Are America's priorities screwed up? Four day school week?

Question

Apparently hundreds of school districts plan on having four day school weeks because of "high" oil and gas prices.

How can we spend trillions on the education of children in other countries (Iraq, Afghanistan), pay 50-60% of what the rest of the world pays for gas, not have money to send our kids to school, and still call ourselves a superpower and a developed nation?

Answer 1

I know!!!!!! We pay Athletes more than teachers, what the h**l!??!?How can baseball POSSIBLY be more important than our children's future? And some weird people spend billions of dollars a year dressing up their little dogs while never having children.

I think this is the main problem of Capitalism : Those parents who can afford to send their kids to private school do .Those parents  who could never afford private school  ,even if their children score higher on testing , don't.

We need a policy which states every American children come first  & every K-12 teacher makes at least 50k with bonuses and incentives to those who perform best. We need to have national forums to find where our priorities are now and where they should be.

Man we need to start a grassroots party!! (or one I can join!)

Answer 2

I can see a 4 day work-week for many industries.  These are all adults working....producing output.  It can be done in bureaucracy, for instance.

The problem with schools and education, even for college or university is this:

There is knowledge being dispersed and absorbed.  It is the absorption part that is the problem.

You are up against a case of diminishing returns to scale.  After a while, the brain needs 'time off' to digest the input.  Even if you change the nature of the input from math to science, or geology to sociology.  Soon, the 'natives grow restless', and no more knowledge is accumulated.

In short, for schooling, the 4 day work-week is a false economy.  And it will be reflected in the future.  

If we want so save money, fuel, etc, there are many more logical and useful and pro-active ways to do it.

Unfortunately, those in charge, all want to be the author of the next grandiose idea.... Unfortunately, the best they are is a bunch of 1/2 rate copycats.    

Answer 3

We need to start worrying about OUR country instead of worrying about others

Answer 4

It would be just like a 4 day work week.  The kids would actually be in the classroom longer on those 4 days.............in essence the hours for study would be the same.  It saves the districts on transportation, electricity, gas, etc.  In these somewhat hard times when people are scrambling to break even themselves, it is kind of hard to ask for tax increases for the school systems.  Here in Michigan, our schools operate from our State taxes specifically for education.

Answer 5

I always said, "legalize the 3 day weekend." But it was out of joke. I understand the question and that its expensive to drive nowadays. But I still want to say that people need to stop relying too much on vehicles and use other methods of transport, such as walking or biking. And the US is a super power. Super powers don't need to treat their people with too much care. Just take a look at how past super powers have treated its people. But really nothing wrong with the average American(they are wicked and awesome people) but there is something wrong with the general north american politics right now and it has to do in the name of big business money. Though the country is losing money. Some businesses are gaining big off this... Look at how oil is becoming so profitable.  

Answer 6

The US has spent an estimated $3 TRILLION on the war in Iraq.

Think what that could have done for education.