Obama Advocates Longer School Year

[LBWP]

As Obama Advocates Longer School Year, Teachers' Unions Push for Shorter Weeks - Political News - FOXNews.com

As Obama Advocates Longer School Year, Teachers' Unions Push for Shorter Weeks

President Obama is pushing for more hours in school, but some of his staunchest supporters are moving in the other direction -- seeking to adopt four-day school weeks as a way to avoid pay cuts and firings in the face of crumbling state budgets.

By Kristin Thorne
Tuesday, October 06, 2009


Last fall, when the American Federation of Teachers endorsed him for president, Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of 3,000 union members and promised that "we will change education in this country; and we will bring about a better future for our children..."

One way to build that better future, Obama has said, is to increase the number of hours children spend in school, both by lengthening the days themselves and by shortening vacations to extend the school year.

But now, as President Obama pushes for more hours in school, some of his staunchest supporters are moving in the other direction, seeking to adopt four-day school weeks as a way to avoid pay cuts and firings in the face of crumbling state budgets.

In order to save everyone's job, teachers' union organizers in many states and school districts are advocating payless furloughs for all employees -- getting four days' pay for four days' work.

But critics say the teachers are putting their own priorities above the students they're supposed to be nurturing, and that payless furloughs will cost the kids services and class time.

In Hawaii, where the Department of Education has to cut $468 million over the next two years, the State Teachers Association, which represents 13,000 public school teachers, has agreed to the creation of "Furlough Fridays."

Rather than accept layoffs, the teachers have decided to take 17 Fridays off. That means 170,800 students will be out of school on Fridays, and teachers will have to try to cover the instructional minutes for the year in 163 days instead of the usual 180.

"I was really shocked, going 'What are they thinking. Are they insane'?" said Kristie Charron, an elementary school parent. "How are they (the students) going to learn?"

The president of the Teachers Association, Wil Okabe, said he isn't happy with the agreement, but that "Furlough Fridays" will cause the least disruption to the public school system. And he placed the blame for the tough decision on the state's legislators.

"The Board of Education and the Hawaii State Teachers Association should never have been put in this position," Okabe said in a written statement. "Our children and students should not have been forced to miss class days. The state should have maintained a commitment to our children and funded their education at the appropriate level and provided them the 180 days of instructional time they deserve."

On the first Furlough Friday – October 23 -- concerned parents are planning to rally at the Hawaii state Capitol.

"As a parent I just didn’t think it could happen. We thought we were protected by federal laws," said Debbie Schatz, co-president of the Parent Teacher Student Association at Aikahi Elementary School.

But the number of days in a school year is determined by the individual states, not the federal government. In Idaho, the school year is 170 days – 10 fewer than most states. Others, like Colorado, Delaware and Michigan, dictate the number of hours -- not days -- in a school year.

And since the length of the school year is decided by states and school districts, the teachers' unions have a great deal of bargaining power in making the decisions.

Other school districts using furloughs to save money this year are in Georgia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Florida and California. And other unions, too, are winning furloughs over layoffs. In the Los Angeles School District, 1,100 bus drivers recently agreed to take six furlough days, leaving parents scrambling to figure out how to get their children to school on the days the buses don't run.

"Furloughs are a way of sharing the suffering equally," said Ed Muir, deputy director of research at the American Federation of Teachers, which has more than 1.4 million members.

"There's nothing that you can do that isn’t going to hurt the students. You can do layoffs. You can do furloughs. You’re going to increase the class size, taking away instructional time, one way or another," he said.

But critics say there are real losers when teachers take furloughs: the students, who miss valuable time in the classroom. And they say there's another way to meet drastic budgets: fire some bad teachers.

Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said school officials should be using the economic downturn as an opportunity to consolidate what he says is an overpopulated teacher workforce.

"One good thing about rough patches is that they provide the motivation and cover to make difficult personnel choices," Hess said.

Since 2000, he said, school districts nationwide have hired teachers at twice the rate that they have added new students.

"It's disturbing that rather than addressing this directly, school teachers and school districts are trying to dance around the real issue," Hess said. "Furloughs are a result of small-minded, timid management."

Muir said many AFT unions, including ones in St. Louis and Detroit, are developing measures, like peer reviews, to weed out ineffective teachers. But he said many districts don’t have policies on how to deal with those teachers. He also said that peer reviews and layoffs should not be used as a mechanism for dealing with budget cuts. "Due process is a guarantee of a process, not of an outcome," he said.

Muir said unions are doing the best they can in the face of difficult decisions. "When there isn’t enough money, there isn’t enough money," he said. "There’s no good way out of a crisis this bad."

But critics say there's a bad way out of a bad crisis: four-day work weeks and shorter school years.

There are other victims, too. Working parents who are suffering financially will have tough decisions to make on furlough days: whether to pay for child care, skip work or pay for programs that are being created by local service organizations. Some parents in Hawaii are even considering "renting" schools on furlough days and paying the teachers to staff them.

With the Obama administration advocating tougher testing and higher academic standards, critics say, it's ironic that some of Obama's staunchest supporters, the teachers' unions, are putting up roadblocks in his way.

When asked whether there’s a growing divide between what the unions are doing by shortening the school week and what the president is advocating, the AFT's associate director of public affairs, John See, said his office was too busy to answer the question.

On further questioning, he said his office is developing a policy to deal with inquiries from Fox News and FOXNews.com.

[LandJ]

In addition to the whole financial issue it's just another attack on the family. I don't know how he feels about his children, but I like spending time with my child. He's advocating lengthening the school day, lengthening the school year and sending kids to school on Saturdays. Sorry dude....my child needs to spend A LITTLE bit of time with his family!

[b1ueeyes76]

The State of California is continually cutting the education budget. My boys have 33 kids in their 1st grade class due to budget cuts and lay offs. I can't believe that any school district in my state could afford to extend the school day or year.

Obama is comparing our educational system to countries that "track" their students at an early age. He is comparing our students to those that have enormous pressure to do well on standardized tests because it determines what jobs they will be allowed to pursue as young adults.

LandJ ~ I agree, the last thing I want for my kids is for them to spend more time in school. I value our time together at home too!

[CrystalAZ]

Well, if he lengthens the time they are in school, then he needs to cut homework completely. This is ridiculous.

Crystal

[BC-Tracik]

I don't want to see a 4 day week, or a 6 day week... but I also don't think school should be extended to longer days, especially for the younger/elementary kids. I would be ok with a few weeks more of school in the year, but then our school year is shorter then a public. I would love to see Jr and Sr high school start later in the day by about an hour since most studies show that kids are too tired in the morning to really learn. An hour more of school in middle school and maybe an hour and a half in high school would be OK but kids need to be able to participate in after school activities and athletics.

IMHO opinion the problem that Obama thinks is going on, our kids needing to learn more, could be better dealt with by trashing no child left behind, which is garbage. Allowing teachers to teach kids to think outside the box and not regurgitate info in a test format. Putting more focus on funding and smaller class sizes across the country .... yes big government interference but you want kids to learn give them an environment to learn in.

Also wouldn't' be opposed to vouchers ... since my kids are in private school I would be happy to have a voucher or two, for purely selfish reasons, as a general practice vouchers are flawed....but at times I don't mind saying heck it will help me so why not

[LandJ]

Originally Posted by BC-Tracik

I would love to see Jr and Sr high school start later in the day by about an hour since most studies show that kids are too tired in the morning to really learn.

Our high schools here don't start until something like 9:20. Kind of ridiculously late if you ask me. When I was at the same high school the first bell rang at 7:25. None of us thought anything of it and we enjoyed getting out at a decent time. Start at 8 if you want, but after 9?!

[BC-Maura]

What do you folks think about the Furlough Fridays? It seems to me that that is the focus of the article, not Obama's view that kids should be in school longer. For example, I don't even know enough about Obama's view (i.e., the details) to be able to form an opinion either for or against.

I am against these 4 day school weeks, though!

+++++++++++++++
Maura

[BC-tinatinva]

I think Furlough Fridays would completely are irrovocably impact families and businesses that are not prepared for it. Businesses would be on a skeleton staff on Fridays and/ or childcare facilities would need to build new staffing models and potentially would not have room in thier facility for the additional kiddos. Child care liscensing would have to change - most are liscenced through age 12. While many parents are comfortable with the "latchkey" model for an hour or two afterschool.. the whole day would be a deal breaker for them. Then there's the whole cost of childcare thing..

There's a ton of downstream impacts to consider..

[rae]

In the last few weeks, I've read a lot of articles suggesting that US schools already have students in the classroom more hours per day, than most all of the countries that score better than the US on test scores. However, in many of those countries, Japan for example, students routinely spend their after-school hours getting in more classes, more tutoring, etc. and often spend half of their Saturdays in a classroom.

I don't know what the answer to education is, but I don't see US children spending more time in their traditional setting as the answer.

Regarding the actual school starting times, this is often more of a budget issue for schools. If a community wants to get the most value for the buses they have, they will stagger start times for schools. High schoolers often start earliest, as many of the students have part time jobs in the afternoons and arrange their school schedules around that. School boards often let elementary schools start before middle schools, so that older siblings can make sure younger siblings are safely on the bus when parents are already at work. Is makes sense to maximize the bus usage, even if one's particular family situation doesn't fit the norm that it helps.

Ideas like 4 day weeks and year round schools work in some communities. But, I imagine it's a nightmare to switch to them.

[LandJ]

Originally Posted by BC-Maura

What do you folks think about the Furlough Fridays? It seems to me that that is the focus of the article, not Obama's view that kids should be in school longer. For example, I don't even know enough about Obama's view (i.e., the details) to be able to form an opinion either for or against.

I am against these 4 day school weeks, though!

+++++++++++++++
Maura

It's not even been discussed in our district as far as I know. Yes, THIS article does seem to focus in that direction but last week is when all the discussion came out about BO's plan for the future. Really seems like a mute point for the next few years....if not decade though.

And as far as the US compared to other countries? No way can we be compared based on classroom time alone. IMO, it's more the parenting and the impact families have on the students. I bet you anything if we took the top scoring kids from our country and REALLY looked at their home lives they would compare well with kids from other countries. Sadly I do believe more children in American have pitiful home lives, parental guidance, etc. than in other countries. Obviously I not making a blanket statement about ALL children in our country, but I bet we have more kids with uninvolved or uncaring parents than many of the other top performing countries. And no, I have no stats, articles, studies to back me up....just my lowly opinion.