A few weeks ago, President Obama urged students across the country to take responsibility for their education. Now he says that in order to compete with other students around the world, U.S. students need to spend more time in school, the Associated Press reports.
But, according to FOXNews.com, critics say Obama's proposal to extend the school year and shorten summer vacation will hurt the economy, leading to increased costs for school systems, major cuts to the nation's hotel and tourism industries and a serious blow to summer camp operators.
"The challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom," Obama said earlier this year.
"Young people in other countries are going to school 25, 30 percent longer than our students here," Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the AP. "I want to just level the playing field."
Other countries may have more school days, but the AP article points out that they all don't spend more time in the classroom.
U.S. kids spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). Even though Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than the U.S. (180 days).
Researcher Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution looked at math scores in countries that added math instruction time. Scores rose significantly, especially in countries that added minutes to the day, rather than days to the year.
For the complete stories, visit AP and FOXNews.com.
