More and more school

In California, where over half of this year's high school seniors can expect to be denied their diplomas (see preliminary exit exam scores here), the authorities are getting rather nasty about enforcing compulsory education:

ESCONDIDO, Calif. -- Parents could go to jail for up to six months under a daytime curfew ordinance for schoolchildren that goes into effect in Escondido Monday.

The ordinance, approved by the Escondido City Council in July, makes it unlawful for students ages 12 to 17 who are "subject to compulsory education" to "loiter, idle, wander" in public places on days when school is in session.

Students who violate the curfew could be fined up to $250 or have to do 20 hours of community service, while their parents could face six months in jail and a fine up to $1,000.

In Massachusetts, school districts are being offered increased funding if they go to an 8-hour school day:

Boston, Springfield, Cambridge, and at least 17 other Massachusetts school districts are moving forward with plans to extend the day in some of their schools, rejecting the traditional 180-day, 6-hour schedule because educators believe there is not enough time to teach students what they need to know.

The 20 districts met Friday's deadline to apply for grant money that the state Department of Education is offering to districts that want to explore adding about two hours to the day in some of their schools....

With its grants, Massachusetts becomes the first state to officially sanction a longer schedule, though some schools in Massachusetts and around the country already are experimenting with a longer school day or school year....

Mary Russo, principal of Boston's Murphy K-8 School, said the benefits of a longer school day are worth the complications. ''Right now, as we think about our school, we think about it as not having enough time within the confines of the 8:30 a.m.-to-2:30 p.m. day to teach everything that needs to be taught, everything we'd want kids to have," Russo said. ''The hours in the school day just aren't enough for us."

Keep in mind that many kids have a 45-minute bus ride, one way, to get to and from school. If the school day is increased to 8 hours, their day is increased to 9.5 hours, excluding all extracurricular activities. Assuming 8 hours of sleep and an hour or two of homework per night, an active child who is in sports and marching band and swim team will get no more than 2 or 3 hours per day with their families, while the school will get 4 times that much. Who is raising the child, exactly?

The idea that 6 hours per day is not enough relies on the unspoken assumption that the school is creating the child, that everything the child will know in life will be poured into their heads in school. Reading, writing, and arithmetic has become "Everything we'd want kids to have." Evidently children cannot be expected to learn anything of value outside of school.

Another unspoken belief comes into play here, that old saw about how we live in "an increasingly complex world," therefore it is much harder to teach kids enough to prepare them for adulthood. True, our technology is more complex, but it's not as if school teaches you to set your voicemail message, reduce spam in your inbox, or set the clock on your microwave. Nor does school teach you how your credit rating affects the interest rate on your mortgage, how to set up utilities when you move, how to take a flight or book a hotel room, how to choose the healthier items on the menu, how to do your taxes, or how to renew your driver's license.

Reading and writing the English language is much the same task that it always was. Multiplication works the same way. Science courses have been taught for many decades now, and while inert gases are now called noble gases, and we now know Newton wasn'tentirely correct, little has really changed at the high school level. We may live in an increasingly complex world, but it does not follow that school subjects have grown more complex. (Actually, I think the whole idea of the "increasingly complex world" is sheer malarkey, because most of us don't sew our own clothes, take care of livestock, plant and harvest, carve furniture, brew ale, assist women in childbirth, or can or pickle or smoke or dry or salt-preserve foods, and those were all complex tasks as well.)

Our neighbors' son started kindergarten this year, and they're already giving him daily homework. It's one thing to believe that high school classes may need to teach more material because of our high-tech world, but kindergarten? The real purpose of that homework is just to get the kid used to having to do homework every day. I don't understand why parents in Massachusetts would tolerate having an 8-hour day, 1.5 hours on the bus in some cases, probably 2 or more hours of homework in the higher grades-- I mean, when these kids grow up and get full time jobs, it's going to seem like a real relief!

John Gatto has said it takes only about 100 hours to transmit reading, writing, and arithmetic to children. Yet our kids attend over 14,000 hours of schooling before we reward them with a diploma. Obviously education is only part of the purpose.