Obama wants kids to spend more time at school?

forgive me,but our children are over weight as it is,schools are cutting recess and gym every year! with longer school days and possible longer school year,when will the kids be running,skipping, jumping? as it is,kids are in school from 7 to 4 everyday and with parents working kids are spending less and less time at home,what happened to the days of bike riding and jumping rope? is there anyone out there who would actually like to see more of their 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. fyi obama this country still has a LOT of farmers! http://www.kansascity.com/444/story/1078454.html

sad to see answers such as american kids are dumb they need to be in school longer, don't you people realize that these kids are being taught to achieve standardized testing and not academia?...what about the family?...i want a part of everyday to be my influence in my children...wake the f up!!!

Here is an idea in order to graduate kids have to take tests in math, science, and English. Why not add in a PE test. Think about in order to graduate you have to be able to the following:

25 push ups in 2 minutes without stopping

35 sit ups in two minutes with out stopping

run 1 mile in under 9 minutes

Be able to do 5 pull ups in 2 minutes without letting go of the bar.

This would be easy the standards for the test I have posted are no where near a military standard and with even a little exercise a 17 or 18 year old should have no problem meeting that.

"Obama urges longer school hours, extended school year"

I disagree with longer school hours, but I wouldn't have a problem with an extended school year. A special exception can be made for those families who still have their children help with family farms.

Uh... Y'know that the problem is that they have a huge quantity of low quality education... Obama is just worsening the problem. he needs to fund schools more for better educators than make the hours longer.

Schools are also cutting toilet paper and lunches...

It gets Maylia and Shasha out of his hair for a couple of more hours.

I would rather my kid be fat than stupid...you can fix fat

I'm American so i can say this.

American kids are fat, lazy AND stupid. We have to start with them somewhere....

Longer days won't solve anything.

If you're not interested in learning, you're not going to learn - you could spend your whole life in that classroom and nothing will change. What needs to change is the QUALITY of education, not the quantity of it.

More money needs to be put towards funding for schools, so they can afford better technology, better teachers (who can actually teach, as opposed to reading out of answer keys that are sometimes incorrect, and who actually CARE about making sure that their students learn), et cetera.

And what about kids who participate in sports or other extracurriculars? There are days that I spend fifteen, or more, hours at school as it is. With a longer school day, I would just be more exhausted and have less time for sleep, and thus would be far less productive at school.

I don't feel that a longer school day is going to solve anything. What needs to be changed is the curriculum. Kids spend plenty of time in school, but the material is too easy. They need to make it harder, and they need better discipline. The problem isn't all with the school either. Kids these days are disrespectful to their teachers and don't care about school. They need motivation.

These things can all be accomplished without extending the school day. When I was in school, there was plenty of time to learn the subjects, it's just that what they taught us wasn't all that difficult, and the teachers weren't strict enough. We need to toughen the standards. We need to make sure the kids are actually LEARNING the material, not just passing each grade without learning anything.

Kids are already exhausted from being in school all day the way it is. By the end of that 7 hour day, they are ready to leave. Keeping them in school a few hours longer or so is just going to make them more restless. Yeah they'll be in school, but will they really be paying attention? No, because they won't want to be there. Give them a break. They are just kids afterall.

You must be like 5 years old. I don't know one adult that opposes Obama on this one.

Kids in America have the lowest IQs in the world, have the highest droppout rate, and you are saying we should keep things the same? Wow. You are the reason people in America are so lazy and stupid.