(AP) WASHINGTON — 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.

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom."

(UPH) -- How do you figure that Prez??
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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.

(UPH) -- Obviously, the President didn't do the math below...

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).

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Summer is a crucial time for kids, especially poorer kids, because poverty is linked to problems that interfere with learning, such as hunger and less involvement by their parents.

That makes poor children almost totally dependent on their learning experience at school, said Karl Alexander, a sociology professor at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, home of the National Center for Summer Learning.

Disadvantaged kids, on the whole, make no progress in the summer, Alexander said. Some studies suggest they actually fall back. Wealthier kids have parents who read to them, have strong language skills and go to great lengths to give them learning opportunities such as computers, summer camp, vacations, music lessons, or playing on sports teams.

"If your parents are high school dropouts with low literacy levels and reading for pleasure is not hard-wired, it's hard to be a good role model for your children, even if you really want to be," Alexander said.

(UPH) -- Here is my take on this solution...  President Obama needs to get back to the health care reform...  It's time that people stop putting all of the blame on the educational system.  Jamming a bunch of unproductive, unwilling, and unfocused kids into classes longer is not going to solve this problem.  These kids are suffering from a parental community that has failed them. 

Kids have to be groomed for success and given a foundation outside of what they learn in class.  Today's teachers are consumed with disseminating pre-planned curriculum and bureaucracy from the Board of Ed.  On top of that, they are tasked with being a disciplinary to kids who lack positive upbringing.  Adding more curriculum and bureaucracy is just a waste of tax-payers money that prevents teacher's from actually teaching.  Sorry Mr. President, you are miss-guided on this one. 

Your solution can not possibly fix a problem that is deeply rooted in poor parenting and the negative effects of a broken U.S. society.  Even high-schools have turned into a day care for a lot of under performing students.  A major reason that kids drop out is because they are bored and don't have positive reinforcement of how important education is.  That positive reinforcement has to come from outside the class-room.  Longer schools days can not compete with negative outside influences that are presented to our youth.  Besides, there are many kids that are succeeding despite their educational circumstances.  Imagine that...

And where do expect to get the money and resources to carry this out??  I'm trying to figure out how you are going to fund building maintenance, utilities, and staff salaries along side the ever-growing furlough days that are being mandated by the states.  Longer school years would be a bad move when school districts are having trouble putting gas in the buses.  Just my take on this.....