House of Eratosthenes

President Obama said Tuesday that American children should go to school longer — either stay later in the day or into the summer — if they’re going to have any chance of competing for jobs and paychecks against foreign kids.

“We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day,” Obama said, adding U.S. education to his already-crowded list of top priorities.

“That calendar may have once made sense, but today, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea. That is no way to prepare them for a 21st-century economy.

“I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas, not with Malia and Sasha,” Obama said, referring to his daughters, as the crowd laughed.

“But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom.

“If they can do that in South Korea, we can do it right here in the United States of America.”

“Despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we have let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short and other nations outpace us,” Obama said. “In eighth-grade math, we’ve fallen to ninth place. Singapore’s middle-schoolers outperform ours 3-to-1. Just a third of our 13- and 14-year-olds can read as well as they should.”

Among his proposals: extra pay for better teachers, something opposed by teachers unions.

“It is time to start rewarding good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones,” he said in a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Teachers groups applauded Obama’s speech, largely sidestepping the thorny question of merit pay.

“Teachers want to make a difference in kids’ lives, and they appreciate a president who shares that goal and will spend his political capital to provide the resources to make it happen,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers.

Of course, once they’re spending that extra time, what’re they doing?

I can think of two things that would have been of tremendous value to me if they’d taken place in the public school system; one of which would also apply to many others, the other of which, maybe, not so much.

Reconciling a checkbook. I point that out because it’s such an easy exercise that there’s really no excuse for the school not walking the kids through this. You certainly can’t raise the time-honored question “aw c’mon, when am I ever gonna need to do that?”

And, using a binary editor to hack a file. Because whether you grow up into the exciting field of software engineering or network engineering or computer forensics…or not…computer users, I maintain, really should understand what computer files are and how they’re put together. Just like, before you loan your keys to the teenager, they really should have gone through the exercise of pulling the jack out of the trunk and changing the tire, just to show they can do it and to demonstrate a working knowledge of how the parts fit together.

When people talk about having skills to compete in the 21st century, that’s what it means to me. Admittedly, I’m bringing a strong personal bias in to that, but it’s an idea that has some merit. You learn how to work something by understanding how it’s put together, or by understanding how it behaves. If you work with a thing by understanding only how it behaves, you’re working from a script, and that is not competing. That’s “when I press this button, that light is supposed to come on, and…whoops…why won’t it come on??”

And I humbly submit that if education involves something besides enabling self-sufficiency in a little dilemma like that, then a question needs to be opened up as to what kind of education that is, and how it’s supposed to help anyone.

Why do I think this has noting to do with promoting a better education but more to do with increasing teachers pay? Or worse, some Bill Ayers socialistic “voluntary” community “give back” type reeducation BS which I recall Pres. Obama wanted to start something along the lines of. Could this be the first step?

I trust this man to NOT do the right thing, the evidence for that is overwhelming. I can’t trust him to now suddenly have the right motives in regards to this nations children’s education. My pessimism is fueled by the reality of the last fifty days.

Our schools are crappy so spending more time there with help elevate that, how? Crap in, crap out. More crap in…

BTW, I’ve been to South Korea. Lovely place, but I think we should set our sights a tad bit higher. (Man, now I’m jonesin’ for some Kimchi).
- tim | 03/11/2009 @ 11:43
Increasing teachers’ pay isn’t the half of it.

School will then complete its transition to public day care. There they can spend even more time being indoctrinated by the Progressives who run the school systems and bring them up to be good little pacifist vegans who want to be taken care of by the State.

A longer school day isn’t needed to teach our kids how to balance checkbooks. In that antiquated school system that “we can no longer afford”, grades were better because they meant something and people worked for them … they didn’t have to be inflated. That’s because we A) expected the students to work and to learn, and B) we weren’t filling their little heads with bitter works by obscure female authors and teaching them how racist they all are (if they’re white) and what a low-down, mean, imperialist nation they live in. Plus it’s ok that Johnny can’t add — we’ll just pass him anyway so we don’t damage his widdow sewf esteem.

I went to school in a rural school district and learned algebra, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, and pre-calculus. I also took drafting, history, typing, Spanish, and art. We seemed to have plenty of time.

Believe it or not, Mr. Obama, we still do have farmers in this country. They grow this stuff they put on your plate. And a lot of those farmers and others would like a little time with their children to teach them their own ~~ideologies~~ values and the importance and rewards of hard work. Of course, you don’t like the whole “rewarding hard work” concept. Or ideologies outside of your own.

If we want to improve our schools, we should try bringing back expectations & discipline. Alien concepts these days.
- philmon | 03/11/2009 @ 15:15
Reconciling a checkbook. I point that out because it’s such an easy exercise that there’s really no excuse for the school not walking the kids through this. You certainly can’t raise the time-honored question “aw c’mon, when am I ever gonna need to do that?”

Ummm… The last time my checkbook got reconciled was when The Second Mrs. Pennington did it, and she walked back in 1998. I look at my monthly statements and if the balance is close, i.e., within a hundred bucks of what I show in MS-Money (and it always is), then I’m down with that. I’ve never had an issue with my credit union in the 30+ years I’ve been doing bid’niz with ’em. And I haven’t bounced a check since I was in my 20s, and it was The First Mrs. Pennington who did that trick.

TMI? 😉

I almost asked for the smelling salts, Morgan, after reading the first line of this post… but thought better of it.
- bpenni | 03/11/2009 @ 16:57
[…] electives are perhaps debatable, but both of these belong in the core: Reconciling a checkbook. I point that out because it’s such an easy exercise that […]
- dustbury.com » A curriculum for the 21st century | 03/12/2009 @ 15:27
Philmon speaks for me in his last paragraph. Nothing wrong with what he said before that.

I would support higher expectations along with a return to flunking students who have not met grade expectations, advancing students who perform above age level, and allowing employers to employ younger teens in low-skill jobs, so that kids who quit school have somewhere to go and the dignity of earning their own wage.
- Morenuancedthanyou | 03/13/2009 @ 03:14
I’m not onboard with this idea at all. I can’t believe you wrote that. Why in God’s name would I want my kids spending more time in public school? Obama doesn’t plan on turning these politically controlled warehouses into actual educational powerhouses of learning – he just wants more time to indoctrinate our children into mindless progressive voters.
- Daphne | 03/13/2009 @ 17:19
Well, The Chosen One is in for four years, not a single minute less, isn’t He? So we might as well give Him a nod when He does something right, even if it’s clearly nothing more than lip service. Other than the midterms in ’10 it’s about the only opportunity we have left to us. And Clinton probably did much better things for the republic by pretending to be a Republican after his 1994 spanking, that he would’ve if he’d been left to just keep dancing with the ones that brung ‘im…or, at least, he did much less damage at any rate.

Regarding farmers: Yes, Phil’s right, I think. Obama gives short shrift to those who grow food, or those who fix the trucks driven by those who grow food, or those who repair their equipment or those who ring up the cash registers at the Wal-Marts patronized by those who grow food. I don’t believe Obama recognizes the contributions of anyone besides movie stars, community organizers and party bosses, but what’s to be expected? The guy hasn’t really done anything. He thinks the answer to a struggling economy and a mammoth deficit is high taxes and more debt…that just about says it all, right?

On the checkbook, yes, it’s possible this is in need of an update. I must confess that I, too, go quite awhile without writing a check. And yet sometimes when I hear young people talk, it seems to me they need more challenges in this area, not fewer. By which I mean, recognizing that two mindsets have two different perceptions of something, and finding out where they diverged as a first step to finding common ground. I think this is how they become liberal; they just recognize “we” and “they,” and do what they can do to win, to “be a part of this thing.” It’s sad that this is exactly what they think their opposition is doing, when they need to look in the mirror.
- mkfreeberg | 03/13/2009 @ 17:40
Pretty much what I was saying, Daph.

No disrespect to our esteemed host. Just had to give him a little slap 😉
- philmon | 03/13/2009 @ 21:20
Philmon, Morgan is arguing for rational schooling – Obama isn’t. Our esteemed host deserves to be smacked for confusing the issue.

Morgan – what in the heck are you going on about with checkbooks and farmers? The public schools, even the great, expensive ones like mine, are cesspools of ideological indoctrination and half ass academic measures.
- Daphne | 03/13/2009 @ 21:27
Oh, trust me, Daphne (I’ve always loved that name, by the way) … I consider Morgan a good friend and I’ve never met him. I completely trust his motives.

I just know that Obama isn’t, like you say. And probably most people in the Education Lobby.
- philmon | 03/13/2009 @ 22:05
Thank you for the sweetness, Philmon. I think Morgan runs truer than most men, having given his positions actual thought, but I don’t mind calling him when I think he’s bumped wrong.
- Daphne | 03/13/2009 @ 22:17
Lady and Gentleman, I understand and respect the point you’re both trying to make, and I agree with it too. To me, this notion that His Holiness might have something up His Holy Sleeve, and be up to some kind of shenanigans…to label it “plausible” would be an understatement of such magnitude as to border on the commission of a crime. We’re all on the same page here.

However, I’m afraid I can’t accompany you on what comes next. To dismiss it just because He’s the one who thought of it, even if one might be well-justified in speculating on His darker intentions — well, that’s heading down a little too far down the trail for me. For all these years I have been pointing at and guffawing at and riduculing the Move-On hardcore left wing, for living out their wretched lives according to that premise, “It’s gotta be a bad idea because GWB is the guy who thought of it.” I’d like to keep on complaining about that, and I can’t do that if I’m going to do the same thing.

Michael Corleone’s advice in Godfather III (c’mon, it wasn’t that bad of an installment) comes to mind. Don’t hate your enemies. It clouds your judgment.

I look at it like this: Back in my day, if you graduated twelfth grade and you were still confusing “there,” “they’re” and “their” it was because you were a lazy butthole. It seems to me kids-these-days really, honest-to-goodness don’t know any better. And I’m doubting like the dickens they’re clocking out from Memorial Day to Labor Day because kindly old Uncle Fred needs help feeding the chickens or churning the butter; I think those idle hands are spending far more time grasping a Wii controller than a cow’s udder. Can’t prove it. Just a theory.
- mkfreeberg | 03/14/2009 @ 11:49
I’m not onboard with this idea at all. I can’t believe you wrote that. Why in God’s name would I want my kids spending more time in public school? Obama doesn’t plan on turning these politically controlled warehouses into actual educational powerhouses of learning – he just wants more time to indoctrinate our children into mindless progressive voters.

Bingo. This line of thinking is the very first thing that popped into my mind while reading this piece. What the hell, Morgan? You want to give the socialist types even greater opportunity to brainwash the kids into accepting normal that which is sick and weird…and branding as sick and weird that which is normal?

As Rep James Traficant (D-OH) used to say, “Give me a break, Mr Speaker!”

I have an idea. How about we cut all the politically correct bullsh*t out of the school day and focus on the basics? Most of this trendy stuff that kids are learning now – the caring-for-the-environment bit, for example – is something they can learn about in college or on their own time, if they were so inclined.

I have a mother AND a girlfriend who both work in public education, and both of them go bananas at the mere mention of cutting out the claptrap and going back to what schools were like in, say, the 1950’s. They make all sorts of excuses (diverse student population, hamstring by laws, union rules) when I ask them why kids from Estonia and Vietnam are beating the snot out of our little crum-crunchers on the standardized international tests. I ask them why an exchange student from Romania told me that he’d have to go back and take more high-school-level courses in his native land after receiving a diploma here in this country. (Answer: Romania’s school system believes that ours is not rigorous enough and doesn’t properly prepare students for adult life.)

I get stony silence, raw emotion, excuses, deflection, and of course, interpersonal problems in my relationship for daring to ask such questions of my mom and g/f.
- cylarz | 03/17/2009 @ 00:42

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Obama Presses for Longer School YearWednesday, March 11th, 2009

Obama Presses for Longer School Year
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009