President Obama sees a problem, and he sees a solution.  The problem?  American students don't seem to be able to compete internationally.  The solution?  More hours and more days in school.  More years, in fact, as he has long been a proponent of universal preschool, promoting it even as studies continue to show little or no benefit.

In the AP article hosted at Yahoo that I linked above, we learn that in many of the Asian nations we often compare ourselves to, children actually spend fewer hours per year in school than American kids.  This is very much in line with a report from the National Education Association finding that only 2 of every 9 hours spent in the classroom are spent "on task."  Another NEA report reveals that American middle school teachers actually spend more than twice as many hours teaching as, for example, Japan, yet 1/5 of our middle school students still cannot pass even the basic level on skills assessments, and 1/4 lack even fundamental reading skills.

The AP article discusses improved math scores when schools add more math minutes to the day, yet kids in schools are already spending far more time each day on math than most homeschoolers, who consistently produce equal or better results with far less time actually spent on traditional school work each day or year. 

Is the solution really more hours in the classroom - or more efficient use of the hours already spent there?

And aren't schools supposed to be locally controlled, not bribed into compliance through federal tax monies?  (Yeah, I know, I'm in dreamland; that disappeared when the DOE was formed.)


Finally, from the US Secretary of Education: "Those hours from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock are times of high anxiety for parents," Duncan said. "They want their children safe." At last, we get to the bottom of what this issue is all about - taxpayer-paid daycare.

This is a real problem for many low-income families, especially in single-parent households.  Is the solution more government nannying, or can we be more creative, encouraging and easing the establishment of community-based, privately-operated, drop-in centers with enrichment & tutoring provided?  The YMCA offers just such a program on site at many public elementary schools.  Offering these programs only where needed, and funding only those who can't afford the already low cost, would be a much more efficient solution.


Or we could go even deeper - what else is at the heart of this issue?  Why are the typical 7 hours in the classroom and 2 hours of homework not enough?  The President's proposed plan only patches the symptoms; addressing inefficiency and unsupervised children begin to hammer at the root; is there more?  Red Cardigan hits on another issue in this blog post.

"[One of the underlying problems] won't be solved with more classroom hours and longer school years. That problem is cultural. Currently, children from two-parent, married, stable homes do better, not only in education, but in many other areas of life. Yet we've decided that the two-parent, stable, married household is an irrelevant lifestyle choice, no better and no worse than serial divorce and remarriage, single parenthood, or any other combination of adults and children living together....  [Many] single parents work very hard to make sure that their children don't fail. But we can't deny that it's much harder for them to be involved in their children's education than it is for the two-parent family."

This is surely part of the issue.  I've witnessed it with Tanisha and the families around her, and the strange models of education at their public schools.  But there's no simple, "throw money at the problem" solution. 

A few more well-written excerpts:

[Among reasons for the "daycare model of education":]  "the notion that professional educators are much better than parents at raising and educating children"

"I can't think of any other business--and, yes, education is a business--in which a failing model which consistently did not produce the required measurable objectives would essentially claim that all they needed was a lot more time and a lot more money, and that this claim would be taken seriously."

Clearly, there are many levels on which to work to begin improving the situation.  Let's start with the roots, though, and not just band-aid the symptoms with more of the same.