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More school doesn't isolate people from poverty, crime, health care access issues, food security problems, etc. No matter how long the school day is, those scho

More school doesn't isolate people from poverty, crime, health care access issues, food security problems, etc. No matter how long the school day is, those schools exist in communities with those issues and the staff, parents, and children in those communities have to deal with the realities of those problems every day. > That is: extending the school day to the point that it becomes reasonable to offer breakfast provides an opportunity to actually get breakfast into these kids. Which does impact test scores. Breakfast food programs originate with the Black Panther Party running breakfast programs for poor children, not with school systems. > Providing "study hour" type classes after a traditional school day not only provides a safe and equipped place for these kids to actually do their homework, it also keeps them off the streets and lowers the risks that come from no child care. And that also does impact test scores. The solution to this is to provide access to child care in a way that is useful for the community, not provide de-facto child care by keeping children in school as long as possible each day. > They know damn well that more hours of instruction doesn't really increase test scores. But they also know the best approach available to them This is a contradiction, if hours of instruction don't increase test scores, then the approach of increasing the length of the school day will have nothing to do with providing better test score outcomes. Also, test scores are not a reliable way to gauge student learning and success. You are right that social instability and poverty play a big part in keeping US education from being successful, both those issues need to be addressed in a direct way rather than try to provide band aid fixes via a school system that already does things in a way that does not work for a substantial amount of the students in the country.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> This is a contradiction, if hours of instruction don't increase test scores, then the approach of increasing the length of the school day will have nothing to do with providing better test score outcomes. It's not a contradiction. Increasing the hours of instruction incidentally decreases the amount of time spent outside of school, which does increase test scores. You suggested having more accessible child care as an alternative, but that would have to be carried out by the HHS, right? The educational establishment is solving the issue using what tools they have available (namely, longer school hours).
- droithomme 14y ago
  "decreases the amount of time spent outside of school, which does increase test scores" Do you have evidence of that or is it something you assume should be true? Internationally, more school hours is weakly correlated with lower achievement, not strongly correlated with higher. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/13/more-school-hours-dont-guarantee-better-test-score/?page=all http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/13/more-school-... For example, Poland has 595 hours of instruction, far less than most countries, and has very high academic achievement. Finland, Norway, Australia all have below average hours and yet do better than average. Mexico mandates 1058 hours and has among the worst scores internationally. Based on actual empirical evidence I have seen over the years, the claim that more hours in school increases scores is false and unsupported by evidence.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    No, I have no evidence. I'm just basing it on common sense. If you spend any time in American inner cities, you will quickly learn that it is not a place that you would wish any child to have to grow up in. The more time you can keep them away from that environment, the better, even if it is by mandating longer school hours. The subculture of urban America is fundamentally broken. It is not really comparable to other countries' subcultures, with the possible exception of Gypsies in Europe.
    - king_jester 14y ago
      Well, if you spend time in some inner city schools and school systems, you can see that being at school vs. being at home isn't a solution to the overall problems in those communities wrt poverty, health care access, and a bevy of other things. Longer school days in such environments won't really do anything for those communities.
      - w1ntermute 14y ago
        And that's where you're wrong. In a well-managed school, there is a significant environmental difference between school and home.
roc 14y ago
> "Breakfast food programs originate" Ok? I mentioned breakfasts because it's a successful program that's delivering results and underscores the distinction between what can look, on paper, like "Administrators want to throw more hours of instruction at students" and what is, in reality, more about schools deriving results from decidedly non-instruction services. But good on the BPP for creating a positive social program and good on the school administrators who took a successful model and pushed it out to even more students. > "This is a contradiction" No, it's drawing a distinction between "instruction" and "school hours". To give context to seemingly counter-intuitive policy proposals. > "test scores are not a reliable way to gauge student learning and success." Agreed. And, again, I'm not promoting The Way It Should Be. I'm giving context to The Way It Is. And, tragically enough, US schools aren't measured by outcomes, they're measured by test scores. Until that changes, any hypothetical administrator who prioritized outcomes over test scores would either have to mask that priority and sell every policy based on some impact on test scores, or find themselves replaced. [1] > "those issues need to be addressed in a direct way rather than try to provide band aid fixes via a school system" I absolutely agree. And I vote for such policies every chance I get. But, until my neighbors and countrymen deliver a mandate for solutions [2], I'm not about to advocate we do nothing nor chastise and criticize schools for doing what they can around the edges. I'm not saying this is the right way to do it. I'm saying school systems are in a horrible bind. They can do this and have some limited positive impact, they can follow a Scandinavian model which would exacerbate the effect of the socio-economic problems, or they can do nothing and sit idly as the human suffering continues to mount. It's all just context one needs to keep in mind when they look at US school "reform" proposals and wonder why we'd (continue to) push things that are at odds with how better-performing school systems operate. [1] Often enough, around here, they find themselves replaced by Charter Schools who are unaccountable for outcomes or test scores and are measured only by profits. [2] At this point it's fight-enough to defend what limited solutions currently exist.
- king_jester 14y ago
  For the breakfast programs issue, I wanted to point out an important aspect of the history of those programs: they were created to respond to a need that those communities had by individuals outside of the country or state government school system. When we talk about the issues with US education, we have to realize that many of those issues are caused or made worse by the top-down nature of implementing policy. As you rightly point out, those policies don't necessarily (or usually, even) come from within communities to address their specific needs. Indeed a lot of current state and federal policy revolves around more top down influence: using standardized tests to remove individual consideration of performance, replacing experienced teachers with less experienced teachers to reduce money spent on salaries and benefits, attempting to template-ize teaching curriculums instead of relying on teacher's professional training and experience, opening more state and federal dollars to charter schools (which as you point out have less oversight and accountability even by current metrics). When we talk about the Scandinavian model, those things are essential to helping to address the needs of communities most harmed by the aforementioned policies. We need more professionalism from staff, more opportunity for people in those communities to shape the programs that serve students. School systems were never designed to be social services institutions that attempt to alleviate all of the social ills that exist in the community. Since schools currently do not accomplish that kind of a mission, to increase the school day and push for more time in school is a form a punishment where you are intentionally removed from your community, family, and friends for simply existing in a poor community (a community that is likely to be color, no less).

w1ntermute 14y ago

> This is a contradiction, if hours of instruction don't increase test scores, then the approach of increasing the length of the school day will have nothing to do with providing better test score outcomes. It's not a contradiction. Increasing the hours of instruction incidentally decreases the amount of time spent outside of school, which does increase test scores. You suggested having more accessible child care as an alternative, but that would have to be carried out by the HHS, right? The educational establishment is solving the issue using what tools they have available (namely, longer school hours).

droithomme 14y ago
"decreases the amount of time spent outside of school, which does increase test scores" Do you have evidence of that or is it something you assume should be true? Internationally, more school hours is weakly correlated with lower achievement, not strongly correlated with higher. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/13/more-school-hours-dont-guarantee-better-test-score/?page=all http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/13/more-school-... For example, Poland has 595 hours of instruction, far less than most countries, and has very high academic achievement. Finland, Norway, Australia all have below average hours and yet do better than average. Mexico mandates 1058 hours and has among the worst scores internationally. Based on actual empirical evidence I have seen over the years, the claim that more hours in school increases scores is false and unsupported by evidence.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  No, I have no evidence. I'm just basing it on common sense. If you spend any time in American inner cities, you will quickly learn that it is not a place that you would wish any child to have to grow up in. The more time you can keep them away from that environment, the better, even if it is by mandating longer school hours. The subculture of urban America is fundamentally broken. It is not really comparable to other countries' subcultures, with the possible exception of Gypsies in Europe.
  - king_jester 14y ago
    Well, if you spend time in some inner city schools and school systems, you can see that being at school vs. being at home isn't a solution to the overall problems in those communities wrt poverty, health care access, and a bevy of other things. Longer school days in such environments won't really do anything for those communities.
    - w1ntermute 14y ago
      And that's where you're wrong. In a well-managed school, there is a significant environmental difference between school and home.

roc 14y ago

> "Breakfast food programs originate" Ok? I mentioned breakfasts because it's a successful program that's delivering results and underscores the distinction between what can look, on paper, like "Administrators want to throw more hours of instruction at students" and what is, in reality, more about schools deriving results from decidedly non-instruction services. But good on the BPP for creating a positive social program and good on the school administrators who took a successful model and pushed it out to even more students. > "This is a contradiction" No, it's drawing a distinction between "instruction" and "school hours". To give context to seemingly counter-intuitive policy proposals. > "test scores are not a reliable way to gauge student learning and success." Agreed. And, again, I'm not promoting The Way It Should Be. I'm giving context to The Way It Is. And, tragically enough, US schools aren't measured by outcomes, they're measured by test scores. Until that changes, any hypothetical administrator who prioritized outcomes over test scores would either have to mask that priority and sell every policy based on some impact on test scores, or find themselves replaced. [1] > "those issues need to be addressed in a direct way rather than try to provide band aid fixes via a school system" I absolutely agree. And I vote for such policies every chance I get. But, until my neighbors and countrymen deliver a mandate for solutions [2], I'm not about to advocate we do nothing nor chastise and criticize schools for doing what they can around the edges. I'm not saying this is the right way to do it. I'm saying school systems are in a horrible bind. They can do this and have some limited positive impact, they can follow a Scandinavian model which would exacerbate the effect of the socio-economic problems, or they can do nothing and sit idly as the human suffering continues to mount. It's all just context one needs to keep in mind when they look at US school "reform" proposals and wonder why we'd (continue to) push things that are at odds with how better-performing school systems operate. [1] Often enough, around here, they find themselves replaced by Charter Schools who are unaccountable for outcomes or test scores and are measured only by profits. [2] At this point it's fight-enough to defend what limited solutions currently exist.

king_jester 14y ago
For the breakfast programs issue, I wanted to point out an important aspect of the history of those programs: they were created to respond to a need that those communities had by individuals outside of the country or state government school system. When we talk about the issues with US education, we have to realize that many of those issues are caused or made worse by the top-down nature of implementing policy. As you rightly point out, those policies don't necessarily (or usually, even) come from within communities to address their specific needs. Indeed a lot of current state and federal policy revolves around more top down influence: using standardized tests to remove individual consideration of performance, replacing experienced teachers with less experienced teachers to reduce money spent on salaries and benefits, attempting to template-ize teaching curriculums instead of relying on teacher's professional training and experience, opening more state and federal dollars to charter schools (which as you point out have less oversight and accountability even by current metrics). When we talk about the Scandinavian model, those things are essential to helping to address the needs of communities most harmed by the aforementioned policies. We need more professionalism from staff, more opportunity for people in those communities to shape the programs that serve students. School systems were never designed to be social services institutions that attempt to alleviate all of the social ills that exist in the community. Since schools currently do not accomplish that kind of a mission, to increase the school day and push for more time in school is a form a punishment where you are intentionally removed from your community, family, and friends for simply existing in a poor community (a community that is likely to be color, no less).