Maybe it’s time for Alice Cooper to rework his classic anthem to reflect the times. While “School’s out for the weekend” doesn’t pack quite the same punch as the original, it’s indicative of the new trend to a four-day school week that’s becoming a reality for more and more students across the country.
The Associated Press reports that “This fall, fully one-fourth of South Dakota’s (school) districts will have moved to some form of abbreviated schedule.” The AP notes that “more than 120 school districts in 20 states, most in the west, now use four-day weeks.”
Add to that the growing number of school districts that are balancing their budgets by giving teachers “furlough days,” which are unpaid days off from work. Sometimes furlough days only affect the teachers’ professional development training, but they can also occur on regular school days, too.
What’s happening is that the school year is being shortened bit by bit. Students get less instruction time in lieu of cutting teachers’ salaries and benefit packages. Does this strike anyone as a good idea?
We’ve all heard about the “brain drain” that occurs during a student’s summer vacation. But what effect does a four-day school week (and three-day weekend) have on students’ learning retention? It seems obvious that teachers will have to spend Mondays reviewing material students have not thought about over the long weekend, which further undermines students’ overall quality of education.
Schools using a four-day week often lengthen their school day by a few minutes to make up the difference, but it is unclear if that is a sufficient trade-off.
What is clear is that taxpayers should not accept shortened school weeks if their local school employee unions are still receiving automatic pay raises and generous benefit packages. If, after wringing every cent of savings out of the school employees’ contract, a district finds that it still needs to shorten the school calendar, then it cannot be avoided. But that should be a last resort.
Schools exist to educate students, not to ensure that school employees receive step increases and taxpayer-funded pension and health insurance programs. This trend toward furlough days and a four-day school week is another warning sign that our public schools have a spending problem, not a funding problem.
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[...] The Associated Press reports that “This fall, fully one-fourth of South Dakota’s (school) districts will have moved to some form of abbreviated schedule.” The AP notes that “more than 120 school districts in 20 states, most in the west, now use four-day weeks.” Add to that the growing number of school districts that are balancing their budgets by giving teachers “furlough days,” which are unpaid days off from work. Sometimes furlough days only affect the teachers’ professional development training, but they can also occur on regular school days, too. What’s happening is that the school year is being shortened bit by bit. Students get less instruction time in lieu of cutting teachers’ salaries and benefit packages. Does this strike anyone as a good idea? [more...] [...]