Ghastly Performance of the Country’s School Children has Caused More Devastation on the Economy than the Recession

U.S. education falling behind those of other countries

By Grishma Athavale

The U.S has been perceived upon as a country of hard workers, overachievers, and gifted people all having a vigorous work ethic. Americans work approximately 40 hour work weeks, compared 35 for the French and a measly 30 hours for the Germans. In addition to this, Americans only get an average of four weeks of vacation, whereas the French get the month of August to recover from their ‘hectic’ work weeks, causing Americans to dub the Europeans as a bunch of lazy people. There is some bias and exaggerations to these statements, but overall Americans do work more than other Europeans—the same can’t be said however, for the nation’s youth.

Unfortunately, the vigorous work ethic and strive to learn has not rubbed of on the nation’s children. American children have school for only 180 days year, compared to the 195 days in Germany and 200 in East Asia. Furthermore, they only have about 2-3 hours of homework per night and are not pressured by society to take extra classes after school; a fact that appalls nations such as Japan and India, whose children take after school classes regularly to help them with their studies.

Americans also have the shortest school day, a mere six and half hours, all packed into the morning and early afternoon. Countries such as Denmark and Sweden boast a staggering 40 to 50 hour school week, making some American education reforms re-think they way the write guidelines for the nation’s schools. This morning to early afternoon school schedule gives children the opportunity to engage in some extra-curricular activities, such as soccer, tennis, or art. This is good, since the child can venture out and find something that he or she is good at, however the benefits of this are only short-term for they don’t really help the child progress further academically. The U.S needs to lengthen the school day to emphasize the fact that fun and games aren’t everything, and children should engage in something educational after school, to help them in their studies.

When summer rolls around in early to mid June, all the material that is learned over the year is quickly forgotten as the lack of practice takes effect. The three month stretch serves as an ‘education eraser’, as the typical student forgets about two months of material, a phenomenon called “summer leaning loss”. American scholars noticed however that this isn’t true for all American children. Children coming from poor families tend to do worse academically because of weak family bonds and are therefore more susceptible to learning loss. Richer kids, on the other hand, improve, for their parents send them to camps and classes to stimulate their minds, and encourage them to do something productive over the summer.

It’s no wonder that this three month stretch makes American children perform so poorly on international education tests; coming behind China, Japan, and India. These countries work harder on their children than America, do, even though they spend less on education. This embarrassing statistic shows the United States just how ineffective our education system really is, and should make the boards of education realize that our country is in dire need of an educational reform if it want to compete and match the caliber of children form other countries, notably East Asian ones.

Over the past several years, reforms have been made to several hundred schools across the country. These schools, part of the Knowledge is Power Programme (KIPP) start the school day at 7.30am and end at 5pm, and have more instructional days than the average American school. These fortunate students get 60% more education than the average American child. The county’s economy is also tied with education. A recent report from McKinsey, a management consultancy, emphasizes that the ghastly performance of the country’s school children has caused more devastation on the economy than the recession. Barrack Obama has urged school administrators to “rethink the school day”, arguing that “we can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home ploughing the land at the end of each day.”America needs to ‘buck up it’s act, if it want to remain the most powerful and influential country in the world, by ensuring the education of its future generations.