Yeah, I think it would be waaay more helpful to avoid branding confusion, but also like... the conversation should change. I don't think we should *have* to call it "After School Programs," because a lot of those aren't free, they're not run by the school system (But usually by non-profit 3rd parties like the YMCA, local churches, or sometimes for-profit corporation), and there often isn't officially an element of public school curriculum.
I think people see "Extending school days to 6PM!" and think of it like ... children are going to be in school doing school work from 8am to 6pm and underpaid teachers are teaching that whole time, but I think the program more is providing funding for schools that need it to keep their doors open until 6PM and offer after-school programming... Whether it's just like, a study hall, or activities, or maybe some mix of soft classes I think that's usually left up to the school boards / school committees to decide, but the bill is for the funding of it.
For what it's worth, I think it'd be under-funded at this price point. But... it's better than nothing, which it is now.
I think there was a strong kneejerk because people see "Kamala Harris" (who many of us now think is like an evil nazi or w/e) and then they see "Extending school day to 6PM" and just assume the worst.. e.g., the posts describing school as prison and how Harris is trying to lock children up in prison, or the other take of "why would teachers want to spend more time with bad kids" (which I think is a borderline racist remark, but w/e). When the reality is that many kids are effectively made homeless from 2PM to 8PM because they have nowhere to go, nowhere to do their homework, left out in the cold, and it's what contributes to generational poverty. Parents either have to quit their jobs, work weird hours, or hope to have a grandparent, aunt, etc., who can help watch tons of kids... The current system keeps people poor and makes it hard for children to learn and grow. Like, my wife's students don't have computers or the internet at home, their only time to use a computer is at school but they don't have a class in her school that just lets kids learn how to use a computer, and so the little time they do get on the computer for doing writing assignments, or w/e, my wife (an english teacher) usually has to teach the basics of using a computer... typing, copy and paste, opening and saving files, things like that. It'd be great if there was a funded program from 2-6 where they had an option to learn those things, or just do homework in a building that has heat and electricity.
The responses in this thread are really sad because I think most people would rather dunk on Kamala Harris than actually pause and think about something thoughtfully, or even SHOCK click through to read the article instead of just the thread title... I don't even like/support Harris either, but there's a lot of really bad, uninformed, ignorant takes. I think there's a lot of entitled, privileged people in this thread from white suburban communities who thought of school as a burden to be suffered through so that they could go to college and get a good job.
