An Unpopular Plan

I have a plan to aid the economic crisis. It won't be popular, so of course it won't happen, but I'd still like to just put it out there . . .

I am not a home schooler. No way, no how. I seriously considered becoming one and nearly made the mistake of my child's life. That said, I believe the problem with the school system is not the school system, but the breakdown of the family. School never was intended to replace education within the family, but that is what it has become. Rather than a supplement to what children learn from their home and community, school has become the reverse. I would like to increase my "supplemental" influence on my child. I would like to become more involved in his education. Not just by volunteering in his classroom, but by doing projects with him as a family that are part of his education. Here's my problem: time and energy. Not mine only, but his, primarily. When the child goes to school from 8:15 am until 4:25 (door to door), there just isn't time for quality family time, for family projects, for just plain fun. This is why I don't sign him up for extra-curricular sports. It was a big stretch to do piano lessons. I believe children need more unstructured time and more creative family time to truly blossom. And all I hear in the news is talk of longer school days, longer school years, budget crisis, cuts to educational funding, and fatter kids. I hear parents complaining about all this, but mostly I hear them complain about teacher prep days, unexpected illness, and an attitude of public schools being no more than a free daycare service.

My solution--shorter school days, shorter school year. Give parents financial incentive to put their family back together and spend some time with their kids. It'd work something like this: public funded school lasts only until about noon (you could do two shifts like morning and afternoon kindergarten does even). They pack in core learning subjects in the morning and send home more homework--preferable project based stuff that requires families to work together to complete. Parents get their kids home in time for lunch. Then they can make their child a lunch with vegetables and without trans fats. Then they can organize the rest of their day to include field trips, sports and recreation, chores, homework projects, music, extended family learning, plenty of rest and a good start on the next day.

Parents who choose to have both parents working full time can pay for afternoon childcare, tutors, or for an "extended school-day" option that would fund teachers to do the work with the children that the families are otherwise expected to do. Thus, the incentive to both parents working full time out of the home is decreased because of the money they save by staying at home.
Maybe it's offered as a voucher type program, where if you choose to enroll your child half-day, you get a tax credit for half the money it would cost to educate your child in that half day and you can use that to supplement the home education, still saving money but offering parents a choice. And then the child has to meet the standards or they are forced to re-enroll in traditional day or something or other, so there is accountability.

Voila! Families are spending more time together, kids are healthier, happier, parents work less, stress less, goverments spend less.

Sounds like utopia eh? I realize there are some fundamental flaws and much refining that could be done, but the general idea isn't such a bad one is it? You gotta admit there are fundamental flaws with the system at present, maybe chewing on a few ideas outside the box isn't such a bad thing . . . I'm just sayin'.