As I See It

by Cynthia Tucker

As the editorial page editor at the Atlanta Constitution and a frequent commentator on political talk shows, Cynthia Tucker is known as a compassionate and critical observer of today's political and social scene. Intelligent, thoughtful and topical, AS I SEE IT is full of Tucker's analytical and common sense. Her years of experience and sharp observational skills combine to form one of the most interesting columns available to your readers today.

Samples

A LONGER SCHOOL YEAR WILL KEEP AMERICA COMPETITIVE

WASHINGTON -- Classrooms are coming alive around the country, and parents are lining up at big-box stores with their lists of school supplies in hand. In a ritual repeated every year in late summer, students are starting their required 180 days or so of study.

Why 180 days? Why do students take most of the summer off?

It's a system that dates to the 19th century, when most Americans were connected to agricultural work, and their children were valuable farm labor.

(Actually, the 180 days is an average: A couple of states add a few more days, while several require fewer. And, with states desperately cutting their budgets, the trend is toward fewer days, not more.)

Last year, President Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, called for more classroom time for the nation's students, noting that a globalized economy demands a better education of its workers. "Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today," Duncan said.

Critics of the nation's public schools sometimes overstate their shortcomings, insisting that educational standards are lower than they used to be. That's quite unlikely.

As a graduate of Alabama's public schools, I remember when dropout rates were not calculated because educators simply didn't expect that all students would receive diplomas. Some kids routinely started school later in the fall and stopped early in the spring because they had to help with harvests and planting. They were expected to earn a living doing agricultural work -- for which formal education wasn't required. Happily, educational standards have been elevated since then.

Unfortunately, the demands of the work world have changed faster than our schools have. The United States can no longer rely on a vast manufacturing sector that churns out middle-class wages -- with benefits -- to those with a high school diploma or less. Manufacturing is moving, increasingly, to lower-wage nations. That tide cannot be reversed.

But raising educational standards can produce workers able to compete. Even in a stingy economy, the unemployment rate among college graduates is lower than that among workers with only high school diplomas.

Indeed, the more education you have, the less likely it is that you've had trouble finding work. So, with nearly 90 percent of the nation's kids in its public schools, raising classroom standards is among our most vital tasks.

That won't be accomplished through any single fix. Merit pay should be instituted to encourage teacher competence; class sizes, especially in the early grades, should be smaller; and, yes, instructional time should be increased.

Experts disagree about whether students need more school days or longer days. The most rigorous studies have shown that more "time on task" raises test scores -- whether by lengthening the school hour or the school year.

Either way, many school systems have flinched at the increased costs. Teachers and administrators will have to be paid more; energy costs will rise if school buildings are open longer. But there aren't many things more beneficial to the country than educating its citizens, so a misplaced fiscal prudence shouldn't hold up reform.

Money isn't the only obstacle, though. Since the school calendar hasn't changed very much for more than a century, parents, kids and the leisure industry are all deeply invested in keeping things just the way they are. Experiments around the country with shorter but more frequent vacations have met with complaints from harried parents who don't want to have to find additional child care.

It may take a few years -- and a few successful experiments around the country -- to persuade parents that their children aren't spending enough time in school. The nine-month calendar, like the McGuffey Reader, will eventually lose its hold on our culture.

(Cynthia Tucker can be reached at cynthia@ajc.com; follow her blog at http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker.)

COPYRIGHT 2010 THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

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