Pilot program to extend school days 2 extra hours for NYC 6th graders

The Board of Education in New York City is testing a pilot program this coming Fall that would extend a school day to 2 hours. This would apply to kids who need the extra help (I think this is it; it's either that or all 6th graders).

A typical day for a student in public schools usually goes from 8 AM to 3 PM. With the pilot program in place, students wouldn't leave school until after 5 PM, which is pretty much dinner time for most people. The program was created because, according to the chancellor, students are falling behind in their literacy and they need more time so they can get extra help. The program will apparently use tutors for the extra time and the program will be funded by private donors. You can find out more here.

I have to say that the idea is pretty much bullcrap. Keeping kids in until 5 PM is going to make them exhausted and by the time they get home, they will have only a little time left to eat dinner, do homework, then go to bed. Instead of keeping them in longer, why not devote a Saturday where they spend those 2 hours at the school getting the extra help? They'll get the help there and they will have the rest of the day to play with friends.

If the program gets the green light and is applied to all schools, who is going to foot the bill in hiring the tutors or the teachers that have to stay the extra hours? Kids will also be quite hungry by the end of the extended day because they eat lunch so early (usually between 10 am to 12 PM).

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I've seen something similar suggested here, but that was in place of homework (based on the belief that homework is inefficient because students can't get help so they waste time stuck on problems, which doesn't really teach anything). That seems much more reasonable.

Well, switching hours to make lunch a bit later shouldn't be that a problem? I also had school sometimes until 5 pm. Though...different school system and all that.

The point of a pilot program is in the end to test how good it works.

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Well the thing is the program is aimed (I think) only to students that need the help, so switching lunch schedules around would make things very screwy for the entire system since not every student is staying at school 2 hours longer.

Remember, these idiots drive, fuck, and vote. Not always in that order.

But playing is a wasteful use of precious taxpayer money and kids won't be prepared for a hyper competitive economy if they're ever allowed to play!

[/sarcasm]

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. - Douglas Adams

On the flip side, more school is evil because school is liberal and public and generally bad.

(just kidding)

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It would be more effective to keep teaching through the summer break.

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I'm just going to say that the top image here is relevant.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Yeah, better to eliminate summer break (other than a week or two to transition classrooms, clean the schools, etc.) and teach through the year. Summer break is a relic of our agricultural past, anyway.

edited 2nd May '13 8:33:31 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I would not give up one day of my summer break here in Ireland.
Over here, we get three months.

They do have medals for almost, and they're called silver!

Would you give up a month of summer vacation for 3 day weekends year round? I would.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Of course kids don't want to give up summer break. Who would? But it's obsolete, and it's proven that kids forget a large amount of information over the break.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I think it would be better that kids have more frequent breaks (1 week at most) over the course of the year instead of having huge summer breaks to which they have to relearn a lot of crap from last year just to get back up to speed. So far there's Christmas break, winter recess, and then another one in the spring, so a summer week off wouldn't hurt.

Remember, these idiots drive, fuck, and vote. Not always in that order.

5 PM seems a bit late for 6th graders, but I'm not sure it's such a bad idea. On the other hand, often the reason kids do poorly in class isn't because they don't understand the material, but because they don't care to even try to. Depending on why they're doing badly, this may or may not help.

The problem with "Why not just make they go through the summer?" or "Why not just make them go on Saturday" is that those options are met with even more resistance from the "let kids be kids!" crowd.

As for the food situation, I think that if you give 'em a quick snack or something at about 3, that'd be enough to tide them over until they got home. Then again, my family always ate at like 8-9 o'clock, so grabbing a burger or something at 5 isn't unheard of to me.

They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?

We have like four education reform threads already, just so you know for the future, where this would fit right in. Why do people keep making more.

Uggggghh, extending school HOURS isn't going to help. Extending school DAYS is what's going to help in information retention. This experiment probably isn't going to go well.

Having Saturday school probably wouldn't go over well, but opening that day up for extra tutoring by student teachers/substitutes might be nice. Some of us had to go to school on Saturdays anyway, due to competitions and the like.

I know that some countries have longer winter breaks to accommodate an extended vacation plan, about as long as the summer break. In exchange, the summer break isn't 2 1/2 months long.

While readjusting vacation lengths might help, I oppose eliminating summer break. It's a custom that carries over to college. Instead, put more emphasis on optional summer programs and make them actually appealing. Summer is supposed to be a choice where you invest your time in something other than traditional schooling, and nontraditional schooling should be one of those options.

As for extending school hours, staying until 5PM seems too long. Extending classroom time reduces the needed time (to study) outside the classroom, and from personal experience, having your studentship depend only on attendance and classroom time creates a habit that doesn't do you good in college. When I went from high school to college, I felt that in contrast to all the things that increased, time spent in actual classrooms dropped a lot. And I don't think it helps to make that change bigger.

edited 2nd May '13 11:46:29 AM by Trivialis

I also highly question how well the teachers are going to get compensated for being forced to fork over another two hours of their days as well. I know students are having trouble, but teachers have to stay at work all day vastly outnumbered by kids both with genuine problems they (the teachers) aren't always equipped to handle (either through totalitarian rules or simple lack of training) and those with severe entitlement issues. (And we all know selfish kids like that in our lifetimes. Hell, some of us were those kids.)

edited 2nd May '13 12:03:09 PM by AceofSpades

Okay, it was mentioned before that we have other education threads. As this topic offers nothing novel that isn't already fit for discussing in existing threads, I'm closing it and redirecting it to them.

Here's the first one that comes up.

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