To Pay for Longer School Days, Some Parents Try Raising Money.

[elleng]

After raising $35,000 for gym mats, musical instruments and other extras last year, parents at Disney II Magnet School in Chicago now face a more daunting price tag — $100,000 — to keep their children in class an extra hour each day.

The city’s public school students have some of the shortest days in the country, as both President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are encouraging educators to extend school time. The Obama administration is even dangling $4 billion in new education money in front of states that innovate in different areas, including class schedules.

Historically in Chicago, the conversation about extending the school day has been short. To do so for all 417,000 students in the Chicago Public Schools would cost around $280 million, said a system spokeswoman, Ana Vargas, making such a move virtually impossible at a time when the school system faces a deficit that could reach $900 million in the 2010-11 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/us/27cncparents.html?pagewanted=1&hpw

[madrchsod]

1. trillions of dollars for war and not a dollar extra for the schools.

years of selling off our labor to the lowest bidder has created this problem in the cities to rural america.

[Dinger]

2. rural america does not seem to be part of the new education plan

The focus is urban schools. Fuck the country kids.