Thankfully we've already graduated high school.
Waking up before the sun was tough enough. Now President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan want to curtail summer vacation in American schools.
We can see where they're coming from. Americans consistently score lower on math and science tests than students in Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. However, we don't think expanding the school year is the best solution to bring up our students' scores.
Expanding the school day is a good idea. According to trial runs in Massachusetts, students who have math periods extended by 10 minutes per day score higher on standardized math tests than students in other Massachusetts schools with regular school days. Plus, 10 minutes per day isn't a whole lot to ask.
Expanding the school year seems implausible because it would require schools to pay teachers significantly more, something that doesn't seem possible given the current economic climate.
Plus, Duncan's statement to the Associated Press about other countries' students spending more time in school than American students isn't entirely accurate.
While students in the United States spend 1,146 instructional hours in school per year, students in Singapore, a country that consistently beats out the U.S. in math and science scores, only spend 903 instructional hours in school each year.
This suggests that although U.S. students already spend a lot of time in school, teachers aren't using the time effectively.
We agree that schools should allocate more time to teaching math and science, but we also think that it can be done without shortening summer vacation.
