Part IV: More school, with a difference

Personally, I find summer vacation annoying, because I’m a parent. Summer jerks us out of our routines. We have to find programs for the kids, drive them to new neighborhoods, drop them off and pick them up at odd new times--it would be so much easier if school went year-round with a three-week vacation that coincided with ours.

Which brings me to the oddest things about school schedules: They’re so totally out of sync with work schedules.

Never mind summer vacation. How about the normal school day? As a rule, children get out of school around 2 o’clock. Adults get off work around 5 or 6 o’clock.

It’s like that Seinfeld joke about hot dogs always coming in six-packs and hot dog buns always coming in eight-packs. Who set up this system? Is there some secret syndicate of aliens dressed as bureaucrats who don’t understand the connection between adults and children? Don’t they realize that children and grown-ups by and large come as matched sets?

Maybe the mismatch mattered less back when most households had only one working parent. But today most children have two working parents, and many kids live in single-parent households.

More school, with a difference Personally, I find summer vacation annoying, because I’m a parent. Summer jerks us out of our routines. We have to find programs for the kids, drive them to new neighborhoods, drop them off and pick them up at odd new times--it would be so much easier if school went year-round with a three-week vacation that coincided with ours. Which brings me to the oddest things about school schedules: They’re so totally out of sync with work schedules. Never mind summer vacation. How about the normal school day? As a rule, children get out of school around 2 o’clock. Adults get off work around 5 or 6 o’clock. It’s like that Seinfeld joke about hot dogs always coming in six-packs and hot dog buns always coming in eight-packs. Who set up this system? Is there some secret syndicate of aliens dressed as bureaucrats who don’t understand the connection between adults and children? Don’t they realize that children and grown-ups by and large come as matched sets? Maybe the mismatch mattered less back when most households had only one working parent. But today most children have two working parents, and many kids live in single-parent households. Send Tamim Mail Do you have a question about school-year length and student performance? Send Tamim mail.   Aimless children, empty buildings So we have countless kids at loose ends for hours a day and for months at a time. We also have expensive facilities called schools that occupy vast acreage in our towns and cities that go unused for hours a day and for months at a time. Hmmmm. I’m getting an idea. The children’s librarian at the San Francisco Public Library tells me that many working parents now have their kids go to the library after school. It’s safe, it’s quiet, there are plenty of books, plenty of tables where kids can do their homework, and many computer terminals (at least in San Francisco) where kids can tap into cool games. The library is getting overwhelmed, because it’s not set up to accommodate hundreds of kids at a time. But schools are. How it should be Why not rethink schools as all-day community centers for kids? Maybe academics until 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon, then a quiet homework period (with only a few teacher’s aides present as monitors, because homework is the stuff kids are supposed to do on their own). Then, the fun stuff. Art and music. Sports. Drama club. Computer games. Project-based learning modules, like putting out a newspaper, building a kayak, or planting a garden. Special workshops in real-life skills offered through partnerships with small businesses in the community that get tax breaks for participating. Kids are in school, they’re learning, but they’re also making choices, shaping their own schedules, and building self-reliance. School schedules could be retooled to match the ones the parents keep, making it easier for parents to bring their kids to school in the morning and pick them up after work. When kids do get home, they’ve done most of their homework, so dinner hours and beyond could be true family time. In recent years, Americans have been debating whether education should be (a) sternly academic, rigorously controlled, and driven by codified standards, or (b) open-ended, student-centered, and creative. Considering that we have unused buildings and under-occupied students, why not end the argument and do both?