Schools.

[psyche29]

I was chatting with wandaxmaximoff today and we were comparing the length of the school year for each of our kidlings (she lives in the UK and I live in the US - Minnesota, to be exact).

I wanted to find out how many days kids in my state actually have to go to school, and was pretty disappointed to discover it's less than the nation's average, not to mention outside the US as well.

An article I found: Minnesota School Year Requirements Too Casual

What do you think?

Comments

[wyldbutterflies]

I actually think that kids in the US should be spending more time at school. So I agree with the proponents of a longer school year. First, I think it does help us compete in the international realm. If we put more attention toward schooling then maybe we could have better schools with budgets that allow for sciences and the arts. And secondly, I think it would help out a lot of families that live near the poverty level with the daycare issue. When a lot of your money is going to daycare services over the summer months, how can a family ever make ends meet - couple that with the rising costs in basic needs like heating and gasoline and you take one step forward but tow steps back.

I think that knowledge and learning should be a bigger priority. I think we should have better teachers and hold students not to the testing standard (which is horribly dated and not at all an accurate method of testing knowledge learned) but a standard of excellence.

Just my two small cents.

[psyche29]

And really, I agree with all of your "cents!" I understand why the school year originally started out the way it is - most of the country was very rural and farmers needed their offspring to help with the planting, tending and harvesting of the fields and crops and animals.

That's just not the case anymore, and if kids are the future, then we need to give them a much more solid foundation!