Kindergarten (more parental craziness)

As you may have read - Karri and I are thinking about school for Ethan (and hence Willa). Ethan will enter kindergarten in fall 2010, so this isn't a hot issue for us yet. But we figured if we liked a nearby public school, then we wouldn't have to consider testing and private schools.

I just finished Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers (thanks Kevin) and the penultimate chapter was on schools/education. It focused on a couple things including the KIPP program. The KIPP program has a longer school day (8 vs. 6 hours) and a longer school week (1/2 day on Saturday). Coupled with the analysis in his article Most Likely To Succeed, I think that the two main things we should be looking at are: number of hours per day of subject matter teaching AND the quality of the teachers employed.

My concerns are how to tell if the teachers will be any good and the state of the public schools' budgets. We'd appreciate any feedback on determining the quality of the teachers. On the budget side, we have already seen proposals to cut school days to cut expenses. I am concerned that what seem like short term budget solutions will lead to long term problems in my kids' schools and education.

No one is asking me, but wouldn't it make sense to have school run from 8:30 until 5:30, rather than 9 until 3, and in those 3 extra hours be able to commit more time to core subjects like math & science (which Americans seem to struggle at compared to the rest of the world), extra-curriculars (debate, Math Team), and enrichment activities (art & music). I bet that most parents would fork over $1,000 per month per kid for this sort of change to their local public school. Might even pay more as it would end the need for most after-school care.