I've already graduated from high school (took AP classes, enjoyed them, and now in college), and I'd have to disagree with lengthening the school day. It's simply going in the wrong direction. If Obama wants better results from the education system, the focus should be on efficiency, not raw quantity.
I've seen good classes back in high school, but I've also seen several classes where the teacher doesn't know how to teach effectively, or the class is unruly. Trying to shove them into the class room without improving teaching methods is like trying to cook a pizza in a half-broken oven by cooking it longer. It's brute-forcing it, not fixing the actual problem, it gets bad results, and in the end, nobody's happy about it.
The real solution is to improve teaching methods and train better teachers to teach better students from the start forwards. Better methods better involve students, get them interested and involved, and when they're interested, learning in a proper academic environment that encourages (especially voluntary) critical thinking, good grades and test scores will follow.
Not to mention, there's the other end of it, an increase in school time means a cut in play time. Whether you're a kid in school, or an adult in the work force, if you're happier, you're more efficient and in the end, more productive. If someone needs those extra hours for stress relief, and doesn't get them, the productivity lost to inefficiency could outweigh that gained by extra time, giving a net loss. This would just make the problem even worse in the end. Not to mention, in an extreme case, if massive amounts of children grow up without a childhood, there could be undesirable consequences for society at large.
Which brings up another point. Some kids, especially in poor areas, need to work to support their families. Children like these, and others who need time out of school for one reason or another, might just drop out all together if the hours were lengthened. Even if test scores somehow do go up a bit, is it worth the increased drop out rate? And since these drop-outs don't usually end up being very productive in their futures, this costs society at large as well.
All in all, it seems that the cost to society would outweigh the benefit, perhaps to a large degree, for increasing school hours. Increasing efficiency, on the other hand, would take some initial investment, to train better teachers and improve schools, but it would pay off with improved results from relatively little cost in the long run.
I've seen good classes back in high school, but I've also seen several classes where the teacher doesn't know how to teach effectively, or the class is unruly. Trying to shove them into the class room without improving teaching methods is like trying to cook a pizza in a half-broken oven by cooking it longer. It's brute-forcing it, not fixing the actual problem, it gets bad results, and in the end, nobody's happy about it.
The real solution is to improve teaching methods and train better teachers to teach better students from the start forwards. Better methods better involve students, get them interested and involved, and when they're interested, learning in a proper academic environment that encourages (especially voluntary) critical thinking, good grades and test scores will follow.
Not to mention, there's the other end of it, an increase in school time means a cut in play time. Whether you're a kid in school, or an adult in the work force, if you're happier, you're more efficient and in the end, more productive. If someone needs those extra hours for stress relief, and doesn't get them, the productivity lost to inefficiency could outweigh that gained by extra time, giving a net loss. This would just make the problem even worse in the end. Not to mention, in an extreme case, if massive amounts of children grow up without a childhood, there could be undesirable consequences for society at large.
Which brings up another point. Some kids, especially in poor areas, need to work to support their families. Children like these, and others who need time out of school for one reason or another, might just drop out all together if the hours were lengthened. Even if test scores somehow do go up a bit, is it worth the increased drop out rate? And since these drop-outs don't usually end up being very productive in their futures, this costs society at large as well.
All in all, it seems that the cost to society would outweigh the benefit, perhaps to a large degree, for increasing school hours. Increasing efficiency, on the other hand, would take some initial investment, to train better teachers and improve schools, but it would pay off with improved results from relatively little cost in the long run.
