Students all over the country may have to brace themselves for a longer school year and shorter summer.

            President Barack Obama says that kids in America are not spending enough time in school, therefore putting themselves farther back academically than students in other countries.

            “The United States has shorter school years than other countries such as India and China,” said Arne Duncan, education secretary.

            “There is plenty of time to get a good grade in the normal school time. There is no need for a longer school year,” said John Nance, freshman.

            According to the Chicago Tribune, even though students in other countries, such as China, have more school days, they do not spend more hours per year in school. They also said that students in America spend 1,146 instructional hours per year in school, compared to Taiwan with 1,050, Japan with 1,005, and Hong Kong with 1,013 hours. However, students in these other countries go to school for about ten days more than students in the United States.

            Christopher Remaley, math teacher, does not think lengthening the school year is a good idea, and believes most of the other teachers at Athens Drive High School would agree.

            “Students need their downtime, so do I, and so do the other teachers,” said Remaley.

            Japan only gets one month off for summer break and has to go to school for half a day every Saturday. In China, some high school students go to school for twelve hours a day, which is five hours longer than how long we go to school here.

            “I like the length of our school year and summer, and I would not want to go to school longer. I like my breaks. Nobody wants to be in school longer, school isn’t really fun,” said Lauren Nigro, freshman.

            Some charter schools have longer days or weeks compared to regular public schools. For example, some kids in the KIPP network of 82 charter schools across the country go to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., therefore increasing their education period. Teachers believe that this is why these students have higher averages on state tests.

            “I think the high school drop-out rate would increase if we lengthened our school days because students would get fed up with so much school,” said Nigro.

            In the U.S., 30 percent of high school students will drop out before graduating, 50 percent will not finish college, and about half of the African American and Latino students will not graduate, according to CNN.

            Obama and Duncan think that students in America should have longer school years because students in other nations do, which in turn results in higher test scores. They are realizing that students are making no progress during the summer, and are actually decreasing their knowledge because of the absence from school.

            However, Duncan said, “It doesn’t matter how poor, how tough the family background or socioeconomic challenges. Where students have longer days, longer weeks, longer years--That’s making a difference.”

            Remaley had suggestions about how to accomplish Obama’s goal, but in a different way.

            “We could remove social promotion, completely. Also, they would make tougher consequences on behavior and academic violations,” said Remaley.

            “Now I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas, not with Malia and Sasha, not with my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom,” said Obama.