Knowee
Questions
Features
Study Tools

There may be reasons to reject the idea of lengthening the school day.  None of them, however, are good reasons.  Rather, the supposed demerits of such a proposal fall easily in the face of its numerous financial and social benefits for families.The greatest of these benefits lies in reducing the need for childcare.  It is a curious fact of American life that the adult's work schedule and the child's school schedule are misaligned.  Children rise with the sun to head to classes, only to be sent home again hours before parents return from their jobs.  In a society where, more often than not, both parents work, this discordance creates the need for an expensive arrangement to fill the gap in families' routines.  For instance, studies show that in 2016, childcare costs accounted for 9.5 to 17.5 percent of median family income, depending on the state.  Today, 40 percent of families nationwide spend over 15 percent of their income on childcare.  Transportation to and from care sites only adds to that expense.An additional advantage of an extended school day would be to allow for greater diversity and depth in curricula.  Schools across the country have increasingly cut instruction in arts, music, and physical education (as well as recess) in order to meet objectives in reading and math.  While this unfortunate state of affairs can be partially blamed on overzealous attention to standardized tests, it points to the larger deleterious trend of narrowing students' instruction.  With a longer school day, such eliminated subjects can be restored, enriching students with a more well-rounded education.To this proposal, however, critics may object that the added time would impose strain on educators.  Can we truly ask schoolteachers—already among the most overworked individuals in society—to endure even more hours in the classroom?  The answer is that a lengthened school day need not distress teachers nor add to their already cumbersome workload.  By providing for additional areas of study in the arts and humanities, the extension would give schools cause to hire new, perhaps specialized, faculty to offer these courses.  Moreover, the time could also be allocated to sports, academic clubs, and other extracurricular activities.However, this point speaks to another objection, namely, the cost of adjusting the school day.  Whether through paying current teachers more or hiring new ones, implementing such a proposal would entail a significant financial expenditure.  There are at least two responses to this line of thinking.  First is that this increase in the cost of schooling would be offset and likely surpassed by the aforementioned savings in childcare.  Thus, while it is true that schools would require greater funding (likely necessitating higher property taxes), parents would ultimately pay the same or less overall, with greater educational opportunities for their children and fewer transportational burdens.  Second is that schools should be better funded regardless.  Recently, some schools—especially those in rural areas—have even reduced school weeks to only four days as a cost-saving measure.  It is beyond dispute that schools across the board both need and deserve a radically increased investment from citizens.  Lengthening the school day is simply one manifestation of how such funding should be utilized.With this one change, states can coordinate the lives of parents and children, reduce the need for costly childcare, and expand curricular offerings.  These worthy and desirable aims provide a clear justification for extending the school day.Passage Title: Lengthening the School Day Question 53According to the author, the increase in the cost of schooling and associated higher property taxes that would be necessitated by a lengthened school day would be offset by an equal or greater savings in childcare costs.  Which of the following would be the most reasonable objection to this claim?A.The potential drawbacks to lengthening the school day are not all financial in nature.B.The cost of childcare is too insignificant to offset the added expense.C.The school day should ideally be lengthened without raising schools' financial expenditure.D.The increased taxes would unfairly impact non-parents and businesses.

Question

There may be reasons to reject the idea of lengthening the school day.  None of them, however, are good reasons.  Rather, the supposed demerits of such a proposal fall easily in the face of its numerous financial and social benefits for families.The greatest of these benefits lies in reducing the need for childcare.  It is a curious fact of American life that the adult's work schedule and the child's school schedule are misaligned.  Children rise with the sun to head to classes, only to be sent home again hours before parents return from their jobs.  In a society where, more often than not, both parents work, this discordance creates the need for an expensive arrangement to fill the gap in families' routines.  For instance, studies show that in 2016, childcare costs accounted for 9.5 to 17.5 percent of median family income, depending on the state.  Today, 40 percent of families nationwide spend over 15 percent of their income on childcare.  Transportation to and from care sites only adds to that expense.An additional advantage of an extended school day would be to allow for greater diversity and depth in curricula.  Schools across the country have increasingly cut instruction in arts, music, and physical education (as well as recess) in order to meet objectives in reading and math.  While this unfortunate state of affairs can be partially blamed on overzealous attention to standardized tests, it points to the larger deleterious trend of narrowing students' instruction.  With a longer school day, such eliminated subjects can be restored, enriching students with a more well-rounded education.To this proposal, however, critics may object that the added time would impose strain on educators.  Can we truly ask schoolteachers—already among the most overworked individuals in society—to endure even more hours in the classroom?  The answer is that a lengthened school day need not distress teachers nor add to their already cumbersome workload.  By providing for additional areas of study in the arts and humanities, the extension would give schools cause to hire new, perhaps specialized, faculty to offer these courses.  Moreover, the time could also be allocated to sports, academic clubs, and other extracurricular activities.However, this point speaks to another objection, namely, the cost of adjusting the school day.  Whether through paying current teachers more or hiring new ones, implementing such a proposal would entail a significant financial expenditure.  There are at least two responses to this line of thinking.  First is that this increase in the cost of schooling would be offset and likely surpassed by the aforementioned savings in childcare.  Thus, while it is true that schools would require greater funding (likely necessitating higher property taxes), parents would ultimately pay the same or less overall, with greater educational opportunities for their children and fewer transportational burdens.  Second is that schools should be better funded regardless.  Recently, some schools—especially those in rural areas—have even reduced school weeks to only four days as a cost-saving measure.  It is beyond dispute that schools across the board both need and deserve a radically increased investment from citizens.  Lengthening the school day is simply one manifestation of how such funding should be utilized.With this one change, states can coordinate the lives of parents and children, reduce the need for costly childcare, and expand curricular offerings.  These worthy and desirable aims provide a clear justification for extending the school day.Passage Title: Lengthening the School Day Question 53According to the author, the increase in the cost of schooling and associated higher property taxes that would be necessitated by a lengthened school day would be offset by an equal or greater savings in childcare costs.  Which of the following would be the most reasonable objection to this claim?A.The potential drawbacks to lengthening the school day are not all financial in nature.B.The cost of childcare is too insignificant to offset the added expense.C.The school day should ideally be lengthened without raising schools' financial expenditure.D.The increased taxes would unfairly impact non-parents and businesses.

...expand
🧐 Not the exact question you are looking for?Go ask a question

Solution

The most reasonable objection to the author's claim that the increase in the cost of schooling and associated higher property taxes that would be necessitated by a lengthened school day would be offset by an equal or greater savings in childcare costs would be:

D. The increased taxes would unfairly impact non-parents and businesses.

This objection is reasonable because it considers the broader societal impact of the proposed change. While parents might save on childcare costs, non-parents and businesses could be unfairly burdened with higher taxes to fund the extended school day. This objection challenges the author's claim by suggesting that the financial benefits might not be evenly distributed across all members of society.

This problem has been solved

Similar Questions

Do you think that it is a good idea to have one less school day each

Do you think it is a good idea for the school day to be longer for the entire year? Write at least one paragraph in support of your opinion to give to your school’s principal. Make sure to write at least three sentences and include your opinion and supporting reasons.

Which statement primarily appeals to ethos to support the position that high schools should start later in the morning?It is to be expected that high school students should be tired at eight in the morning: they have exhausting extracurricular activities lasting late into the evening and hours upon hours of homework to complete each night.Some of my first-period students appear to be exhausted in the mornings, which I know, in my experience as a high school teacher, impairs their ability to learn.An early start time can have a significant negative effect on teens' health, studies have shown, making students more likely to perform poorly academically.Submit

In this humorous newspaper article, the writer voices some of their concerns about what children experience when they go to school. All of us wrap up our children when it’s cold. We put them on booster seats in the car and make them wear helmets when they’re on a bicycle. We strive constantly to keep them out of harm’s way, and then we send them off to school so they can be tortured. I suppose we all think, rather naively, that school today is exactly the same as school back in our day, except that children are now allowed calculators. I’m afraid not. School today is completely different. There’s very little bullying, and no smoking behind the bike sheds because there’s no time, not when you need to be fluent in 17 languages by age four and you’ve got those pesky quadratic cosines to finish off by break. I’m not kidding. I do not understand any of my son’s maths homework. And what’s more, I bet he knows more about advanced mathematics now, at the age of10, than most of the NASA scientists did when they put Armstrong on the moon. My daughter, who already knows Latin better than Julius Caesar, comes home from school at 18.00 every night, bleary eyed from the pressure. But before she can collapse into bed she has to do four half-hour pieces of homework. Supper? Internet? A bit of light texting? Forget it. On the basis that a parent can only be as happy as their least happy child, this makes me pretty miserable. She’s not alone, either. I read the other day that a four-year-old child had been diagnosed with ‘stress’ and I’m not surprised. Perhaps she’d been made to miss her playtime so she could finish her paper on how the gross domestic product of Iceland was affected by EU fish quotas. A child I know was sent home from school recently with a note saying that by the age of 10 she really should have a rudimentary grasp of quantum physics and that because she didn’t she must have some extra tuition. Unfortunately, on the back of this hurriedly written note the teacher had been doing some sums. There was a list of every child who was having extra lessons, how much each parent was paying and at the end, under the total he’d written, ‘Yippee’. When I was at school I remember being told that if I spelt my name properly on my examination paper I’d be halfway there. Exams were a hiccup in the day, not the be-all and end-all of absolutely everything. Based on those exams, we now have ‘league tables’, a handy guide to how well each school performs. But publishing a list of ‘best schools’ purely on the grounds of academic achievement is idiotic. It tells you nothing. Recently, I made a decision on which secondary school my children will attend. I chose it because I know several people who’ve been there, and they loved it. I chose it because the children I saw mooching from lesson to lesson were mostly smiling. I chose it because it ‘felt’ right. Of course, I want my children to leave school with a basic academic foundation. But more than thatI want them to learn social skills so they can interact properly with other human beings. I want themto learn to play the guitar. I want them to enjoy school, to have fun. I can’t bear the thought of paying a small fortune every year so they can be put on a treadmill. School is supposed to prepare a person for life, not wear them out. This is what we all seem to have forgotten. Yes, we must do everything we can to keep our children safe. But we should also do everything we can to make them happy as well.

write a letter to parents for change in school timings

1/1

Upgrade your grade with Knowee

Get personalized homework help. Review tough concepts in more detail, or go deeper into your topic by exploring other relevant questions.