Why does president Obama want longer school days or reduce the summer vacation? Doesn't he see that it isn't the time that makes a student smarter it is the quality of teaching and motivation. If more time were used to make unruly students mind it would help other students concentrate on doing ther work. People plan there work days and vacations around the school year and they will be put under a difficult situation at there already shaky jobs.
Our government has taken God out of the school systems,I believe that this has taken away an important edge that foreign countries still have belief in God encourages better conduct and respect which is imperative to be able to teach.

The comment posted by Dana Head regarding Mr. Obama's call for more in school hours is certainly an example of why the president may think this is an important issue.
It is "at their already shaky jobs", not "there already shaky jobs.
Also the last paragraph is one run on sentence that should be three sentences or at least two with one making use of a semi-colon.
However, the final paragraph also gives the impression that Ms Head is perhaps in the teaching profession and this exposes a whole array of other problems.

And how many kids are going to drop out then?

Having lived outside the U.S. for a number of years, I can confirm that most other countries have a longer school year for childern than the U.S. systems require. My 9 and 5 year old boys go to school for 8 hours per day, 5 days per week and 11 months in the year in Mexico. I believe that parents are responsible for their childern and should take a strong role in ensuring the education of the kids. Other countries are trying much harder than the U.S. to succeed!The work ethic needs to be instilled in our next generation at the school level!!

Keeping kids in school longer will not make kids smarter any more than keeping a mouse in a cookie jar longer will make it a cookie.

Tom (educator with 40 years experience)

A longer school year will not help the American Educational system. Pouring $ into won't help either. What WILL help are parents who are ACTIVELY involved in educationg their children - reading to them from an early age, NOT letting them sit in front of the TV or video games for hours on end, putting discipline back into our schools and parental support - that's what makes the difference! Without shared responsibility, the schools can only do so much, even if the kids are in school EVERY day!!!!!

Increasing the number of days in the school year would not make the kids any smarter. The work ethic while at school is just not there anymore. If the kids went 365 days a year, it just gives them more time to screw off while inside the walls of the school. In fact most should not be called "schools" anymore. The better word for it is "Babysitting"!

A lot of schools are now dismissing early 6-8 days during a school year so that the teachers can have some "work" time. WHAT? Not to mention that the high schools have delayed start one day a week for the same purpose. The kids don't have to be at school until 9:00a.m. In the meantime, parents who have normal 8-5 jobs have to figure out how to get their kid to school late one day a week and they have to worry about what their kid is doing during that couple of hours! What I've seen is that most kids hang out at fast food restaurants, hanging all over each other in the parking lots, smoking and doing who knows what else. I don't see how the delayed start is in the best interest of the students. What happened to teacher in-service days for the teachers to "work" - they still have those on the calendar, in additional to the early dismissal days and delayed start days. A longer school year is not the answer to the education problem. Maybe one place to start would be the school boards screening the teachers better to determine which ones are there to teach the kids and which ones are there so they can be off of work during the summer!!

This coming from someone who was introducing people recently as being "in da house". Hmmm...
What an embarassment for our country - our President standing up giving shout outs to people ghetto style.

OBAMA IS JUST FINDING MORE WAYS TO SPEND MORE MONEY.

seriously this is a stupid matter making school longer won't help anything because like most other commenters said its the quality i recently finished school and for the past 10 years have not learned anything in school all they do is repeat the basics every year i practically got staight a's thoughout my school years and never studied once my last couple of years at school i actually skipped more school just because i got bored of listening to the same stuff every single year and it was not just the school i went to either because i did work at other schools too and you can make fun of the way i wrote this and all but it just proves schools way to easy since i got a's with this kind of wrighting.

longer school is horrible torture just like staying at job later than necessary to watch a phone that never rings after hours just to say nobody is here. And ghetto style or not hes in da house and can say that. You pay him every paycheck with taxes so he can say that. Hahaha

No derespect to anyone but mice and cookies analogy validates just why our American kids are "stupid" - the solution might not be longer days or extended months - but at least someone realizes that a great percentage of our kids are not ready to compete with children of other nations - where even the privilege of going to school is the sole motivation to learn!

As a child that entered private school at 4, attended summer school every year during high school and graduating at age 15, I had better learning results than my peers who entered at age 5-7 and graduated at 18-19 and only went to school when they had to. Kids get bored around age 16 and giving them instructions and commands as any teacher might know is difficult. OUR KIDS LACK QUALITY AND QUANITY - most teachers are trying to raise their own kids while having to raise American kids - whose parents are working 2-3 jobs just to be able to send them to school --- the system is NOT working FIX IT!

Who do we blame? No it's not the teachers fault who are underpaid and should not have to be babysitters - and NO it's not solely the parents fault - who are overworked, underpaid and exhausted daily and stressed out. It's OUR fault - the American school SUCKS! - and needs a major overhaul - and a serious upgrade for all kids or every background because sooner or later the educated will be confronted by the uneducated.

You can all argue whatever ya want but george bush face still looks like my sharpei's ass.

Obama is all talk, he would make a good auto salesperson.

im a kid my self and the things he's saying is just making my school mad and more rebelyis than they was.I have the guts to stand 4 my self and so do meney other pepole my age I think he is truly tring to help this nation but he should be more focused on the economy rather then spending tax payers money we have to help the tax payers be fore we can spend there money this nation voted and 4 a nother 4 years we have him u might as well comprimise than start more drop outs and thing's get out of controll u know how we acted wen u triyed to get us to ware uniforms just think what whould happen wen u try to make it all year

im a kid my self and trust me the students of meny schools dont take to this to kindly we will fight back no mater if we win or not