The Solution

Mrs. Sheri Lindquist

Writing 291

September 13, 2008

The Solution

Jonathan Rauch explains in his essay “Now for tonight’s assignment…” how the allotted time of academic value given to our future society has changed over the course of time. One of these changes has been the duration of days American schools are open to provide students with proper schooling. Compared to the late nineteenth century when morning school sessions were not uncommon and to the present time now where American schools have dropped 10 days or more from the actual school year; you can see a decrease of days and times schools are available to students. Jonathan Rauch continues on by stating that the decreased time in our education system has not just limited itself to days but also school hours within the school days. For example a day in school consists of six hours of instructive teaching, and that is also including time consuming events that are non academic. The views and opinions of Jonathan Rauch towards this simple solution of providing students with more homework is not as trouble-free as he suggests, although I do agree our school system should give students homework, schools need to organize their schedule and parents need to participate and engage in a more active role in their children’s academic lives.

Rauch further states, although most Americans are aware of this decrease in academic activity in our schools, no one is really arguing this fact or even shedding light to this educational problem that we are confronting. As parents and as American’s we need to acknowledge this predicament and address the issue. Some solutions we may come up with may not be as feasible as we think. For example adding more hours to a school day or more days to a school year will probably get costly and complex to handle in an appropriate manner without mina gating risks. So what would be the solution to this problem?

Jonathan Rauch believes the solution is as simple as giving students “more...