CNN iReport

According to this story from Chicago Public Radio,(http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MORE_SCHOOL?SITE=WBEZELN&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT) Obama has the idea that the way to improve the schools is to add more days to the school year and/or more hours to the school day.

The moderate "10-minute" addition suggested to create more time for mathematics instruction would have my wholehearted approval. However, read further, to where Duncan weighs in with his idea of what is the suitable amount of time for your children to be in the care and control of the state:

"'Those hours from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock are times of high anxiety for parents,' said Education Secretary Duncan."

Yikes! Keep my kids because some parents are anxious? How about making it optional--those who don't have any place to go can stay for extra instruction or enrichment provided by teachers who get paid extra? Those, like mine, who are straight-A students, can come home so they can have a life!

Nobody is anxious at my house, but you add four hours or even TWO to the school day and you'd have anxiety galore.

My kids--ages 13 and 15, one of each gender--have plenty of time to do chores and homework on Mondays. They volunteer at a hippotherapy ranch on Tuesdays and do homework after. (For Harvey: hippotherapy is physical therapy done on the back of a horse!) Wednesdays they do homework before going to youth group. Thursdays they spend more time at  chores and homework. Fridays they're chilling, waiting for family game night. Note that NONE of these cost a dime, some give back to the less fortunate, and  all promote balance and responsibility toward self and others. It only took a couple of phone calls to arrange the volunteer opportunity (and carpools could help kids whose moms work) and a typed list and blank calendar to arrange for the kids to schedule their own the daily chores and homework. They're also allowed to schedule one hour of screen time each week day.

So, if you add on to their school day, they'll be out in the dark by 6:10 a.m. to catch the bus and home by 7:45 p.m. No church, no volunteering,no opportunity to be around adults of character we'd like noticed, no chores.  In other words, the State will have stripped everything my family believes is useful for the raising up of good adults.

Since we're all in bed by 9:00 p.m (we get up at 5:00, remember?), we'd have roughly 30 minutes during a very late supper to see and love on and instill our values in our kids before bath/bed interferred.  (And even that would likely be included in the long "school" day, as they'd probably like to feed them supper, too, to eliminate parents' "stress" over having to provide food!)

No thanks.

I understand that if you work you'd likely love the state to pay for your child's care until you get home. And having them fed would be nice, too, right?

Even if it meant more time for indoctrination, though? If your child's every waking hour is at school, who has more influence on them--you, or the State? Who gets to decide which service projects are "worthy" and who should be considered a hero in that kind of situation? The State, naturally.

THAT's a dangerous direction to go. Ask any nation that's followed it to their doom.

I'm grateful my kids are nearly grown--and that I'm both qualified AND certified to teach them should I find I need to in order to free them from inordinately long or State-controlled school days. I do worry about the kids whose parents only see "free daycare" and don't see the indoctrination opportunity it would grant to the same education secretary and president who just attempted some sort of hero-worship lesson to plant the seedling of a cult of personality about a month ago. I don't think it's an accident that Obama and his "new-and-improved" department of education want to have control of education "from age zero to grade 12" (something I read a couple weeks ago) and for nearly every waking hour. No accident at all.

Caveat emptor. Some things that are "free" cost bundles.