What got mostly overlooked was that he had a point - though his proposed solution, the unfunded mandates of No Child Left Behind, was woefully inadequate. Too few people still ask if our children are learning, and too little is being done to find out why they aren’t learning enough.
Many conservatives instinctively say this is a failure of the public education system, often blame teacher unions, and call for more charter schools. Liberals tend to blame our educational failures on not spending enough money on public schools.
But there is now some evidence that the real problem may be something else again - though something that is money-related. Our children are simply not spending enough days in school.
They not only spend fewer days in school than kids in other industrialized nations, they spend fewer than their older brothers and sisters did just a decade ago. And they, and this state, and society, are suffering, and will suffer more in coming years.
I know this, thanks to a timely study commissioned by the Center for Michigan, Phil Power’s non-partisan, non-profit “think and do tank,” dedicated to improving the quality of life in this state.
The study, called “School Days: Michigan’s Shrinking School Year,“ shocked me. Nationwide, the standard requirement in most places is a minimum of 180 days of classes. That many days had been legally required for years, and I thought still were.
Think again. Ninety-eight percent of Michigan schools offer fewer than 180 days of classes. One district, Republic-Michigamme in the Upper Peninsula, only held classes 139 days.
How can this be? Six years ago, the legislature dropped the requirement that classes be held at least 180 days in favor of a minimum classroom time requirement, which is 1,098 hours.
When that happened, many districts began lengthening the school day to save money. Essentially, Lansing allowed them to shorten the school year by making each school day longer.
That approach might work fine for putting fenders on cars. It makes no sense here. Lessons take a measured, structured module of time. We are shortchanging our children, and shortchanging ourselves and our future. Michigan has fewer young adults with college educations than nearby states - or the national average.
We need to keep kids in the classroom more, rather than fewer, days, if we are to win the jobs of the future. Yes, that will cost money and some hardships. But it is essential. To quote Charlie Ballard, Michigan’s leading economist, “As a society, we’ve got to find a way to do this,” he said, adding, “I don’t know why this isn’t on the radar.”
What we need to do now is put it on the radar. If you want to learn more, and to see how your district is doing, go on line to thecenterformichigan.net, find the report, and check things out.
And then call your local legislator and go get mad.
I'm not entirely sold that more time in the classroom is needed. The time allotted needs to be more efficient. Starting the day when students are too tired to function properly wastes a good deal of that functionality. Even if only 100 of the 180 days were started with a yawn, that leaves a fifth of the total school year asleep at the desk.
Better engagement and a better night's rest would have made High School completely different for me, and I graduated from it in 02.
Posted by: David Sahlin | March 19, 2009 at 10:06 PM
I agree with the report and with Jack's comments. This is a complicated issue: the connection between time and learning. I once signed up for a series of 5 tennis lessons, 1 hour each. Discovering that one of those lessons fell on a holiday, the instructor suggested we skip the holiday class and add ten minutes to our remaining 5 classes. We did. I'm not sure those extra minutes made me a better tennis player than if we had had the 6th class. Besides, between lessons I would have practiced what I learned in the previous lesson. Translated to classroom instruction, I think there's a lesson here. A few extra minutes of class spread over a year, in my opinion, doesn't equate to the learning that would occur in additional days of separate, teacher-prepared lessons, with study and homework in between. Just my thoughts.
Posted by: Jeremy Hughes | March 20, 2009 at 10:53 AM
..oops...correction to previous post. I signed up for six (6) lessons!
Posted by: Jeremy Hughes | March 20, 2009 at 10:54 AM
Here's a semi obvious question, Jack, in the 10 years that we have dropped below the 180 days, has there been any demonstratable decline in student proficiency? And if there's no evidence of a slide, why should we think that adding days would necessarily lead to an opposite result? A cynic would just see this as a MEA ploy for more members and higher pay for our already relatively highly paid public school teachers.
How about first asking and answering about what we're paying for what we're getting?
Posted by: Matt | March 20, 2009 at 01:17 PM
The reason for the dismal performance of students in public schools in MI and elswhere in the USA compared to their counterparts in many forign countries is not due to the number of instructional days, but rather due to the fact that public education in America has been hijacked by radical liberals who are pushing a social engineering agenda rather than an educational agenda. Our public school educators are driven to assure that students are well versed in sodomy, wicca, rights without responsibilities, and Democratic Party theology at the expense of math, science, basic reading & writing skills, and foreign language.
Posted by: Gary Bartlett | March 21, 2009 at 07:26 AM
The above is utter nonsense; I have been married to an award-winning public school teacher for more than 30 years. No schools in Michigan teach any of the above. Whether we need stronger standards and better teaching of the basics is another question.
Posted by: Jack Lessenberry | March 21, 2009 at 03:41 PM
The above is total and malevolent nonsense;I have been married to an award-winning public school teacher for more than 30 years. None of those things are taught in any Michigan school. Whether we need to emphasize basic skills more is a legitimate argument.
Posted by: Jack Lessenberry | March 21, 2009 at 03:42 PM