Law v. Guideline

One of my favorite scenes in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" is when Elizabeth attempts to invoke the "Pirates's Code." And, Barbossa responds that the Pirate's Code isn't really a Code...that it's more like "guidelines."

Which is apparently how a number of school districts in North Carolina are interpreting the State Law that mandates a school start date as the last week of August. 16 Districts, in direct defiance of the law, have already started school in the Tar Heel State.

Those supporting earlier school start dates often point to the fact that a traditional Labor Day start typically pushes first semester exams until after the Holiday break...when students will have forgotten what they learned before the Holidays.

Which, of course, begs the question: If the education that our children are receiving can't stick for more than a few weeks, when we start school becomes a moot point, n'est-ce pas?

So...let's agree that the day after Labor Day makes more sense, eh?

 

 

Comments

[Lee T]

You can never go wrong with Pirates' quote. LOL! We had the same response in Ohio dating back to the mid-2000's. School starts kept encroaching on summer. Wrap your head around this: Those schools who started earlier and earlier, their students' test scores never really got better. However, the schools that started later and had higher test scores.

We were treated like Big Tobacco or Big Pharma in that it was an "industry" against the "children". It was a BS argument as we had surveys from parents that were on our side...didn't want school to start in the summer. The associations for the "industry" of education were a massive wall of intransigence with absolutely no concern for what local districts wanted or nor what parents in those districts wanted. And legislators backed them up. It was eye-opening.

[Bil Geist]

When we were in the School Start Date battle here in Wisconsin, we found the same thing. Students starting after Labor Day had better test scores than those that didn't. Teachers preferred post-Labor Day. Parents preferred post-Labor Day. The only people who want to start early are School Boards and Administrators. And legislators automatically assume they are the authority on what's best for our kids (when they are not).