Point 4: Longer School Years

It's all ready well known that the United States doesn't have as many days of school as say....Japan? Most 'developed' countries in the world all are sending their kids to school for longer than we are. We wonder why America's lagging behind....we need to pick up the pace for our students. Students may not like it, but if we want to remain a successful country leading the world, we need to. Brian Crosby makes this point as well. He doesn't say to jump to the 243 days that Japan has, but do increase the amount of days to around 200, and lengthen the hours to about 4 or 5 (with this, however, classes start around 9, so it's just an extra hour). This, according his calculations would mean something like another 20 days of school built into our school years on top of the additional 20 anyway. Here is a chart I found listing school days by country..... as you can see, Japan is at the top.

This site I think does a good job at explaining how students are taught around the world. If the choice were mine, American schools would be taught more like Japanese schools. Having spent a week in one, I actually found it pretty nice (aside from the language barrier, so I couldn't follow along, but I digress). They generally have school from 8AM to 4PM, with a mandatory club (i.e.: chess club, sports, etc) that can last until around 5, then students return home. They aren't given a lot of homework, but they study on their own constantly. If we could instill that kind of dedication in American students, there would be no reason why we're lagging behind in education.