Why should the school day be extened - Research Paper Example

The report suggested that the American education system needed an improvement of time, content and expectations, in order to be effective. Different States had different opinions regarding the issue of extending the school day, with some opposing it and some supporting it (Aronson, Simmerman, & Carols, 1998). Currently, numerous research studies keep showing that America is not a world leader in educating children. Numerous reports also support these claims by showing where the country has failed.

Over the decades, there has been insignificant improvement shown by the National Assessment of Education Progress. The success disparity between the white and black children is getting wider, as SAT scores keep getting worse. All these factors are majorly attributed to the fact that school days are not as long as required. This paper will discuss why the school day should be extended, giving the advantages of making such a move. The school day should be extended, so that school going children can be adequately prepared for the tough world of work that they will face after leaving school.

According to Chmelynski (2006), the classroom can be used to make the modern work place more relevant by asssuring employers that school leavers are adequately prepared to deal with difficult work situations. . These students are the same ones who will become workers once they leave school. If they are expected to work long hours, they need to be prepared for that from an early age, while still in school (Silva, 2007). Recently, United States President, Barrack Obama, was quoted as saying that spending more time in school could help students of this generation to compete effectively with their international peers.

The President proposed that this could be achieved by extending the duration of time that American children spend in class, or lessening the amount of time spent on summer vacations. Such a move, according to the American President, would effectively prepare them for the economy of the 21st century. The short amount of time spent by American children in class puts the country at an economic disadvantage compared to other countries with longer school days. According to Silva (2007), American children were found to spend very little time in school, compared to all other regions of the world.

Japan is the country whose children spend the most number of days in school, in a year. They spend up to 243 days a year, as opposed to American children who only spend an average of 180 days a year in school. This makes the American children incapable of effectively competing with students from other countries. For this reason, the school day should be extended (Aronson, Simmerman, & Carols, 1998). With extended school days, administrators have the ability to ensure that the children are given a well-rounded education.

This is in the sense that, today, as a result of short school days, many schools continually sacrifice important aspects of education such as physical education, arts and social studies,