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I found this at abc news. Hawaii has been facing a budget crisis and is trying to fix it by only having school 4 days a week. Instead of cutting some teachers and increasing class sizes, they will be out of school on Fridays. This raises a lot of concern, since Hawaii is ranked one of the lowest on test scores. It also concerns many parents that have to stay home on Fridays now and play teacher. Is this the best way to help Hawaii and its budget crisis?
My first reaction was they are crazy. I think that the students are being cheated just to help save some of the teachers jobs. A child has to have a good education, and shortening the week is not going to help this at all. I think that it will only let them fall even farther behind than they already are.
As stated in the video, the US is already in school a lot less than many other countries at 180 days. Now Hawaii will only be in session for 163 days, compared to Japan that goes to school 243 days. I don't think that the school year needs to be increased any more, but I definitely don't think that it needs to be shortened. One parent stated that they feel there kids are losing out on their education for the sake of the teachers. I think that this will lead them to fall even farther behind. The entire nation is in a crisis, and there are many things that are being done to try to fix it. I just feel that this isn't the best solution for the problem.
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I'm kind of looking at this from a different perspective as I hope the outcome of this shows that test scores actually go up. If it does, it may show many things, such as the more involved the parents get in their childrens education, the better children will do in school. Also it may or may not reflect poorly on the teachers in which maybe they will be more productive in the short week or it may show their lack of teaching ability if the parents are now taking up the slack. Then we need to do something about the teachers competence to teach in the first place. I have often wondered why the President chose to bail out the banks when it should have poured more money into the education of our children. They talk a lot about the education of our children but then they don't put their (our) money where their mouth is. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteI think they should definitely find a different way to fix the budget crisis they are facing besides shortening the school week. A child's education should be placed first before anything else. This may be a quick fix for now, but in the future I believe it will cause even more problems. And what kind of message are they sending to the kids by doing this?
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