If voters fail to pass the tax initiative proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown on the November ballot, some school districts may have to shorten the school year to 160 days. Below is cartoonist Tom Meyer’s take.
Cartoon by Tom Meyer
(Click image to enlarge)
Related Posts
- Budget shortfall heightens threat of shorter school year
- More education leads to higher pay and less unemployment
- Second year of science remains a mandate
- The myth that only furloughs can balance school budgets
- California gears up for extra year of kindergarten
Filed under: Commentary, Editorial Cartoon, Featured, Quick Hits
Comment Policy
EdSource encourages a robust debate on education issues and welcomes comments from our readers. The level of thoughtfulness of our community of readers is rare among online news sites. To preserve a civil dialogue, writers should avoid personal, gratuitous attacks and invective. Comments should be relevant to the subject of the article responded to. EdSource retains the right not to publish inappropriate and non-germaine comments.
EdSource encourages commenters to use their real names. Commenters who do decide to use a pseudonym should use it consistently.
4 Responses to "Cartoonist Tom Meyer on California’s shrinking school year"
Leave a Reply
Sell off the runway to build a high speed train to nowhere.
As it WAS, a 180-day school year was already less than most of the planet. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has extended the school year to 200 days to better prepare students to be successful and academically prepared to take their places along side those getting a rigorous education in other countries.
I think less important than the absolute comparison of number of schooldays is the relative impact of the change on our particular system. It’s not uncommon for countries with more schooldays to have a shorter school day. And I believe Finland has one of the lowest number of instructional hours per year of many countries. That obviously hasn’t hindered them too greatly. So I think the fact that we are simply lopping off instructional time without making any other changes to society or the system (other than lopping off other resources as well) can only be a net negative.
That said I do think comparisons with other countries are absolutely valid in certain ways.. For example I’m in Germany at the moment and the local elementary school class size is 18 to 20 kids. They start learning a foreign language in first grade (eventually learn at least two). The school day ends about noon or so but they have a much shorter summer (I think 220 day school year). Of course they also pay taxes…
Shortened school years leave parents on their own to tutor children, not an ideal pedagogical solution. Increasingly parents may turn to educational technology, for which, at the moment, there are not many standardized and evidence-driven successful models. It may become increasingly common to utilize learning apps; we are in the Wild West phase of this nascent technology, as tech-savvy engineers create interactive apps, but what is being learned? The timing is worrisome, just as literacy and accomplishment rates are under fire.