Obama's education plan.

[maestro15]

Whats your view on a year round school? I approve of it. I mean our summers are just way too long. even when i go too camp, its still seems too long. We then come back from our long break then forgetting everything we learned. Then winter and spring break comes a long and it is too short. Obama's plan is to keep all the vacations at moderate not too long not too short. Everything is good in moderate. What do you think?

[Rainstorm]

Obama has no say in education, besides proposing it. The States individually control how Education runs for that State, including the breaks.

But, I like the way it is now. You can't coop kids in school all their childhood lives, and the kids need that period of summer.

[maeniel]

I detest the idea of year round schooling and moderated breaks. I LOVE my summer and winter holiday. If Obama wants my holiday time, he'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers. I'd home school.

[Strength]

no need to fix/change it if it ain't broken...i say the same thing with the current healthcare system.

[maeniel]

no need to fix/change it if it ain't broken...i say the same thing with the current healthcare system.
And just how is the current healthcare system NOT broken? We are barely above the worst, the worst being 3rd world countries. The insurence companies run our system and have a complete monopoly, and millions of Americans can't afford healthcare or are rejected because of age or previous condition. Please do think or research before you say such a thing sir.

And its not that that I don't think education needs needs a bit of improvement, I do. America isn't top dog in education, and I find this rather sad. Nonetheless, I don't see making us stay in school longer fixing that.

[Sage]

Keeping kids who don't want to be in a classroom in a classroom won't make them want to stay in a classroom.

[Perseus]

In all honesty, most people won't want to be in school all year 'round and such things. Having a break makes everything better. I like having my break so I can do things I can't do during the school year because I don't have enough time for.

[Buddy]

haha i love ours and DO NOT want to see it changed
3 months of summer break
1 week of fall break
about 3 weeks of winter break
1 week of spring break

[INFERNO]

If students aren't keen on the classroom education then proposing to keep them in there longer isn't going to be beneficial. What also has to be assessed is the quality of teaching. Putting students in classrooms longer with a crappy teacher or crappy curriculum is logically going to make them somewhat crappy. The funding, the quality of teaching, the curriculum, etc... needs to be assessed. Also, what about the teachers and their salaries? Surely they need a break or else they may burn out and down goes the quality. Would they get paid less in, say one month compared to what teachers in the current system would get? It's not only the students who may suffer, it's the teachers as well.

[quartermaster]

If students aren't keen on the classroom education then proposing to keep them in there longer isn't going to be beneficial. What also has to be assessed is the quality of teaching. Putting students in classrooms longer with a crappy teacher or crappy curriculum is logically going to make them somewhat crappy. The funding, the quality of teaching, the curriculum, etc... needs to be assessed. Also, what about the teachers and their salaries? Surely they need a break or else they may burn out and down goes the quality. Would they get paid less in, say one month compared to what teachers in the current system would get? It's not only the students who may suffer, it's the teachers as well.

I agree, I also believe that there needs to be a greater incentive for schools to want students to do well. Of course, at a private school, the incentive is money; if the private school fails to adequately educate, parents will simply pull their children out of the school, or if a teacher is inept, due to the lack of a tenure system, the teacher will be fired. In public schools, the incentive to do well, especially for already under-performing schools, is quite simply not there. I believe that in the United States, the states should change the way in which money is allocated; currently it is allocated by the number of students in school for that day. I believe that instead of that, the states should allocate resources in a way that makes the incentive similar to that of private schools, where schools are overwhelmingly paid by performance, and not entirely by headcount.

[ShatteredWings]

And its not that that I don't think education needs needs a bit of improvement, I do. America isn't top dog in education, and I find this rather sad. Nonetheless, I don't see making us stay in school longer fixing that.
Yes, but most of the countries that do better than US (namely, Japan) spend fewer hours a year in class. Not more

Keeping kids who don't want to be in a classroom in a classroom won't make them want to stay in a classroom.
True that.

[INFERNO]

I agree, I also believe that there needs to be a greater incentive for schools to want students to do well. Of course, at a private school, the incentive is money; if the private school fails to adequately educate, parents will simply pull their children out of the school, or if a teacher is inept, due to the lack of a tenure system, the teacher will be fired. In public schools, the incentive to do well, especially for already under-performing schools, is quite simply not there. I believe that in the United States, the states should change the way in which money is allocated; currently it is allocated by the number of students in school for that day. I believe that instead of that, the states should allocate resources in a way that makes the incentive similar to that of private schools, where schools are overwhelmingly paid by performance, and not entirely by headcount.

Incentive is certainly a key factor, although I think part of the incentive has to do with family life and one's self-concept of themselves. For example, if one is in a low class family, the incentive to do well is lacking because chances are if they've lived their life in that status, they tend to feel hopelessness and depressed. This isn't to say that middle and upper classes don't have the same feelings but rather that there's an incentive to do well from the family. I think that even if schools are given more funding due to either headcount or to performance, there's still a constraint from the family.

I do like the idea of increase by performance because it allows schools to increase performance so they're not permanently set at low performance and for the other reasons you mentioned. The one thing I'm curious on is how will the performance be assessed? If it's a matter of having schools compete on standardized tests, then a question that arises is whether those results are accurate reflections because the base rate accuracy wouldn't be known since the schools would likely prepare the students to increase their performance. I suppose it's probably the easiest and an objective way. If the school already has little funding and resources to begin with, then it cant prepare the students as much and so it seems as though it's more or less doomed to get fewer resources unless miracles occur.

[Antares]

Thats right, Obama really can do nothing for education other than influence Congress to alter it. Even after that the Federal Gov't can't do much other than refuse to pay money to the states.

I honestly could care less what Obama does on education because I know it will only be aimed at improving education.

However, he should REALLY get NCLB revoked because that is some complete crap and is not working and is closing down schools unnecesesarily.