Letters

What's Wrong with a Six-hour School Day?

I have recently noted that your format has included many more in-depth articles. Bravo! I suggest that you even go further and cover one educational issue in depth each time you publish Ed. For example, your recent article by Kate Tuttle entitled "What's Wrong with a Six-Hour School Day?" [Summer 2005] would have benefited by allowing more space for additional information and different viewpoints from practitioners and researchers. As you well know, there are many, many more topics that could be addressed in this manner.

Robert N. Morrison, Ed.M.'57
Retired Superintendent and Headmaster
Brunswick, Maine

I have three children between the ages of one and four and plan to take a very active role in their education. I believe that the idea that they need a "full-service" program is incorrect. What children need are two parents who love and care for them and can devote the necessary time and work (and believe me, it is a lot of time and work) to teach and be with their children. I understand that full-service programs can indeed benefit many children; my fear is that these types of programs encourage selfishness on the part of parents ("It's the government's responsibility to watch my children 12 hours a day").

While this might not be the popular thing to say, I think what is really needed are men and women who are willing to dedicate their best efforts to raising their children in two-parent households.

Will there be exceptions? Will some people enter a marriage contract and still find themselves divorced, or a single parent? Of course. Should provisions be made to help them with their children? Certainly. Does this make providing "full-service" care the ideal? Absolutely not. Society
must take care not to take over the role that only parents can adequately provide.

John Hilton III, Ed.M.'04
Education Coordinator
Miramar, Florida

Inside School Reform: Richard Elmore

From my viewpoint as a primary teacher in a small rural district on the reform highway, I agree completely with Richard Elmore's assertion ["Inside School Reform," Winter 2004–2005] that we should be investing heavily in developing the skills of teachers. Too often teachers themselves talk about improvement in terms of more materials, resources, or money when they ought to be discussing the best researched
practices, working together to implement those practices over time, and innovating that implementation based on analysis of the results. We waste so much energy trying to maintain the status quo. Why not invest that same energy in raising our own levels of performance? When we teachers begin to act professionally, we will be seen as professionals.

Carol Field
First Grade Teacher
Hebron, Ohio