AOL News Article: Obama Wants More School, Shorter Break

“Obama Wants More School, Shorter Break”

This President is truly amazing in his ability to find ways in which to spend more of our money. Increasing school hours means increasing public school funding. Of course, everything to do with public schools means increasing funding. Do you remember the last time there was an election without some form of public school funding request put forward? Where is the money for these increased public school hours going to come from?

“The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.”

So is this really about education or about increasing State responsibility (and control) over our children? Does the average kid need a “safe place to go” on weekends? Of course not, their parents take care of that. The only children who need a “safe place to go” on weekends are the children of those who are too irresponsible to care for their own kids. It isn’t a matter of poverty. I grew up poor, and I grew up with a lot of poor neighbors. Our parents still made sure we didn’t need a “safe place to go” on weekends. The kids out in the streets, getting into trouble, were the kids whose parents were more interested in getting high or drunk than in raising their kids.

This is another Left wing maneuver to get the majority of responsible, tax paying citizens to pay for free day care for the children of people too irresponsible to be raising children in the first place.

“The extra time, which schools can add as hours or days, is for three things: core academics”

Is the only way to spend more time on “core academics”
to add more time to the public school day or year? How about if more of the hours already in place be used to study the basic academic subjects instead of spending class time on social engineering? Do our children need special time set aside to hold “commemorative exercises” for and learn about the contributions of a San Francisco supervisor who held office 30 years ago? Do they need specific curriculum plans related to Cesar Chavez further than a paragraph in a CA history book? That’s often all they get regarding very important historical figures. I wonder if we quizzed CA school kids on who the founding fathers were what the scores would be?

"Those hours from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock are times of high anxiety for parents," Duncan said. "They want their children safe. Families are working one and two and three jobs now to make ends meet and to keep food on the table."

This is the core of it. It isn’t about education, it is about shoving tax payer funded day care down our throats.