Are Our Children Falling Behind the International Pack?

Why do we still follow a school system based on an agrarian society? By the time our children finish with special sports camps and swim teams (I understand sports are good for many reasons), they will have lost more than a month's worth of learning (known as "summer learning loss") and nearly three month's of math (which is why some of us make our children do next-grade-level summer workbooks).

A recent report from McKinsey, states that the lagging performance of U.S.students, particularly poor and minority children, has caused more economic devastation than the current recession.

And, American students study less than 3 years of a foreign language; in many high schools, a foreign language is not even required to graduate. How will our children compete? (Learning Chinese is a start.)

From the Economist: "[American students] have one of the shortest school years anywhere, a mere 180 days compared with an average of 195 for OECD countries and more than 200 for East Asian countries. German children spend 20 more days in school than American ones, and South Koreans over a month more. Over 12 years, a 15-day deficit means American children lose out on 180 days of school, equivalent to an entire year.

American children also have one of the shortest school days, six-and-a-half hours, adding up to 32 hours a week. By contrast, the school week is 37 hours in Luxembourg, 44 in Belgium, 53 in Denmark and 60 in Sweden. On top of that, American children do only about an hour’s-worth of homework a day, a figure that stuns the Japanese and Chinese."

From: http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13825184