I’ll go against the grain here…school doesn’t need to be 7-8hrs a day. 4-5hrs max for classroom and ship’’em home. Most homeschooled kids are done by noon and generally score higher on tests than those in a public school. We’ve depended on schools to raise our children instead of teaching them and that’s exactly what they’re doing. Just like college, more than half the classes you take towards a degree have absolutely nothing to do with the degree, but that’s an entirely different topic.

I agree^^^^

I can clear that right up for you. The private school kid's parents have money, wealthy kids have better test scores, why? Genetics. Yes wealthy people tend to be smarter on average, than the poor people. The home schooled kids (for the most part) have parents who care about their education more. On the flip side you have the lowest income kids in public schools, parents that don't teach their kids anything and only use the school as a babysitter. Furthermore, the "No child left behind." means those kids who were shipped off, or off in that special room when we went to school, are all in the classrooms. They are distracting and taking up too much of the teachers time AND their test scores are all included when they figure test scores. Look at a country like China, those kids aren't there and their test scores are not either. Since the no child left behind, testing has of course gone down. Couple that with parents who's kids do no wrong and they don't get involved in their education at all and public schools are going to test lower everytime. Yet, they still turn out a very high percentage of productive people.

sigpros the fact that you know all that about your kids, shows you are a great parent. THAT is what it takes to make great kids, no matter where or for how long they go to school.

this thread confirms what I thought. So many see school as daycare. it's not.

The next is how will more time in a day be more productive. Kids are checked out after a few hours as it is.

WE HOMESCHOOL and guess what. Math does not take a 45 min period most days it done in 20 to 25. Same with every subject. Part of that is class size of 2, involved mom teaching, and known expectations. Plus they know when they are done they have the rest of the day. ( more incentive to pay attention and get done) They are not heald back by the slowest kids with uninvolved and crappie parents or waiting on a bell for 15 minutes killing time when they finish. Kind of training them to be standing at a time clock waiting for it to change to clock out vs teaching how to be and rewarding looking a head and finishing ahead of schedule. Training at a young age to be an employee not a business owner.

We throw a lot of money at public education, only to have the media tell us we are failing.
I would think at some point we could address this.

I see where you are coming from but home schoolers are teaching a couple or three kids not 20+ kids per class. So it's not really a fair comparison. I agree that kids are taught some things they will never need, but some of them will. It's up to the parents to pick up teaching your kids the things you think they need to know, but aren't taught in school.

Thank you. My wife and I try very hard to raise a couple of good a productive humans

And apparently your wife cast some pretty good genes.

We have it in Custer SD it’s great! Kids have 3 day weekend nice to go do something on weekends. We don’t see a downside.

Have taught 4 days now for 12+ years. Negative for all the above reasons. Fight it with all you have.