President Obama recently reprised his proposal for a longer school year. On Monday, Barack Obama was interviewed on NBC’s “Today” Show where he explained that a longer school year for American children would help close the gap between US school-children and kids from other countries. You can read more here.
This is not the first time that President Obama has made this point. In March, 2009 Obama made essentially the same point. The matter was reported by the Seattle Times. The article can be found here.
Barack Obama is basically right with his belief that American children spend too little time in school. However, he’s only scratching the surface. Our problems in education go beyond the hours per day or months per year that school is in session.
Here are just a few additional ideas for President Obama to consider:
Schools should be competitive. Many Americans wring their hands over the strengths of Japanese school-children, especially in math and science. Since I happen to be in Japan I asked a few people about the schools here. Their descriptions of education in Japan went beyond mere months per year. Japanese students must apply to the best high schools. And where you go to high school has a big bearing on where you’ll go to college and end up in life. This is Thomas Jefferson or Maggie Walker writ large. When I asked if this was fair they bluntly said, “No, but life’s not fair either.”
Schools should be intense. A Frenchman told me of his daughter’s semester abroad in America. She described her time in a top grade American school as a vacation. Her assigned homework was much less in America than in France. She loves her expanded social life but understands that her studies are slipping while she slacks off in America.
Schools should use cutting edge technology. One of my friends has a son attending a private school in Northern Virginia. Mandatory laptop computers for every high school student. The lessons are online, there is online tutoring and some homework assignment questions are instantly graded as either right or wrong – with an explanation. A new netbook computer costs about $450 (retail) and (arguably) could last all 4 years of high school. Is this really too much?
Teachers should be paid for performance. The teaching profession has become old, stale and obsolete in the United States. In New York City it’s so hard to get rid of under-performing teachers that there are special “rubber room” buildings to stockpile teachers while their performance reviews drag on – sometimes for years. You can read more here. Bad teachers should be dispensed with quickly. Good teachers should be paid more than they presently receive.
Barack Obama is wrong about many things. However, his continuing focus on education is admirable. I especially applaud his practical thinking – if you want to be good at something spend more time doing it.
Education is the only long term antidote to Boomergeddon.