Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Last Stand for Children First: Tailoring an Education Plan to Fit the Student Population

Last Stand for Children First: Tailoring an Education Plan to Fit the Student Population:

Tailoring an Education Plan to Fit the Student Population

When Chicago's Education Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans to add 90 minutes onto the Chicago Public Schools day next year, he was greeted with a lot of skepticism from the Chicago Teachers Union. Long the impediment of serious reform, the teachers union fired back with a ridiculous proposal to have all Chicago Public Schools have a school day that resembled the school day that the mayor had chosen for his own children at the exclusive private University of Chicago Lab School.

Now, growing up I was fortunate to go to an exclusive private school myself and I can tell you that things like a class size of 15 and a well-stocked school library were very important to us and I believe those sorts of things are very important to children from upper class families. During their school day they need to develop the critical thinking skills that they need to be future leaders. Their school day shouldn't extend too far into the afternoon because a long school day would interfere with their myriad