Obama: Babysitters Are A Civil Right

Just when you thought he might be done, apparently access to babysitting services on weekends is a civil right in Obama world. At the very least, I'm sure taxpayers might object to having to pay for this right now. And one can only speculate as to who will get to pay and who will get to play. He wants public schools open on weekends so children have a safe place to go. Or maybe it's that he's seen the Ode to Obama videos floating around the Net and just thinks they need more choir practice?

Obama and Arne Duncan believe the public school system needs to modernize its schedule as it was designed for an agrarian economy. That's Obama's concern while he's dragging America down to where growing vegetables in one's backyard may become about the only work you can find? I guess that 52% unemployment for kids is just part of the plan.

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.

The rest via the AP, who includes research demonstrating what a good idea it is.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way. Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom." 

"Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Update: Geesh! As Glenn points out and links, government looking at fining a woman for watching another's kids before the school bus arrives? They aren't nuts, they're just making it so no one but the state can be involved in child care while consistently eroding the bonds of family. Whether by overall design or not, the only destination for such misguided thought is the state, only the state and everything for the state. This is dangerous stuff slipping by mostly under the radar with out people putting the pieces together. Call it the slippery slope to tyranny, or not. But it's an undeniable, alarming trend driven by statists who couch themselves as representatives of the people.

Comments

[Jeff Carlson]

So the problems in our public schools is that kids only spend 9 months a year in school ? Really ? Those high performing Asian kids spend the same 9 months in class don't they ...

I'm thinking quality not quantity is the problem ... Maybe if we we taught the 3 R's and not what are my Rights, Rights, Rights ...

Educating Americans for generations on only 9 months of the year has beaten the heck out of the rest of the world in Science, Medical Research and Computers so I'm not sure what metric Obama is using to decide this is a problem ...

Is there no aspect of American life that is not a problem for him to solve ?

[democratsarefascists]

It's endless, just like the race card.

"Free ice cream is a civil right."

"Public masturbation is a civil right."

"Free sex changes are a civil right."

Well, you know what Obimbo? They're not.

[Spiny Norman]

"That's Obama's concern while he's dragging America down to where growing vegetables in one's backyard may become about the only work you can find?"

Ah, Dan, the FDA will see to it that you find that a thoroughly miserable experience...

Jeff:

I'm thinking quality not quantity is the problem ...

They can't fix the "quality" issues without running afoul of the NEA. The "quantity" thing won't be a problem with them though, so long as there is a commensurate increase in pay for their members.

[Laura]

yes, it's much easier to indoctrinate the kids when they can't get away.

[Fuzzy]

Is this really a surprise? He's said before that he wants to model our k-12 school system on the South Korean model. Good luck finding teachers who'll be willing to work weekends for the pittance they get paid ("merit" pay or no).

[dude]

Not in these classrooms.

[FenelonSpoke]

I may be alone in this, but having a longer school year is something I could agree with. A short school year WAS based on an agrarian economy, and countries that do better than we do in education such as England and France do not have the entire summer off. It would never happen, though, because the teacher's union would fight tooth and nail against it. Of course, there are other issues related to why we underperform in academics in comparsion to other countries.

[R. Richard Schweitzer]

Maybe if we (at home - not leaving it to the schools) taught what are your obligations, there might be some change in schooling results - certainly in behavior.

I have spoken with parents about this, asking "Do you teach your children to know their rights?" Almost 100% affirmatives.

Then I ask "Do you teach your children to know their obligations?" Almost 100% blank stares or puzzlement.

Even more interesting - ask children of various ages if they know what an obligation is; adn at later ages what they think their obligations are. Ask, that is, if you can hold their attention.

[DaveinPhoenix]

Exactly, R. Richard ! We live in an age of "rights" and have suffered the consequences. Responsibility and rights should be balanced.

[XTeacher]

Work weeks for most teachers are around 60 hours. They need the vacation to recuperate. A longer school year would work only if something were done to lessen teachers' work weeks. The trend in the last few generations has been for schools to assume responsibilities that previously were done by the parents: food at school, less parental input into discipline problems etc. Forty years ago, if a teacher informed a parent there was a discipline problem, the parent said that appropriate action would be taken at home. Today, more and more one hears some of the following responses: 1) the parent defends the kiddo,seeing the kiddo as a friend; 2)parent throws up hands: "I don't know what to do either. This translates into longer teacher work weeks. Not to mention federal and state mandates.

It is no accident that a generation ago, one could find a lot of teachers who taught 40 years. No more.

There reaches a point where you cannot squeeze any more blood out of a turnip.

[dm60462]

Arne Duncan is the former head of Chicago Public Schools. Here is how Chicago public school students "blow off a little steam".

VIDEO: Fenger High School (Chicago) Student Beaten to Death by Mob of Fellow Students
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/09/derrion-albert-vigil-and-march-postponed.html

[Lala]

In 1995 my 11 year old daughter went to the 5th grade in a French public school. The hours were 8:30 - 4:00 except on Wednesday when school was closed. Saturday was a half-day 3 times a month. Lunch was 2 hours long. School opened in September and finished in June. There was a one or two week break in October, two weeks for Christmas, and another one or two week break in the Spring. Lots of days off for bank holidays and Saints Days. There was no homework except some papers that had to be memorized.

In 1996-97, she attended the 7th grade which was middle school (college to the French). This time is was Monday to Friday 8:30 to 4:00, 2 hours for lunch and again lots of time off. Again, no homework.

I don't think it has changed.

[Lala]

I forgot one. Two weeks for the Winter break in February.

[Cthulhu2012]

Yes, Mr. President, the problem with our school system is indeed that kids spend too little time inside school.

Couldn't be the poor standards for hiring teachers in many areas.

Couldn't be the union regulations that make it next to impossible to fire bad teachers.

Couldn't be the union representatives that turn the classrooms into political indoctrination facilities that focus on agendas rather than knowledge.

Couldn't be the politicians with ZERO teaching experience or knowledge pushing conflicting and vague federal standards onto schools.

Nope, you're right, it's the time.

[mark l.]

this story is freaky scary...

michigan has an unemployment rate of 15.2%.

more unemployment means more free day care. more free day care leads to a serious decline in low end taxable jobs and further cripples the states economy. The state is so desperate that they have to force more kids back into state sanctioned employment for low skill workers, imposing a massive tax on the people left with jobs.

hard to figure where single mothers fit into all of this...the ones who are employed in day care facilities, the ones who use them, and the ones who are at a point where they can't afford to pay for 'state sanctioned' day care. They did, in large part vote heavily in favor of the admin, believing that their lives would be made better.

When property tax goes up to pay for increased school hours, and when they are forced into sanctioned day care-paying for what the govt won't subsidize, and the cost of day care continues to increase, in a futile effort to provide a 'living wage' for baby-sitting, I'll be laughing my ass off.

they never thought that when they voted for the messiah, that their income, would become the govt's income. thye just thought that everything that THEY would need, would come down in price.

suckers.

[Sissy Willis]

Plus, if public school curricula devoted more time to the three R's-- plus HISTORY! -- and less to state propaganda, our kids would do fine in competition with others around the world without extending the school day or year! All work and no play . . .

[TexasMom]

This is typical Libtard NONSENSE! I see public middle and high school students leaving en masse every day between 1:00 and 2:00. SOME MAY have jobs, but most are probably just going to hang out. Lots of these kids need a trade so that they can make a living, but instead of training them, we pretend that everyone should go to college. Since college graduates can't find jobs in the present economy and since even newly minted law school graduates cannot find jobs, the idea that unmotivated, academically challenged kids should go to college is absurd. Teach our kids the basics, math, reading, how to write coherently, computer and financial literacy. The motivated kids will go on to higher education.

Our SYSTEM of education is broken and BABYSITTING delinquents is not going to improve them. I know Asian adults who came here speaking no English whatsoever and who were poor as church mice, but who learned the language, excelled in school, have advanced degrees and good jobs.

This is RIDICULOUS! Victims to the right of us, victims to the left of us, into the valley of victims!

[John Skookum]

""That's Obama's concern while he's dragging America down to where growing vegetables in one's backyard may become about the only work you can find?"

Actually, if you grow peanuts or various other crops that are subject to Dept. of Agriculture marketing orders-- even for your own consumption--then men from the gooberment will impose a fine on you, and if you can't pay it, they will come and take you to jail, and if you resist, they will shoot you dead.

I eagerly await the coming revolution. I have a little list....

[Mr Evilwrench]

We started our school year August 11th this year, after ending just before June. I remember having three solid months off for summer. It's not even 2.5 now. My son is not benefitting from this, (and as a bus driver neither am I). I would like them to increase the length of the day and set the year back to what it was, but mostly to teach the basics, rather than diversity. We can also share much more educationally as parents during a longer break. I remember some of the trips we took when I was a child, and we have so much less time now.

[Melissa]

No freaking way, I hope this doesn't happen. I think my kids deserve the little break they get. I also agree that it's quality, not quantity that's the problem here. I'm sure there are also other factors, like the environment kids have at home.

[Dodger]

My guess is that their concern is for the "at risk", kids having a safe place to be during non-school hours. A single parent or family, struggling financially whose kids are being targeted by gangs and/or exposed to drugs and other bad stuff, would welcome the program. While it sounds great in theory, the schools have so many other problems that aren't being addresses, I can't see how it could work in practice. Teacher salaries, ineffective or non-existent performance review processes for teachers, thug students, and on and on.

[FeFe]

How did America ever become The Superpower it is with an education system that shames President Barack Hussein Obama II?

[Painesright]

Before they force kids to sit for even longer in failed schools, they need to fix the problem!

No school vouchers = no competition

monopoly = strong teachers union

teaching political correctness instead of a real education = failed schools

D.C. and Chicago have 50% - 75% drop out rates, but they spend almost twice the national average per student! California has the highest paid teachers and the 2nd WORST test scores!!

More money or time in school is not what is needed! COMPETITION between schools is what is needed. Teacher pay and job stability based on merit, not on longevity is what is needed. Get rid of the teacher's union! Get the Fed Gov't out of the classroom!!

Read: "Against School" which was written by an NYC Teacher of the Year

It will break your heart to read how our system is robbing our children of an education that would actually improve their lives... our children are being used as pawns to increase the power of politicians and unions.

http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm

Then, watch: How To Brainwash A Nation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeMZGGQ0ERk

Yuri Bezmenov is an ex-KGB agent that gave interviews/lectures in the 1980's where he described in detail how Marxism/Leninism was being disseminated in U.S. public schools through a process called "Ideological Subversion". It describes to a tee what has happened to America over the last 40 - 50 years.

Also, read the American Thinker article: From Russia With No Love

It is an excellent article about the 4 stages of Ideological Subversion. You will recognize all of the tactics... they are being used against us every day.

From Russia With No Love: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/from_russia_with_no_love.html

[Pissedoff]

Duncan is a bold faced liar and a phony. Other nations do have the summer off.

[Liberty Jane]

So . . . responsible parents will have to reach down further into their pockets to subsidize other people's children. And then the responsible parents will be forced to work extra time to make up for the shortfall, and their children will suffer, too.

Great.

Last year I took about 2 hours a day with my elementary children's formal "education". They both scored in the "above-average" category on their standardized tests. They can read, write, figure out math, love art and music, and play an instrument. We don't have a TV, so they're not addicted to it. I am so grateful that they have had the opportunity to have plenty of free time to pursue interests other than waiting in lines and being barked at by teachers. John Holt wrote a good book called "Learning All the Time" -- Obama might want to read it.

[Gina]

I think kids should be in school 9 to 5 with no homework. I don't care whether they're in study hall, band practice or sports but they shouldn't be hanging around Copley Square or Downtown Crossing at 2:30 in the afternoon. If there are teachers who don't want to work past 2:00, they should find another job. Any teacher that claims to be working 60 hrs a week whose students can't read or add/subtract/multiply/divide at grade level is incompetent and should be fired.

[North Dallas Thirty]

""Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom.""

Perhaps when Barack Obama explains to us how forcing children to sing, dance, and repeat masturbatory hymns to him helps meet "the challenges of a new century", then we might care what he has to think.

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/25/the-3-rs-in-the-age-of-obama-rappin-revolution-radicalism/

Perhaps when Barack Obama explains to us how his demands that public school children be taught that intelligence and emotional state are determined by the amount of melanin in the skin helps meet "the challenges of a new century", then it might be of interest.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTQ0YjhlOGVhYjQ0OWRhZjI2MmM4NTQ4NGM5Mjg0MzU=

But until then, Barack Obama and his leftist beliefs that "education" is all about ideological indoctrination and avoiding any sort of actual learning because reading, writing, and testing are racist indicate that he should be kept as far AWAY from children's education as possible.

[Julie]

Gina: "Any teacher that claims to be working 60 hrs a week whose students can't read or add/subtract/multiply/divide at grade level is incompetent and should be fired."
Hmmm... I teach 7th grade, and I receive students each year who can't read and write at the 7th grade level. Am I to blame for that already in September? Any by May/June, just 9 months later, if I haven't brought them up from a SECOND grade level to a SEVENTH grade level am I to blame for that? And when I call the parents WEEKLY to inform them that their child really needs to 1) stop disrupting my class, 2) do their homework and 3) stay after school for extra help, and the response is 1) my child says they aren't doing anything disruptive 2) I think you give too much homework and 3) my child can't stay after b/c they have football/soccer/skateboarding practice - AM I TO BLAME FOR THE STUDENT'S INABILITY TO READ AND WRITE!??!?!?

You need to spend a year in public school and see what really goes on before you start to lay the blame at the teacher's feet. Let's talk about students who come unprepared to learn b/c of their home life, then you have the constant interruptions from the office via phone calls to the class room, announcements over the intercom, shortened classes for politically correct assemblies, students pulled from instructional time for "counseling," students constantly asking to go to the nurse, bathroom, drink, counselor or coming late to class b/c they are wandering the halls and socializing or vandalizing the bathrooms (and no consequences b/c we wouldn't want to be "punitive." How the HECK am I supposed to wedge any learning in there???

Seriously - spend a year in MY shoes before you make such ignorant statements. And still, i somehow manage to get about 75% of my students to meet state goals... I am always somewhat shocked at that... but 100% - it won't happen until PARENTS start taking some responsibility for learning and until ADMINISTRATORS start letting teachers just teach instead of constantly micro-managing and interrupting.

[Mark L]

Macdonough's Song by Rudyard Kipling

"As easy as A B C"--A Diversity of Creatures"
Whether the State can loose and bind
In Heaven as well as on Earth:
If it be wiser to kill mankind
Before or after the birth--
These are matters of high concern
Where State-kept schoolmen are;
But Holy State (we have lived to learn)
Endeth in Holy War.

Whether The People be led by The Lord,
Or lured by the loudest throat:
If it be quicker to die by the sword
Or cheaper to die by vote--
These are things we have dealt with once,
(And they will not rise from their grave)
For Holy People, however it runs,
Endeth in wholly Slave.

Whatsoever, for any cause,
Seeketh to take or give
Power above or beyond the Laws,
Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King--
Or Holy People's Will--
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
Order the guns and kill!
Saying --after--me:--

Once there was The People--Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth
Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, 0 ye slain!
Once there was The People--it shall never be again!

[davod]

Duncan was promotd as a great educator. Unforunately, as with most things Obama, Duncan's Chicago schoolkids, do not reflect Duncan's glowing model.

[seekeronos]

Simple solution: Do away with public schools as much as possible. Either send the kids to private schools, or home school them yourself.

And where you can't be rid of a public school... re-introduce the "Rod of Correction"... y'know, those old paddles with the holes in them that would be used to correct foolish, disruptive thinking.

Make the useof the "Rod of Correction" an explicit term of attendance (i.e. the parents don't want it, they can PAY for their kids to go to school elsewhere, or homeschool them themselves).

ALSO:

- Disband and outlaw "teacher's unions".
- teach practical things like the "three 'R's" and cooking, gardening, and machine repair, wood-working, marksmanship, and physical fitness. No more of this "Honour the (insert politically correct identity group) of the Month" malarkey.