids and get payed each week.

[STLRamsFan]

I'm so glad I graduated High School back in 07... Hated getting up early for class, not a morning person so that really killed me during my time there. Started class at 7:30 for those wondering, now they start it at 7:25 from what I heard.. Like 5 minutes is REALLY gonna do anything. :realsmug:

[Timo]

You'll always find people that are doing their job just for the sake of money - in any industry. Why should teaching be different?

[Horns]

You'll always find people that are doing their job just for the sake of money - in any industry. Why should teaching be different?

Because a student is only as good as their teacher.

And ofcousre there's kids that teach themselves a lot and it wouldn't matter who was teaching them. But there's a lot of kids out there that aren't like that.

[Ifafudafi]

At the risk of derailing the thread, that's why we need a better system determining precisely who can be a teacher. As of the moment, the country's so starved for educational personell (see: high stress [!], low pay) that they'll take just about anybody for the job merely to say that they're so good for hiring a bunch of teachers.

Eh, I'll cook up another rant for this later.

[Timo]

Down here they offer free uni & accommodation fees to anybody who works in certain industries to be teachers in advanced subjects. They just do a one year crash course to become qualified. 90% of the time it produces crappy teachers.

[cheezdue]

My school changed their schedule this year by squeezing in three more classes and making each class like 10 minutes shorter. So we get things done slower now.

[PlasbianX]

The problem is not how long we spend in the classrooms, its how we are taught to learn. If we are taught to just sit down, read a damn book, and do a worksheet then just adding more days to do that won't do shit for us in the long run. We need to rework schools that allow children to think more openly with their minds.

EDIT: My old highschool starts class at 7:50, ends at 2:33. Seniors get the option of coming in at 8:30 or leaving at 1:39 (our periods are setup at odd times)

[rossmum]

We started at 9 and finished at 3:15, but Wednesday was a half-day due to sport in the afternoon and Tuesdays finished at 2:55. Once we hit Year 11 we only needed to show up when we actually had periods scheduled, though. Most of our holidays were 2-4 weeks, with the summer/Christmas holiday going from 21 Dec through to the last few days of January.

I agree with Plas. I gained absolutely nothing from classes where we just had to copy notes. Our physics teacher in particular went out of his way to get us to do practical lessons and he'd explain things interestingly, throwing in the odd joke or (usually) relevant story. As a result, physics owned and everyone in my class did pretty well at it.

[legionaire45]

I apologize in advance for any shitty grammar or spelling; I haven't gotten much sleep lately and my family is kind of blowing up right now.

Rant:

Increasing the length of the school day isn't going to fix a damn thing. Making teachers accountable for student's grades will. Making students and teachers actually give a shit would do a pretty good job with that too.

Easiest way to do that? Reduce the size of schools. You don't need an expensive, glorified prison to house 2500 to 3000 students at a given time when you can do the same thing with a couple of small schools that take up less size. Case in point: my old high school.

At any given time, between all of the classes, we had maybe 400 students at most. The class of '09 was approximately 50 people including myself. Literally everyone is going to a college somewhere. We have 5 people involved with Posse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Foundation) (tl;dr, Full ride scholarship worth about $100k), 3 or 4 people going to UCLA, 2 people going to UC Berkeley (one as a part of Posse), a dozen or so going to one of the other UC system schools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California), maybe another dozen going to a CSU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_University) system school, another person going to Purdue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue), a couple people going to some other good privates, my room mate and myself included (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIT), and everyone else going to community college. For a long time, we had a decent robotics team as well.

And yet my former high school is a public charter school. Anybody can apply, and the only real obstacle for entry is being randomly selected in a lottery. Most of the people who apply get in.

I attribute most of our success to the fact that our teachers actually gave a shit. A big portion of success was also due to the fact that, for the most part, the students cared as well. Having such a small student body is a good thing when you put these things together - it encourages students to do more than they normally would be able to do.

Here's my solution to the fact that our school's aren't competitive with other schools in the world: Instead of having massive prison-complexes for schools, cut it down to 500 people or so in each school. Make the schools themselves physically smaller to cut costs; this can be down by cutting up old schools into smaller independent schools or building newer schools. Put the money saved into hiring/paying better teachers and equipment. Make teachers accountable for their student's success. Have more interesting programs like FIRST or that one thing that somebody on this site recently won. In general, get students involved in their own education and allow them to have access to more resources. Etc.

Cutting funding to PE would also be great, since that is a major waste of most school's budgets. PE programs aren't doing a very good job of keeping youth in shape anyway. Instead, have separate entities handle physical education and make that available to students outside of class. Spend the money that was saved by doing this on equipment like computers or projectors for schools.

Etc.

There will always be "dead weight" students who will never put effort into anything they do. Let them rot. If a student clearly doesn't put any effort into their schoolwork they should be more than happy to have a nice and easy job flipping burgers or bagging groceries.

Fuck arguing I have classes tomorrow. /elitist.

[DrunkenSamus]

There's more than five "This^^" - es in this entire thread. Some of this shit needs to be publicly displayed for every one to see.

[cheezdue]

The problem is not how long we spend in the classrooms, its how we are taught to learn. If we are taught to just sit down, read a damn book, and do a worksheet then just adding more days to do that won't do shit for us in the long run. We need to rework schools that allow children to think more openly with their minds.


But the students don't always do this, some are just too ignorant to follow directions and cause disruption in the class that doesn't allow other students to learn.

[UnevenElefant5]

Honestly, like Rob said, quality not quantity. Increasing the amount of time we are in school isn't going to fix a damn thing, it's just going to burn students out more. Honestly, I'm tired of school as it is. I get up at 7, get to school at 7:40, I'm in school till 3, come home, homework till ~7:30 pm. Late dinner. Shower. ~2 hours to myself. Bed. Repeat. I mean, school already takes up 14 out of my 16 hour day. We've got summer vacation from June 16th till September 6th but over summer they assign summer readings, and last year I had to take Health over summer. It's just getting ridiculous how much school keeps interfering with my life.

[rossmum]

Cutting funding to PE would also be great, since that is a major waste of most school's budgets. PE programs aren't doing a very good job of keeping youth in shape anyway. Instead, have separate entities handle physical education and make that available to students outside of class. Spend the money that was saved by doing this on equipment like computers or projectors for schools.
We all know that's never going to happen. The exact opposite is more likely. Since I finished school, the BoS has introduced this program called 'Active After-School' which is essentially forced upon primary school teachers and students alike (my little sister is in Year 6 and has to put up with this). If the school doesn't run this program for an extra hour after school, or if no kids turn up, the school pretty much gets the cold shoulder whenever the time comes for the bureaucrats to divvy up the funds and pass them around. Even before I finished, they were removing basically anything with sugar or fat from school canteens, and my sister tells me that now she's not allowed to take chocolate to school and she's forced to take fruit pretty well every bloody day.

I'm glad I never had to live off of the canteen like some kids did, because I would be fucking dead. I can barely maintain my weight as it is; with the kinds of health-tripping crap they were introducing, I would never manage. This is really ridiculous. Schools are responsible for educating kids, not raising them. If the government keeps finding ways to take the responsibility off of the parents, then the parents are only going to get worse. People can go on about obesity until they're blue in the face, but the stone-cold fact of the matter was that maybe fifty to a hundred kids at my school were visibly overweight, and five or ten obese... out of 1,300.

Of course, those of us who are of a healthy or even dangerously low weight and who were actually BROUGHT UP PROPERLY by RESPONSIBLE PARENTS get overlooked every fucking time.

[Mass]

better than here

All they serve is fried chicken sandwiches, burgers, pizza, and nachos, all with fries, all of the worst quality imaginable and makes you feel terrible and fatigued in addition to tasting shitty.

[rossmum]

I'd gladly take that over government-enforced diets

[Mass]

That is the government diet, that's the stuff available for the public schools in Chicago

It's free for a lot of kids, but it's not healthy, and it still tastes like shit just the same, I'd rather have real food that tastes bad than junk food that tastes bad.

Although they would never do anything to control what you brought from home, that's fucking insane...

[Ganon]

PE and lunch should be cut so more time for classes can be available or even allow the schoolday to be shorter. That or make lunch an optional after school thing. To be honest, high school should be treated more like college. You aren't making a difference in a high schoolers livelihood by giving him a PE class, after school sports and personal exersize WILL. If they want to be a fatass, that is entirely up to them. Obviously there are many more things that can be done as well to improve schools and better help students prepare for real mutha fuckin liyfe, but when it comes down to it, the current school system is 2 old.

[flibitijibibo]

Fuck school sponsored activities. Seriously. If they want to play/whatever so bad, make them do it themselves. I honestly don't think any really dedicated person would have a problem with this. This not only lets the school do what they need to do (teach, for those who forgot, like me), but separates those who actually give a fuck about whatever the subject matter is and those who just show up to meetings for a resume builder.

This is exactly what I did. You will find on my resume a grand total of ZERO school-sponsored activities, other than my teaching internship, which wasn't a sponsorship as much as it was just giving me credit for doing so (I paid for everything). I got more scholarship money than those who sat idly in those stupid clubs that do nothing but waste money in an attempt to make a kid look a tiny bit smarter, which falls on its face the second the kid is interviewed.

[Mass]

on the topic of the school system:

Suspension is a stupid ass punishment, people who don't care get a break, and then people that do care can't fucking get their education.

Should only be a punishment when a legitimate threat is posed to the school by the student.

[flibitijibibo]

Suspension is a stupid ass punishment, people who don't care get a break, and then people that do care can't fucking get their education.

Should only be a punishment when a legitimate threat is posed to the school by the student.
Heh, yeah. When people discovered this at my school, we hit record suspensions per quarter. We all still got what we wanted from colleges, too, because nobody looks at school disciplinary records anymore.

[Horns]

Heh, yeah. When people discovered this at my school, we hit record suspensions per quarter. We all still got what we wanted from colleges, too, because nobody looks at school disciplinary records anymore.

Dude I love suspension so much. If you're going to do something bad, make sure you do it bad enough that you get a suspension instead of a detention. Even inschool suspensions you do nothing but sit in a room all by yourself. And if you've got a laptop and a wireless card you've got it made. :D

[Kornman00]

I only skimmed the posts after the 20th post, so I may be reiterating an idea


Before they do any such thing as increasing school lengths, they need nation standards.

When I moved from CT to TX in 10th grade, I had to take 5 extra credits in order to graduate under fucking TX's goddamn curriculum. Mother fucking get some goddamn standards in the fucking school system. Then build up from there. Without them, you're just building on chaos and misdirection :|

[Cortexian]

I had 6 classes for two terms in my last year of high school, four different classes per term and I did four classes the first term. It let me have two optional classes during the second term, and half of the time they were in the afternoon so I didn't have to leave the house until about 1:30PM. On the days that the classes were in the morning I was able to leave after my classes and was usually home by around 12:00 noon.

Man I loved my schedule that year...

[paladin]

Good. Do you even know what the purpose of summer break was. For a majority of families, it is not needed anymore.

[Cojafoji]

Public education lies under the purview of the state. Obama can't do shit.

[Bodzilla]

Obligatory teacher's perspective:

Quite frankly, I'd say we need the opposite. Kids (and teachers) these days are stressed out of their fucking minds with the massive workload and long hours as it is. Adding more time won't result in the spreading out of curriculum, it'll just prompt states & districts to shovel in more shit to cram down the kids' throats. I've ranted about this before, so I'll spare everyone another wall of text, but suffice it to say that we don't need to be focusing on how to take the goddamn material and force it to output better grades; we need to be focusing on how to make the material itself more efficient, more manageable, and more in line with exactly what kids need to actually do something later.
this times a thousand,
but teachers dont know what long hours are lol. i've lived next to and been friends with ALOT of teaches and they have no concept of some of the things i do for a living

but i do believe kids shouldnt waste all their time at school learning pointless shit like the auteur theory. It is a massive waste of time on the greatest years of your life.
a stronger emphasis on mathematics, sciences, geography/ world politics, and a reduction in the english fluff.

i think english needs to take a step back on the way they educate kids and get more of the fundamentals such as grammar, punctuation, spelling, phonetics and general communication. These simple basic skills are often overlooked while they try to cram as much shit into kids within the time frame they've got.
they need to get the fundamentals into kids heads better and you'll only do that with a reduction in the pointless shit they teach and better involved teachers.


Teachers need a hand, but i think they need to set up the system better so everyone doesnt have a big "SUE ME" sign over their head if the concept of a dismissal is raised.

[Bodzilla]

also

Bx4pN-aiofw
good vid, watched it like 3 times, why i dont know but it's a bloody good thing.

[paladin]

My moms a teacher >.>

[rossmum]

this times a thousand,
but teachers dont know what long hours are lol. i've lived next to and been friends with ALOT of teaches and they have no concept of some of the things i do for a living

but i do believe kids shouldnt waste all their time at school learning pointless shit like the auteur theory. It is a massive waste of time on the greatest years of your life.
a stronger emphasis on mathematics, sciences, geography/ world politics, and a reduction in the english fluff.

i think english needs to take a step back on the way they educate kids and get more of the fundamentals such as grammar, punctuation, spelling, phonetics and general communication. These simple basic skills are often overlooked while they try to cram as much shit into kids within the time frame they've got.
they need to get the fundamentals into kids heads better and you'll only do that with a reduction in the pointless shit they teach and better involved teachers.


Teachers need a hand, but i think they need to set up the system better so everyone doesnt have a big "SUE ME" sign over their head if the concept of a dismissal is raised.
good post

cbf to elaborate but agreed

[Timo]

this times a thousand,
but teachers dont know what long hours are lol. i've lived next to and been friends with ALOT of teaches and they have no concept of some of the things i do for a living

My mum's a dedicated teacher - she basically works from 8 till 5, then 9 till 11 marking work for the next day. Father's a principal - found that good teachers are pretty much required to work more than their 8 till 3 hours at school if they want to be decent.

[=sw=warlord]

No idea what some of the people here are complaining about, when i was at school, the school timetable was 8:30 start and 4:00 finish.
Not including the homework we had.

Public education lies under the purview of the state. Obama can't do shit.

What?
That's why he the president of the 52 united states?
Im pretty sure if your the big honcho then yes, you do have a say.

[StankBacon]

That's why he the president of the 52 united states?


uh... i must be missing something.

[Dwood]

My school is 7:30 to 1:50. Because I drive, and I'm a senior, it's 7:30 to 1 O' Clock.

I'm sorry Mr. Obama but our state doesn't have enough money to give me enough electives, anything I want to do outside of General Ed, I have to study at home. I've probably annoyed Korn an several others enough to where he'd testify to that.

So unless our educational system gets a massive overhaul, he can shove it.

[Limited]

No idea what some of the people here are complaining about, when i was at school, the school timetable was 8:30 start and 4:00 finish.
Not including the homework we had.
^^ Same as warlord, I have no idea what you people are complaining about, we have like half terms (2 weeks) for every holiday (easter, christmas) apart from summer, which is a little longer.

The issue is what is taught and how. Time isnt the key factor, although having 3 fucking months summer is ridiculous.

Also people here suggest dropping PE? Wow, your country has a fucking huge obesity problem, it will not be dropped for a long time. You personally might not be fat, but the general consensus is.

[=sw=warlord]

uh... i must be missing something.
Probably, i cba looking up the exact number of states you lot got, but considering he is head honcho i would guess he has final say.
@limited, last i remember christmas& easter are 2 week holiday and the summer holiday is 6 weeks, and there is no such thing as a "snow day" as we still had to go in unless the room ambient temp was 15*c or lower.
Even then we just moved to another room.
I honestly did not realise it was 3 months for their summer holidays though....and people are bitching about having a extra hour added onto their school time?

[n00b1n8R]

Instead of paying teachers to teach extra days, why not just add that money to their current pay so they earn enough to be actually motivated? vOv

[Higuy]

if school becomes longer i can see some major shit going down like riots in front of the white house

i preferably don't want this to happen. it's a stupid idea, and i don't know if i could even go to work on weekends considering i have a life, and a job to get back to.

[Heathen]

Wow, are you fucking serious?

We got a month and a half, tops.

same

[Kornman00]

Think of how this will effect companies/people who revolve around children and families having (long) summer vacations (sight seeing places, fun parks, etc). Also, what will become of summer school since...there won't really be a summer vacation with this I assume?

[=sw=warlord]

Think of how this will effect companies/people who revolve around children and families having (long) summer vacations (sight seeing places, fun parks, etc). Also, what will become of summer school since...there won't really be a summer vacation with this I assume?
Even still, 3 fucking months if pretty fucking ridiculous in all honesty.
There are summer schools over here it's just they last 6 weeks not 12.

[Aerowyn]

Haha, it doesn't matter for me, because I'm in college :D

[Dwood]

Warlord you sound butthurt. someones jealous.

[=sw=warlord]

Warlord you sound butthurt. someones jealous.
Why would i be butthurt when i graduated school 5 years ago?
Besides the "extra" time i spent in school ment i got a better education and didn't need as much of a catch up for when i finished the summer holidays.
I've since graduated college and gained a wealth of qualifications, so explain to me.
Why would i be jealous?

[Kornman00]

Haha, it doesn't matter for me, because I'm in college :D
Star in a GGW yet :allears:?

[=sw=warlord]

Star in a GGW yet :allears:?
No but she was in a old metallica album.
"Ride the Lightning"
:v:

[English Mobster]

Probably, i cba looking up the exact number of states you lot got, but considering he is head honcho i would guess he has final say.


I honestly did not realise it was 3 months for their summer holidays though....and people are bitching about having a extra hour added onto their school time?
First, that's not the way American government works. The United States TECHNICALLY are a bunch of separate nations (the States) who have agreed to exist under a common government. The states give up a few of their powers to that government (right to declare war, etc), while they keep other powers (power to tax, things such as pollution control or school length/curriculum). They each elect a few Representatives (based on State population for one "house" of Congress, with a fixed number for the other), who are supposed to represent the interests of that particular state.
The President's job is basically "enforcement", making sure any laws Congress enacts get carried out. While he CAN suggest things to Congress, he can't technically make a new law all by himself (with a few exceptions). He can veto any law Congress approves which he doesn't like, forcing the bill to go back to Congress until it is something he likes. Once that's done, he can enforce it.
While the whole "separate nations united" idea has been dying since the U.S. Civil War (1851-1854, I believe), it is still what our Constitution says, and thus how our government is run. As of recent years (especially under both Bush administrations), the government has been stepping out of its boundaries and using powers delegated to the states (or powers outright banned altogether, such as the right to torture), but the people who are supposed to keep an eye on this stuff have become so corrupt it's not even funny, and so the government gets away with it, and it will only get worse.

Also, my school day is 7:30-2:30 (7 hours) a day, break on weekends. We get 3 months in the summer (actually, more like 2 1/2), yes, but we get a week for Thanksgiving, 2 weeks for Christmas, and a week for Easter. That's all the breaks we get for the entire year.
It all rounds out to 180 days of school, with about 90 days vacation total, with the rest being weekends.
180 days x 7 hours/day = 1260 hours of school a year, x 12 years.

I don't LIKE the idea of a longer school day, no. I feel there are better ways to deal with the issue than to extend the school day itself. Cutting P.E. was brought up, which I agree with, and someone mentioned the stereotypical obesity problem. Yes, back in the early 2000's, that WAS a problem, but now I really don't see as many fat people as I used to. McDonald's doesn't serve as much of the extra-large-extra-fat stuff as it used to, and most of the fat people have taken the liberty of admitting they are fat and have lost weight. There are some fat people still, yes, but it isn't any more than what you might find in England, for example.
It's just become an American stereotype.

[rossmum]

Probably, i cba looking up the exact number of states you lot got, but considering he is head honcho i would guess he has final say.
Nope. Same thing here with the various states, the federal and state systems are separate and really the best the federal government can do is yell at the state governments and threaten to interfere with their funding and projects and whatnot until they get back in line. They can't just completely overrule them.

[Kornman00]

No but she was in a old metallica album.
"Ride the Lightning"
:v:
holy shit that has to be the most epic follow up I've seen in the past month :lmao:

can't give you rep yet ;_;

e: sorryz aerowyn...just it really was a great follow up :ohdear:

[legionaire45]

Also people here suggest dropping PE? Wow, your country has a fucking huge obesity problem, it will not be dropped for a long time. You personally might not be fat, but the general consensus is.

All the more reason to drop it. The current system is doing a terrible job of keeping students from getting obese, something that is their own damn problem.

From what I remember of what was expected from students who went to another high school near to me, you had to take around 2 years of PE to fulfill the California state requirement. From what I remember of middle school, we spent 10 to 15 minutes of each class running about a mile and then pretty much wasted the rest of the class "getting organized" for whatever activity was in order for the day since none of the students cared and basically stopped listening to the teacher as soon as he or she went away.

Most of the people at my high school weren't obese, and our school literally spent almost nothing on PE. I think the most expensive things we had were the 6 x $150 Red Octane DDR mats and the 2 eBay'd Xboxes. When both of those died, they got replaced by the teacher's personal Xbox. The other PE classes basically spent nothing as well. And yet almost our entire school was fit. Mostly because people did most of their exercising on the weekends on their own personal time.

We had the same state-required 2 year minimum in terms of hours, but this was instead spread out over 4 years. If you wanted to, you could take a college course or two to fill up your PE credits and then you could spend that time doing whatever, but few people actually did that. Almost everyone did some exercise.

Besides the fact that schools are doing a bad job of keeping kids in shape, they are also wasting significant amounts of their budgets on sports programs that lead to nothing. I don't have exact figures, I'll try and grab some later. Regardless, the fact remains that very few people will ever make it in sports and schools are wasting their budgets on programs that don't help students.

Imagine what would happen if schools spent all the money they spend on their football teams and put it into computers for every student or projectors and networking for every class? That money would be much better put to use than on some retarded jock ass slapping contest.

[cheezdue]

PE is one of the shittiest class there is. I my school all we do is walk around running track outside and then we just sit down and do nothing.

[Dwood]

Since when was it the school's job to keep students fit? That sounds more like a Communistic rule than even a Socialist/Democratic/Republican rule. (Note, Dem and Repub are used for their literal meanings, not the parties themselves)

[rossmum]

I actually find myself wishing I'd put some effort into it at the moment, with Kapooka looming ominously in the near future :downs:

[ODX]

Here in Illinois, it's:

Begins August 25th, ends June 2nd
5 Days a week, 7:20 A.M. - 2:15 P.M.
With respective holiday breaks (Thanksgiving: 1 week, Winter: 2.5, Spring Break: 1, etc etc)
Summer Break- June 2nd to August 25th, and/or 85 days of Summer Break. (to what I've counted)

[Dwood]

In the U.S. Everyone gets roughly 10 weeks of summer.

[Rook]

southern kentucky

mon-fri
breakfast @ 7AM-7:55AM, optional to show up at that time.
class started at 8AM and the day ended at 2:55PM.

summer break lasted about a month & 1/2

[Higuy]

My class's start at 7:17, and we get out at 2:05.

[Kalub]

graduated niggas...



But ours went:
Aug 24 - May 28
8:10 - 3:20
5 Days a week, with a hand full of snowdays and holidays tossed in there

Personally the only thing that bugged me in school was the pointless things, oh and waking up fucking early. Fuck you Mr. i number you and your little hordes of retarded math rules

[Spartan094]

No, I do not feel like staying in school any longer then I should. Wake up at 6:00 A.M. get to school at 7:30 A.M. stay until 2:20 P.M. I like my simple schedule. I fucking hate math first thing in the morning...

[Donut]

181 days, 8:07 - 2:30
we have every class every day, where each class is 42 minutes long and we get 20 minutes for lunch. you only take one semester of PE then you switch to your elective. we do absolutely nothing in PE. no exercise, rarely any organized games, and no enforcement of any rules. most people try to get some homework done if they can shut out all of the distractions.

i think my curriculum is fine in my school, but that might be because im in a private college prep school. i would certainly not be for extending school days, HOWEVER, it would be nice if they would push everything forward an hour or so. think about it, little kids go to noon preschool, and teenagers get up bright and early to make their commute to school. little kids are always wound up and ready to go. teens are the ones who stay up late chatting with friends. why does it make sense to wake us up so early? when i say that class goes from 8:07 - 2:30, that doesnt mean i get to school at 8:07. im usually there at 7:30 so i can eat breakfast there.

the issue here is that by changing any time that many people go off of like that could cause some serious problems for the people who pick their kids up from school and for the kids themselves who might be working after class. another issue is that teachers, at least around here, rarely give a fuck about teaching people. here is rhode island we have a 90% failure rate. im not sure how accurate that is, but its not good. and food. we need good food

tl:dr, bump the schedule forward an hour to give people some extra sleep, give the teachers some incentive to actually teach shit, and get some good goddamn food in these schools.
except my school has fucking amazing food :D

[Needles]

My school is 9am- 4pm.
I wouldn't mind school being longer if it cut off like 90% of all homework.

[Aerowyn]

No but she was in a old metallica album.
"Ride the Lightning"
:v:

Unrelated, but I do hope you realize that he and I are just friends, right?... I'd really prefer it if you guys didn't joke around like that.

[TheGhost]

I don't know if that's necessarily the solution. Maybe for the general masses. Who knows.

I went to public school and came out fine. Now in college, I spend way less time in the classroom but a whole lot more outside than I did in high school. In college, I have two 14-week semesters (28/52 weeks of classes total), and class usually about 3-4 hrs a day on average.

Making everyone spend an hour more a day in school won't solve anything though, there's a whole lot more to it than that to fix our education system.

[paladin]

No idea what some of the people here are complaining about, when i was at school, the school timetable was 8:30 start and 4:00 finish.
Not including the homework we had.


What?
That's why he the president of the 52 united states?
Im pretty sure if your the big honcho then yes, you do have a say.

Public education is like government. It is in tiers.

Federal>State>County>District
The Federal Government sets general guidelines and a base for standards, like Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. The majority of regulations are held at a state by state level, so it really is up to a particular state to run the public school how they see fit. So the state adds to the Federal Government's declared guidelines. i.e, every High School graduate in WA State have to passed a state assessment exam and complete a Senior Project. On top of that, different school districts within a state can add to curriculum/ regulations. IF they wish to not uphold a state or federal mandate, they have to protest/ appeal it at the appropriate level. i.e. Federal law states that an Academic year consists of 180 days of instruction. When I was in high school, my district petitioned the state to turn 10 half-days into 5 days off/on. So our school year was only 175 days.

[Warsaw]

We don't need longer school days. What we need are school systems that do not drag students who are obviously failing through the mud just to stick an unearned diploma in their hands. We also need to cut the crap in the classroom and teach the material, none of thist standardised testing shit. As it is, current teaching methods involve 160 days of pandering around dilly-dallying with various tidbits of half-baked information, and 20 days of cramming all the shit into the poor kids' brains because the teacher was a fuckwit who didn't do his/her job properly. Also, we need to cut Language Arts as a core class past 9th grade. Honestly, technical writing is useful; learning about Shakespeare or some dead 19th century feminist author from Britain is not.

[Dwood]

It's all part of the indoctrination.

[Alwin Roth]

I support this.

There should be more time in school.

[paladin]

I think school (k-12) should be year round, and student would go to school 3 of 4 weeks a month (15 days a month. 15x12=180). All vacation days fall in the week they have off, so no more 2.5 weeks at Christmas shit.

[Kalub]

I MISSER I LOVED ME CHRISTMAS BREAK HOW ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO PLAY WITH MY NEW LEGOS <:mad:>

[paladin]

Too bad when I had Christmas breaks, Christmas day was 3 or 4 days before it ended. WTF

[n00b1n8R]

Christmas breaks in the first third of the 6 week summer holiday~

[Con]

We have that here in Ontario. It's an hour "class" devoted to completing homework and studying for test's or finals. It helps ALOT, as now that I have that "class" I rarely have homework. Plus, it's something you get every year and have to go to, otherwise it could affect your overall grades.

Also, at my school (high school) our day is 8:45 - 3:05
we had this in our school every thursday

they got rid of it after the first year because most of us grade 12s were abusing it and setting a bad example :woop:

[Invader Veex]

Wisconsin, my school runs 8:10-3:30. 8 classes + lunch each day. First weekday of September to approximately June 6th. 1 or 2 days for Thanksgiving a week and a half (add or subtract a day or two) for Christmas/Newyear 1-2 days for Halloween. That's pretty much it.
Most of the people at my school are pretty fit (well, the school to me seems to pay more attention to sports than education, heh), though our education is average as a whole, it's sure as hell not nearly as bad as what I saw in that vid Bod posted.
I leave when it's dark, and get home when it's dusk during the winter. I certainly don't want more school time.

[Heathen]

Someone at school called him a Nazi today.
I mean fuck people.
First he was the anti-christ, then a socialist, then a communist, and now he's a Nazi?

Just call me when he invades Poland. :allears:

[Bodzilla]

They need to stop teaching kids to pass tests, and start teaching kids lessons for life really.

They figured this shit out 100 years ago when they abolished standardized testing in australia due to the skewed data they received on it.

some kids are just better at things like cars. my sisters boyfriend can tell you exactly whats wrong by smell and sound alone and he can also dissemble a car down to every piece and put it back together together,
but under the current system these skills and yes they are a SKILL are not as recognized or applauded as much as an A on an english assignment.

and i think thats wrong.
my sis is becoming a teacher (she's pretty fucking good at it, high distinctions ect) and she's been talking a fair bit to me about the flaws of standardized testing and it's place in australian history.

[Dwood]

I think school (k-12) should be year round, and student would go to school 3 of 4 weeks a month (15 days a month. 15x12=180). All vacation days fall in the week they have off, so no more 2.5 weeks at Christmas shit.

I would kill someone. I say just keep the days as they are and get teachers teaching again.

[Ganon]

I think school (k-12) should be year round, and student would go to school 3 of 4 weeks a month (15 days a month. 15x12=180). All vacation days fall in the week they have off, so no more 2.5 weeks at Christmas shit.

I approve of this idea

[paladin]

I would kill someone. I say just keep the days as they are and get teachers teaching again.

Why are you that stupid. Just wait til you get to college. How much 'homework' do have in high school? 20 minutes a day? I have 60 hours a week.

Honestly, how hard is high school and middle school? High school should serve two purposes: give you a basic understanding of life and how things work, 2) prepare you for college. A real education come from a University, not a high school. You can't expect to get a comparable education. When you graduate high school, you should have an understanding of the country you live in, its history and what it stands for. You should have the necessary study skills to succeed in college.

:cop:

[flibitijibibo]

I can't say I agree with you entirely on that. Some high schools, like mine, take pride in trying to scare the shit of their students by giving them 2 hours of homework per class and going "IT'S ONLY GOING TO GET HARDER LOLOLOKLLLOOLOLO," only to have us go to college and realize that other than attend some classes, you really don't have to do a damn thing, depending on your major. A friend of mine at Stanford does so little compared to when he was in high school that he has a full time job and makes iPhone games, adding up to something like $100K a year, all while taking >=15 hours per semester. The bastard bought his own Lexus earlier this year.

[Heathen]

I can't say I agree with you entirely on that. Some high schools, like mine, take pride in trying to scare the shit of their students by giving them 2 hours of homework per class and going "IT'S ONLY GOING TO GET HARDER LOLOLOKLLLOOLOLO," only to have us go to college and realize that other than attend some classes, you really don't have to do a damn thing, depending on your major. A friend of mine at Stanford does so little compared to when he was in high school that he has a full time job and makes iPhone games, adding up to something like $100K a year, all while taking >=15 hours per semester. The bastard bought his own Lexus earlier this year.

This.

And I help a college student with her homework.





Shit's minimal and easy.

[Warsaw]

Why are you that stupid. Just wait til you get to college. How much 'homework' do have in high school? 20 minutes a day? I have 60 hours a week.

Honestly, how hard is high school and middle school? High school should serve two purposes: give you a basic understanding of life and how things work, 2) prepare you for college. A real education come from a University, not a high school. You can't expect to get a comparable education. When you graduate high school, you should have an understanding of the country you live in, its history and what it stands for. You should have the necessary study skills to succeed in college.

:cop:

Try a European "high school" or an American one that has IB...there's your 60 hours a week workload. Also, I don't know what you are doing in college, but nobody I know has a huge amount of work like that, and I sure as hell don't where I'm going. If you are taking more than 16 credit hours, then you can't complain because that's your own fault. But I digress, it also depends on what exactly you are pursuing.

[paladin]

I'm taking 21 credits. 20 is the standard for a semester. I also attend a private institution, which would naturally push their students harder than a public university.

[Corndogman]

I think school (k-12) should be year round, and student would go to school 3 of 4 weeks a month (15 days a month. 15x12=180). All vacation days fall in the week they have off, so no more 2.5 weeks at Christmas shit.

That sounds awful.

[Terry]

Should Obama be killed?:

no
yes
yes because he will make school longer


note: this app is not associated with modacity. it is 3rd party

[Needles]

That sounds awful.
Yeah...
We kind of need time for ourselfs, our friends, our families, our holidays, and our vacations.

If it was an extra 30-90 min that cut off lots of outside homework and school work, then that would be fine.

[Dwood]

I also would like to add that it's not Obama's right to plan the school year unless we amend the Constitution.

[Kornman00]

That sounds awful.
Not to mention gov't (and some other types, but namely since this is the president we're talking about) jobs which cause the worker to constantly move from city to city...there would be no positive transition time for that worker's family if it was all year round

[SnaFuBAR]

That sounds awful.

Try 24 units, 6 days a week, no real vacations.

[=sw=warlord]

Try 24 units, 6 days a week, no real vacations.
+Rep's
This exactly what im talking about.
People are are complaining that their rediculous holiday could supposedly be shortened to something more practical.
What do you want, spoon feeding?
Snaf, i would like to thank you as you've just cleared up a question i had for a while about colleges over there.
I wasn't sure if it was just colleges over here that did those kinds of things.

[Dwood]

Try 24 units, 6 days a week, no real vacations.

That's just wrong. :gonk:

[cheezdue]

Try 24 units, 6 days a week, no real vacations.

That is seriously stressful. :ohdear:

[PopeAK49]

Uh, you're arguably the dumbest nation around, so you probably need it.

Or better teachers!

By seeing how you post around here. I beg to differ. :realsmug:

I don't really care if school is longer. I enjoy school more than just sitting around my home after school. So if school goes from August to July from 7:30 to 5:30 then so be it.

[Inferno]

This is wrong. They don't need longer school they need better school. Stop teaching core classes from k - 12 and fucking teach specialized classes through high school so kids actually have a fucking clue what they want to do with there lives and will actually have the skills to do so.

I HATE the American school system on a level no one can understand. They teach us useless bullshit 7 hours a day 5 days a week for no reason other than to grade us on it. And how can you judge someones intellect based on a fucking letter and a number?

School is a test of my patience. Not my intelligence.

[Heathen]

Uh, you're arguably the dumbest nation around, so you probably need it.

Or better teachers!

pfft Canada.

[Advancebo]

No way, screw that, I am not going on weekends nor staying longer. I already wake up at 5am in the morning.

[rossmum]

Last I heard, kids in France go to school 6 days a week and stay well into the evening, so consider yourself lucky. Mind you, I think at least one of those is a half-day and they get immense lunch breaks...

That said, it may have changed since.

[paladin]

But they are also done, along with most of Europe by 16 unless they are going to go to University, then they go for 2 more years. otherwise, iirc, after 16 they basically go to a trade school.

[Ganon]

Shcool is a test of my patience. Not my intelligence.

noticed

[Inferno]

I can't spell when I rage.

Quit trole'n.

[=sw=warlord]

I can't spell when I rage.

Quit trole'n.
Aw poor trole is bein troled.

[Warsaw]

But they are also done, along with most of Europe by 16 unless they are going to go to University, then they go for 2 more years. otherwise, iirc, after 16 they basically go to a trade school.

In America, or at least in VA, you can quit school at 16 and go on to trade school if you so desire. It's just not recommended because those jobs don't generally pay too well.

[Dwood]

In America, or at least in VA, you can quit school at 16 and go on to trade school if you so desire. It's just not recommended because those jobs don't generally pay too well.

Whereas in Europe... They can get off school at 16 without any problems. If you drop out you have no future, here in America.

[PopeAK49]

If you drop out you have no future, here in America.

My sisters dead beat boyfriend is living proof of this. You should get a high school diploma atleast. I mean high school isn't that hard. My dad makes $75,000 a year and he didn't even go to college.

[Ganon]

don't citizens of alaska get paid to live in alaska?

[paladin]

that has nothing to do with education. It has to do with fore fitting oil rights to oil companies.

[SnaFuBAR]

That is seriously stressful. :ohdear:

tell that to my classmate who hung himself, and the other who lost all his hair and had a coronary... :smith:

[Kornman00]

Whereas in Europe... They can get off school at 16 without any problems. If you drop out you have no future, here in America.
American also has a 21 booze age limit and a no red-light-district policy which also causes further degregation in job opportunities for youngins (for bar tending) and drop outs vOv

:-3

[Terry]

tell that to my classmate who hung himself, and the other who lost all his hair and had a coronary... :smith:

What course of study are you people doing out of curiosity? That's a pretty rough schedule.