Legislators and some members of the State Board of Education are now talking about re-instituting a 180-day mandatory school calendar in reaction to “School Daze: Michigan’s Shrinking School Year,” released by the Center for Michigan last week.
The report found that, in the wake of Michigan’s relaxation of the official school calendar several years ago, 98 percent of Michigan school districts are holding fewer than 180 days of classes and many are not meeting the guidelines of 1,098 hours of instruction. Meanwhile, many countries worldwide are holding classes more than 200 days a year.
A summary of reactions to our report:
SENATOR WAYNE KUIPERS (CHAIR OF SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE): “I was a proponent of getting rid of the day requirement because I saw schools were getting around it by calling half days full days,” he told Gongwer News Service. “But I’m more than a little surprised that we have districts that are way below what we used to be. Given all the complaints about the graduation requirements and that kids can’t get things done, it seems you wouldn’t be moving down in days, you’d be moving up in days.”
BOOTH NEWSPAPERS’ PETER LUKE: “Districts say they don’t have the money to go back to 180 days, let alone the 190 supported by education advocates in the Legislature. Funny thing is, according to the Michigan Department of Education, 82 percent of the costs for school operations last year were employee salaries and benefits. Every additional day of instruction lawmakers could impose thus has already been paid for by taxpayers. All Granholm and lawmakers have to do is tell schools to schedule 190 days, or more, and take the year deep into June, restoring what most other states uphold as an indicator that they value education. The teachers unions whose members made an average of $55,000 last year might not like it, but so what? Children are being absolutely shortchanged by a policy that seems to cover everything except an education critical to their economic future. And Michigan’s. As Michael Flanagan, Michigan’s superintendent of instruction, said in the report: ‘Trading a couple more minutes each day in school for fewer days is outrageous.’”
DETROIT FREE PRESS: “The findings are disturbing. Weather-related cancellations are understandable, but in many districts, the report says, a shorter calendar is a cost-cutting step or offered to teachers in lieu of raises. Meantime, in nations such as Korea and Japan, American rivals in the global economy, school years run 220 days or more.”
OLIVET SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT DAVE CAMPBELL: “THIS IS OUTSTANDING!!! This is a great service to the children of Michigan. Thanks so much.”
MICHIGAN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR JACK LESSENBERRY: We need to keep kids in the classroom more, rather than fewer, days, if we are to win the jobs of the future. Yes, that will cost money and some hardships. But it is essential. To quote Ballard, Michigan’s leading economist, “As a society, we’ve got to find a way to do this,” he said, adding, “I don’t know why this isn’t on the radar.” What we need to do now is put it on the radar. If you want to learn more, and to see how your district is doing, go on line to thecenterformichigan.net, find the report, and check things out. And then call your local legislator and go get mad.
MICHIGAN SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT MIKE FLANAGAN: “For Michigan to be an economic leader, first it must be an education leader,” said Mike Flanagan, state superintendent of public instruction. “This cannot happen if our schools are reducing, rather than adding, important quality learning time.”
8 Comments
If we are truly serious about competing with China, Japan and India, we need to have kids in school 13 months a year!
It is surprising that no one, and I do mean no one, bothers to look at the problems of education from the point-of-view of the customer: the student and parents. If they did, they’d discover that the needs of the customer vary in every, and I mean every, grade level. The demands on teachers are correspondingly different, but there is no recognition of this in time-on-task, pay, class size,collateral assistance, etc.
Somewhere along the way we need to re-invent the schools, one grade at a time, based on child development knowledge, and educational research.
Education is not a sausage factory, but we approach our system as though it were.
What guarantee is there that given X number of days school is in session, those children will indeed be in school? In my experience after teaching 31 years is that there are more and more excuses for children NOT being in school on any given day. Excuses like sporting events, family vacations, weddings, band trips, excursions and sometimes Mom and dad just needing the child at home to baby sit, watch puppies being born or help clean house. It seems as that anytime a child or parent wishes the child can miss school and the teachers are to provide lessons for them. The real harm is the child misses the dialogue, give and take, and socialization that occurs in the classroom. Lab classes really suffer as well as missed exams. How to make up, prevent unfair advantage or cheating etc. Glad I am retired!
If we don’t have the money to improve our educational system for the students, than we have too many students. Snip snip.
Don’t forget … it’s OUR education system that has allowed/fostered many of the problems. Case in point is the (current) outrage with AIG. Congress, full of “highly educated” men and women – most of whom were educated in our great country – allowed the language which allowed the “bonuses” to the AIG employees. We don’t need another generation of “educated” leaders such as these; we need an improvement. Just a thought.
I was a teacher/Administrator for 37 years and served on a large city Board of Education for 8 years.
I can not imagine what is happening as far as “Snow Days” each year that are not made up.
This is rediculous and steps must br taken immediately to correct this situation.
Yes and teacher organizations must be part of the solution
Perhaps instead of making kids go to school longer maybe, just maybe try to cut down the socializing from both the teachers and the students. I’m currently in High School and to be honest thats where I see the biggest waste of time, Teachers running on about their lives or some other trivial subject opposed from what they should actually be teaching. Also there is the problem with parents, most don’t really care and do not discipline their children to do their work which is suppose to prepare their children to “succeed”. Also to make us more competitive with the world perhaps the teachers should also be put to a higher standard of teaching; Yes, Actually CHALLENGE the students instead of wasting their time with busy work.(Some might fail but were looking to become competitive with the rest of the world so I suppose we should look to Capitalism as an inspiration, the ones who really want it will succeed while the others looking to have a fun social outing will fail miserably.)
If as it seems from some of the comments posted in the article above, the intent of this debate is make sure that our future work force is able to retain jobs in this state and prevent the loss of jobs in Michigan, we need to see how many jobs we’ve lost because our workers were unable to provide the goods and services needed compared with the number of jobs lost because the cost of wages and benefits were lower elsewhere. While an educated workforce and electorate are absolutely essential in my opinion, let’s not kid ourselves about why unemployment is as high as it is here. It is because of lower costs elsewhere. When a manufacturer closed it’s doors in Greenville to move the production line to Mexico, the company stated it was not because they were loosing money here nor because of lack of quality in production, it was for a “competitive advantage”, i.e. higher profit margins from lower wages and benefits. Until Michigan can provide an essential resource that can’t be found elsewhere, or a workforce that will cost less than can be found elsewhere, the number of days that students are in school won’t matter much to the unemployment rate. If on the other hand, the debate is truly about the quality of education that students receive as determined by the amount of time that they are in class, people like Wayne Kuipers and Mike Flannagan need to remember that the rules determining the length of a school day and how the 180 days of instruction were calculated were set by the Department of Education and the Legislature, not the schools. The schools simply operate with the rules as they are set for them. If they do not like how it is working, the ability to set the rules (and interpretaion of those rules) remains in their hands as it always has.