For what reason would you consider a program that makes not forcing teachers to do any extra hours an actual requirement for getting the funding in the first place, as being of total disregard toward work/life balance of teachers?
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Senator Kamala Harris introduces new bill to extend school day to 6PM
- Thread starter Metallix87
- Start date
Holy shit man, I'm not an idiot. Could you at least try to have a conversation without being a condescending jerk?
The local authorities are the school administrators and school district admin. The same people with the incentives to pressure teachers into working more hours. It's possible the local school board could mitigate this somewhat, not sure how that would play out, probably depends on the school district.
Congress is still the regulatory body, they are the only ones who can make actual changes to the legislation. If these kind of abuses of the policy were happening, Congress would have to alter the existing legislation or enact new legislation in order to prevent the abuses of the policy from continuing. Which would happen at the earliest in three years time, when Congress receives the reports.
Yes, I believe that in being inadequate in providing funding for the stated goal, I think that it is going to incentivize behavior that causes unintended harm. I've elaborated on how I think that would happen, and I'm not the only person to express the same concerns (LudicrousSpeed made basically the same argument I've been making verbatim).
Extending the school day by 3 hours: no problem, we need to extract those extra three hours of labor from all those pesky parents.
Shortening the work day by 3 hours: inconceivable, it would inconvenience all the people who already dominate every aspect of american society.
Shortening the work day by 3 hours: inconceivable, it would inconvenience all the people who already dominate every aspect of american society.
Why are you conflating a local government authority receiving reports of breaches of requirements for a government grant scheme, with congress creating laws?
If a school is forcing its staff to work extra hours then they simply lose the funding. They comply with the requirement of the funding or they lose it lol.
Why on earth would congress need to enact new legislation?
Are you trying to say that authorities, the actual people in charge of deciding where the grant money goes (not congress), after receiving the reports from teachers, external staff, internal staff, pupils, etc, would not take any action whatsoever?
I simply don't follow that throughline. 'Not enough funding so...Corruption!' doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me of a plan that has accountability measures embedded within it. You might think 3 years congressional oversight is too long, but yearly reporting still makes grift a whole lot harder.
Besides, I'm not denying the right of anyone to have concerns. This isn't a perfect bill (no candidate has yet released a perfect bill). My entire point in addressing you at the start was simple: address the bill on its merits. You claimed the language of this bill required teachers to work longer hours. It simply does not. Period.
Because the government can't dictate hours for non-government entities. Any attempts to force it through legislation would fall flat on its face.
And also that there is no language to suggest there is any available avenue of policing or reporting on the programs and asserting that the absence of such means that there is nothing stopping teachers from being made to do extra hours.
Which also isn't true. At all.
It's federal funding, the state does not control federal funding, Congress does. Pressuring the teachers into volunteering for more hours doesn't actually violate the grant requirements, it's also extremely difficult to figure out if that behavior is going on from an annual survey. The places where the grants would go are already outlined in the legislation. You think the department of education is going to be dedicating resources beyond the annual survey for auditing this program? The legislation literally does not provide those resources, so where is that oversight coming from exactly? Oversight requires funding.
Just make them start later.
Noone wants a shitload of facts uploaded to their brain at 8 in the morning.
Noone wants a shitload of facts uploaded to their brain at 8 in the morning.
Welcome to the life of a lot of inner city kids already.
Except it isn't indoors with funded activities; it's waiting around outside the closed school for your parents to come pick you up.
A working parent drops their kid off before work and picks them up after. This isn't any different from sending them to a private care facility after school.
Yes I know you don't understand the through line, because you are still mischaracterizing what I'm saying. If districts want this funding, they HAVE to provide some form of afterschool care. However, the funding is not enough to allow them to hire, train, and give the necessary resources to entirely new staff for this purpose. So they will have to rely on existing staff, staff who (per the language of the bill) will not be paid overtime. The bill says they can't make the extra hours a requirement of teacher's employment (as in, they can't write it into their contracts as mandatory hours) but that does not preclude them from pressuring teachers into volunteering to do the afterschool care. This kind of thing happens in schools due to a lack of funding all the time, teachers often end up pressured into doing things not in their contracts (for example, buying supplies for their classrooms out of pocket).
If the bill actually provided the resources to build these programs in each school from the ground up, this would be less of an issue. But that's not the legislation being proposed.
The (only) thing I actually respect conservatives for it that they never have defeatist thinking like this. No conservative goes "we can't outlaw abortion.' they go 'we can't outlaw abortion yet' and then work towards their shitty goals. The Trump admin has been more consequential in 3 years than the democrats were in 8 under Obama.
I think people need to get over 'this can't be done' thinking and actually stand up for something if they believe it is the right thing.
Back in my home country we used to have two different monthly shifts, so one month school would go from 7:30 AM to 1:30 PM depending on the amount of classes you would have during a day, and the next month school would start from 1:30 PM to 7 PM....how does it actually work in the US? Is it a universal amount of time or do you have "shifts" too?
Oh jesus. Sorry, that's a terrible idea. Optional school activities would be good, but if I'm understanding this correctly, it seems like a bad idea.
Don't do that. I didn't say I don't understand what you're saying. I said I don't follow it. Which means I don't reach the same conclusion you do.
Where I think you're making a leap is the idea that school districts would have to search for, hire, and train a brand new staff to provide extended after school care; and that if they can't do this their only option (if they want the grant money) is to pressure their teachers to work more hours. This ignores a few things:
1) That this plan itself incentives schools working with established community organizations to provide staffing (which has already been addressed).
2) That schools relying on extending teacher hours to cover staffing will be reflected in yearly reporting as required by the plan. Again, you can disagree with the effectiveness of that, but you're taking that disagreement to write a complete fanfiction of what you're "sure" is going to happen. That's where I disagree with you. There a plenty of school programs that go underfunded (oftentimes severely so) while still providing lifechanging programs to students and their families. I benefited from some of them.
Besides, if you're so concerned about what this will do to teachers, why aren't you acknowledging that Kamala's plan was endorsed by AFT? One of the largest teacher unions in the country?
Most schools have after school programs run in them the issue is funding for parents
Didn't know it was endorsed by AFT. Perhaps they have information we don't have. Working with community organizations still requires adequate funding though if you are going to compensate them fairly and provide adequate resources.
I mean sure, people sometimes benefit from underfunded plans, but given that this legislation is just being introduced...they could just not underfund the plan. Like that's not really a good defense of this plan, imo. They COULD propose allocating far more money to this with better auditing mechanisms and guidelines. Maybe other legislators will propose amendments to that effect. My argument has been and continues to be that this proposal is insufficient. We can disagree on the risks it poses in terms of overworking teachers (I think those risks are significant; you do not) but I think we can both agree that this issue needs way more funding and guidelines than what js provided in this legislation.
How about we put more money into after school programs for kids and for families of the less fortunate? Or we could just torture them.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever read, and I can't see who's going to be for this: teachers, who get to work longer for regular pay (which seems illegal to me); school districts, which have to shell out more money; kids, who already feel like the school day is too long; parents, who will have to schedule pick up times; current after school programs, who will see attendance drop and pretty much be wiped out of those schools; adults, who have to contend with even more traffic.
Like why not just fund after school programs that already exist?
My kids are in an after school program and even if I can pick them up early I'm supposed to leave them there until 6. Daylight savings just happened and it is super dark by 6. You're basically going to be keeping kids trapped in school and unable to go out before the sun goes down at this time of year.
Like why not just fund after school programs that already exist?
My kids are in an after school program and even if I can pick them up early I'm supposed to leave them there until 6. Daylight savings just happened and it is super dark by 6. You're basically going to be keeping kids trapped in school and unable to go out before the sun goes down at this time of year.
As a teacher, I say fuck you Kamala. Our district already added an additional 20 minutes to the school day without compensating us. Of course our state doesn't allow teacher's unions so we get screwed. How about we offer better daycare services and stop taking personal time away from teachers who have their own families. /End rant
Harris' plans so far have included some form of incentivizing. We already have entire states who (depending on who is in charge) purposefully work against incentivizing. Even nationally things like Race to the top turned Education into a contest between winners and losers.
But "we help those who help themselves" isn't how businesses or households or even religious organizations are run. But for communities that genuinely need help, that's how it should be?
Besides, teachers have been picking up the slack out-of-pocket for years and years. Unless AFT has been powerful and successful enough to eliminate that state-for-state in every district, this bill would need 50+ ways required minimum to be successful, otherwise at best it will be race to the top part 2. And teachers, as per precedent, will continue to be stretched.
What is slipping year after year is state grant funding. Federal grant funding is needed just to make up these shortfalls, and of course more than that is better. But what standard do people expect the kid waiting outside the school to meet, besides up to date vaccinations? That kid needs the help regardless of anyone else's performance.
But "we help those who help themselves" isn't how businesses or households or even religious organizations are run. But for communities that genuinely need help, that's how it should be?
Besides, teachers have been picking up the slack out-of-pocket for years and years. Unless AFT has been powerful and successful enough to eliminate that state-for-state in every district, this bill would need 50+ ways required minimum to be successful, otherwise at best it will be race to the top part 2. And teachers, as per precedent, will continue to be stretched.
What is slipping year after year is state grant funding. Federal grant funding is needed just to make up these shortfalls, and of course more than that is better. But what standard do people expect the kid waiting outside the school to meet, besides up to date vaccinations? That kid needs the help regardless of anyone else's performance.
Working parent here, i still don't think it's a good idea. but still it would be better if the stuff from 3-6 was NOT schooling and more leisure time or study hall in nature. To expect kids to be in school for that long learning is no good. Go home and have time for not much else.
You should read the plan, which doesn't propose any of what you're suggesting.
This is a valid critique.
But honestly, I don't know what happens here. You're right, the kid waiting on the curb needs help now regardless. But if you're the President, not a state legislature, what do you do besides federal grant money and incentivizing?
Harris about to win in a landslide now that parents have a way to offload their kids for nearly half the afternoon on weekdays!
A far, far better idea would be to fund child care programs or to shorten the working day. Maybe even both.
sounds good to me.
Woefully misguided plan that creates more problems than it's going to solve