Obama Wants To Increase School Time

From the AP: "Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.
Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe"...Obama and Duncan say kids in the United States need more school because kids in other nations have more school.
"Young people in other countries are going to school 25, 30 percent longer than our students here," Duncan told the AP. "I want to just level the playing field."
While it is true that kids in many other countries have more school days, it's not true they all spend more time in school.
Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days)." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090927/ap_on_re_us/us_more_school
I think Obama is throwing the teacher's union a bone. More school hours/days equals more money for teachers.
Is it a good idea? It depends. My son's school extended the school hour by 30 minutes last year so they can have "enrichment" classes. These classes included chess, dance, cooking, advanced PE and art. While these classes are nice, is it a good reason to extend the school day and pay the extra money? No, because these things can be learned at home.
In my daughters case, she is in her first year in middle school. She has 3 classes of reading/English, and 1 class of math, science and band. If she had extra time in the classroom, maybe she could have a PE class or social studies/history class.
From a teacher's perspective, it's great. They increase the number of ours or days in a scool year, they will increase my pay. If they add 10 minutes a day to class. that won't change much. If they add more days, that will help, but it will cost money. Where is the money going to come from?
From my perspective, this is a local issue. If a school district wants to lengthen the school day/year, they can. There is nothing that says they can't lengthen the hours a kid goes to school. This is a local issue and the President and the federal government needs to butt out.