Federal and state officials will announce Monday that Massachusetts and four other states will begin implementing longer school days for some students next September, to provide extra academic traction and enrichment for thousands of children.
Select schools in Colorado, Connecticut, New York, and Tennessee will join Massachusetts in adding extra school hours. The announcement comes six years after the Bay State launched a program to extend the day at schools in several districts; the new effort will add to that.
Comments
One way to see what some of folks really think of extended day is to ask them if their own kids would want as an additional two to three hours in the same old decrepit building doing the same old 'stuff' with a package of crackers and a glass of milk. If they answer honestly, great. If they tell you it's great, ask them how their kids spend the time and 99% spend their time doing activities not done in school. In great part the extended day is an experiment run in urban America. What we need is a school/activity program that matches up with the parents' work schedule. Kids need good time and better time. Parents need some ability to better manage their work day and home life.
This feels like good news. As Sam the Man says, it all comes down to what they do with the extra time, but even if all they do is their homework and book reading, it could be a plus.
How about changing the hours to allow for youngest students to start earlier and older students who are proven to need later hours sleep go to school later? Yes, it will be disruptive, but we're not on the farms anymore.
At the insistance of the principal at the turnaround/spinning high school where I teach, the kids come in an hour later, and leave an hour later, than the rest of the BPS high schools. It doesn't make a difference. The same kids are still tardy, only an hour later, and kids miss last period because they have to play sports (the rest of the city isn't going to wait for them), have to go to work, pick up siblings, or are just are bored and want to hang with their friends. That leaves my normal classroom of 28 kids with around 6 special needs kids who have door to door transportation. "We're not prisioners!" one kid told me, when I threatened to write him up, as he did an about face at the door when he saw that his buddies were no shows! Class participation picks up around mark closing time when everyone want to make up months of missed work. The only logical consequence you can provide a student is flunking them, and that is administratively frowned upon in an underperforming school.
Twice I tried to make a comment and twice it suddenly vanished. I give up. The Globe website is secerely handicapped.