Not a good decision Governor Easley

I gotta bitch about something and I figured this is as good a forum as any.

Our fair state of North Carolina has legislated ( House Bill 1464) that public schools open no sooner than Aug. 25 and close no later than June 10. The goal is to give families more time for summer vacation and help the state's tourism industry. The plan cuts 10 teacher workdays, but it keeps the same number of class-days for students. http://www.wral.com/news/3632772/detail.html

By all means, our children's education should take a back seat so the beach communities can make more money! :-(

Personally, I believe the added teacher work days provide more opportunity for teachers to plan, but more importantly attend training etc.. Secondly it provides more out of class time students can utilize to complete projects and to just plain study. Thirdly, at least Durham public schools, A large proportion of the teacher work days are lost to snow makeup days. Last year we not only lost a fair number of work days but it extended the school year. Extending the school year is fine except, from my understanding, the dates grades were due did not change, and the graduation dates did not change, High school exam dates did not change so the last week of school was a complete waste of what should have been instructional time. Finally the shorter the summer break means less review of last years curriculum this year. The students will retain more of what they learned last semester if the next semester starts sooner.

Parent's complain that the short summer break makes it difficult to travel. I'm sorry, if your can't go to the beach in the 2 and a half months of summer break how is an extra 10 days really going to help you. This in my opinion is a weak argument. Besides, as we all know, if the parents feel that strongly about taking their children on vacation they will do it regardless of the school calendar.

Now I realize tourism is important to the state. But we are talking about folks who already live in the state, who, if they are not spending their money at the beach will spend it elsewhere in the state. I do not see a net gain in revenue for the state here. What am I missing?

<Off the soap Box>

Step-o-meter count was 6500 yesterday. Hmmm. Gotta work on that.