It’s Monday again…and it’s time to start a new week. This week is Columbus Week. I know he’s now the enemy of mankind and people love to hate him because he didn’t live up to twenty first century standards in the fifteenth century. But Christopher Columbus is a fascinating person and filled with the kind of energy, perseverance, loyalty and reverence that makes someone great.

No special gigs this week. It’s a stay at school week.

We will continue to work on our full names, our parents’ names, our addresses and our phone numbers. This is something parents must do. Please go over this with your child on the way to school and on the way home.

The weather is cool today. It’s time for long pants, but today it will be nearly seventy, so shorts are still OK. It’s HOT on the playground.

We will be using a lot of pumpkin this week, and in nutrition class, we will be looking at the pomegranate for taste and health. It’s a fun fruit the children will just love.

This week in geography, the older children will actually map out Columbus’s voyage with their navigation skills. Should be fun.

Question for the week: If you were to leave your home and everything you owned and knew, what would you take with you? Ask your child.

Saving money on food means the kind of commitment that goes further than a haphazard, half hearted attempt at the domestic chore of feeding self and family. It’s all part of the family package. Sadly, it’s a package many women who consider themselves “modern” avoid because somehow the grocery store is equated with a kind of slavery that is right up there with the stove, pots and pans, and knowing what to do with said items. Most stoves, after all, come with chains and a whip ;-}

We all know that eating is something we can’t avoid, and when “take out” is available, the big modern mouthful is why not take advantage of it?

I was one of those kids who grew up in the modern period known as “cooking is the slave trade.” My mother would invariable drag out something to be cooked that had a strong odor, and that was enough to have my father flee from the house dragging us all with him to one of his favorite haunts. It didn’t take my mother long to work out a plan for five or six nights out a week. I think I lived in restaurants all dressed up in a party dress and falling asleep in my dessert. In all my mother’s ninety-one years, she never ate a fast food meal – for her it was the real McCoy – it was my father’s duty to provide and to do it well. My father, on the other hand, drank most of his dinners. After fourteen rounds of cocktails, we would finally get dinner about eight-thirty and be home just in time for bed about 10:00 on a school night. No homework done, of course – but this was my mother’s response to the “no commitment” of cooking, and Mother came first, second, third, fourth, and fifth in a family of four. I’m supposing that her example was the reason I think restaurants are a treat on a special occasion.

The problem with take out and restaurant life is that it is simply not intended to be a steady diet. Restaurant food is not high grade food. The best restaurants in town buy the cheapest food they can- duh. The art of putting cheap food together has become a salable industry. But the art quickly ricochets back to a craft when you count the calories, the fat, and the dietary nutrition. One morning’s MacDonald’s is three days worth of fat and a day’s worth of calories and the nutrition of not even half a meal.

Walt Norton, a doctor who lived behind us once told me, “There is so much self indulgence in fast food these days, that kids are coming to me with the arteries of eighty year old people – clogged to eighty percent.”

Over the years, I’ve heard just about every excuse for not cooking. My favorite has always been: “Fast food is cheaper than real groceries.”

So let’s look at the budget and decide which is really cheaper. We know which is better for you. If you’re budget is $100.00 for food a week for a family of four, you are spending less than $15.00 a day on groceries. If you eat three meals at home every day, you are spending $5.00 per meal. You can’t take a family of four to a fast food restaurant for under $15.00, so fast is not cheaper than staying home. Sure a quick stop at a drive in is more convenient, and there is a whole lot less work involved, but trade more sick days, more trips to the doctor, and a lot more lethargy, cavities, trips to the dentist, and the trade is still in favor of eating at home.

$100.00 is about right for four. If you spend $25.00 for baking supplies, $25.00 for meat, that leaves $50.00 for fruits, vegetables, and dairy. Cleaning and paper products are not food.

Now, specifically, one of the things that really burdens the grocery list is drinks. Drinks are the thing that puts on more pounds than any other grocery item. Children drink much faster than they eat, and many children find drinking easier than eating. One trick many children pull is to ask for three and four cups of milk and eat nothing. We call it milk-belly.

Few children clamor for water, and that’s a shame because water will refresh and replenish the body faster and better than any other drink and it’s not something you need to bring home from the store.

As another factor, look at the waste of store bought; it’s obvious. Most children will pour six ounces of apple juice into a cup and leave three of them on the counter. Milk is poured at dinner, and when milk belly is not involved, cup after cup of milk is poured down the drain. It’s no wonder that parents cave offering soda. Children will drink soda, but leave dinner on the table because the sweetness and lightness of the soda makes dinner taste bitter, sour, and heavy. Try it yourself. Take a big swig of soda and then eat some cooked broccoli.

According to a kidney surgeon I know, soda and the salt in it is a leading contributing factor of kidney disease. It takes four tablespoons of salt to make a soda. Four tablespoons is three too many for a whole day’s worth of eating and drinking.

Consider what is in your grocery cart when it comes to drinks. Add it up and then ask if this is really how you want to spend your money. The saddest thing about buying drinks is that they are so expensive and they are taken for granted. Children who get a few ounces of juice a couple of times a day will enjoy it much more than the child who pours endless cups and leaves most of them around the house.

And while we are on the endless cups of this and that, have you ever considered what a disease carrier a sippy cup is? A sippy cup has a child’s spit and mucus in it, on it, around it, and through it which dries, festers in the sugary heaven the germs are finding, and every sip is “re-upped” every time the child finds it. No wonder there are thousands of ear infections, sore throats, and general infections around. Do children really need drinks in the car? Are they going to be dehydrated in an hour’s shopping or at church? Should children be entertained by food and drink when they are out or is out entertaining enough?

And last but not least today, let’s talk about the egregious dry drink mixes that encourage diabetes better than genetics. Need I say more? The very idea of making a kool-aid is tantamount to inviting diabetes to take up with your child. It’s sugar water and will dissolve more than teeth. Why does everything need to be sweet? When children drink kool-aid or the equivalent, the body gets high on sugar and then continues to look for that high powered sugar fix. Children who drink a lot of dry powder mixes can’t drink orange juice because to them real fruit juice is “sour.” That says something about the sugar fix.

So what do you buy? A family of four probably needs three gallons of milk and a gallon of juice. That should do it. And that shouldn’t cost more than $15.00. But that doesn’t mean every time someone is bored they grope the fridge for something to swallow. Between meals, water will do.

Shopping wisely takes taking command of your menus, your grocery cart and your life, and saying no to the obvious junk that not only is not good for you but horrible for your health. Reducing the amount of soft and sugar drinks, and increasing the amount of water will not only reduce the grocery list, it will reduce the waistline.

Next time: buying meat.

The Grandparents Handbook: Games, Activities, Tips, How-Tos, and All-Around Fun (November 1, 2009; $16.95; ISBN: 978-1-59474-412-9), by Elizabeth LaBan, offers modern grandparents a variety of fun pastimes and educational projects to share with their grandchildren. The book also provides a refresher chapter on various baby related tasks such as changing a diaper, swaddling a newborn, and giving kids a bath and also includes some advice on respecting your children’s decisions on how they raise their children.

Divided into four sections—”Bringing Up Baby: A Grandparent’s Refresher Course,” “Indoor and Outdoor Fun and Games,” “Crafts and Cooking,” and “Sharing and Exploring the World Together”—The Grandparents Handbook features such activities as:

• How to Baby—and Kid—Proof Your Home (page 30)
• How to Handle Toddler Tantrums (page 50)
• Holding a Backyard Olympics (page 60)
• Planting a Fairy and Goblin Garden (page 85)
• Creating Your Own Ice Cream Cake (page 107)
• Making Homemade Pickles (page 109)
• Planning a Special Meal Together (page 178)
• Creating Your Family Tree (page 180)
• And much more!

With dozens of interactive projects and featuring whimsical illustrations, The Grandparents Handbook: Games, Activities, Tips, How-Tos, and All-Around Fun will lead grandparents down surprising paths of discovery as they teach the youngest generation about family, friendship, and the world around them. It is the perfect gift for modern grandparents and grandparents-to-be!

It was a dark and stormy week! The children played indoors quite a bit. We cleared out some toy space and Miss Molly brought in about a 1000 piece train set. We haven’t put it together yet because we are still clearing out some of the toys to make room.

We did a little work on dinosaurs this week, but the big dig at the end of the week had to canceled on account of rain. Dinosaurs are not the big hit they used to be. Ella and Sophie and Abbie were the only children who knew the names of some of the dinosaurs. They knew brontosaurus and tyrannosaurus rex and “long neck.” I was impressed!

We are working on knowing our full names, our parents’ full names, our address and our phone number. This has to be done at home. Please teach your child his full name, address and phone number in the car on the way home from school.

We tried one of our Garden School trademark lunches this week and it was a huge success. We served stuffed pumpkin. It’s a whole pumpkin with the top cut off, cleaned out and stuffed with cooked rice and sausage. There is a cheese sauce that goes with it. The children loved it.

Our focus at the table this month is “drink your milk.” We have a lot of children who are not accustomed to drinking milk at the table. So we are encouraging them to do so at certain points during meal time.

I was delighted to see some of our old students return to the GS on Friday. A great big welcome to Skylar and Kamden. It was nice to see Elizabeth there as well.

From Education Week – Curriculum Matters

by Sean Cavanagh

Comment: I love this article. You can find this blog by going HERE

One of the things America has always been good at is competition. Whatever the competition has been, we have been up for it. Standardizing anything only takes the fun out of what we as Americans have come to think of as a natural fight for the top seat on the mountain. We compete with one another, with ourselves, and with the guy down the hill. That natural fight has been sent to time out by big government. The fight that’s left is fought by individuals who have moxie and guts. Not everyone has these instincts. The competitive fight mentality of Americans is what made our country great.

Chinese-American Scholar on American Education, and Foreign Competition

One of the voices to weigh in recently on where U.S. schools stand internationally is that of Yong Zhao, a professor at Michigan State University who was born and raised in China. Zhao, in a new book published by the ASCD, draws upon his own experiences in the Chinese education system and argues that much of the U.S. angst over whether we’re losing “competitiveness” on the global stage is misplaced. American policymakers, he says, are drawing the wrong lessons from the growing economic might of nations like China—and becoming overly enamored with high-stakes testing, to our peril.

Zhao observes, as others have, that Chinese officials are refashioning their education system to adopt some American-style features, namely less emphasis on high-stakes admissions tests and more promotion of critical-thinking skills and independent projects. One of the more interesting changes he cites is the government’s decision in 2008 to give 68 Chinese colleges the freedom to admit or reject students on their own criteria, placing less emphasis on the gaokao, or national college entrance exam.

The author disapproves of what he sees as the United States’ growing fixation on testing and the “accountability” measures of the No Child Left Behind era. One of his chapters is titled “Myth, Fear, and the Evolution of Accountability,” which should give you a taste of his point of view. Here’s an excerpt:

“Clearly, American education has been moving toward authoritarianism,” he writes, “letting the government dictate what and how students should learn and what schools should teach. This movement has been fueled mostly through fear—fear of threats from the Soviets, the Germans, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Chinese, and the Indians. The public, as any animal under threat would, has sought and accepted the action of a protector—the government.”

Pretty strong language. Zhao goes on to praise what he sees as the strengths of the U.S. education system, such as its diversity, which he says breeds innovation and allows it to bring about and respond to changes in the American economy. He also describes American education as a system of “second chances,” in which students who struggle initially have many chances to correct their course, seize upon a talent and prosper. (Presumably unlike other nations, where students are directed onto an academic track on the basis of test scores and kept there.) The United States needs to find ways to replicate these strengths, he says.

Zhao is by no means the first scholar to caution that fears of the United States falling behind educationally are overblown. If you’ve had a chance to read Zhao’s work (the ASCD has published some excerpts online), are you persuaded by his reasoning?

Photo of students at Beijing’s Fourth Secondary School, April 2007, by sevans for EdWeek.

From Wise Woman Ezine

Cinnamon, Cardamom, and Nutmeg
© 2009, Susun S Weed

Comment: I really love this ezine. I read it all the time and have found many wonderful and useful things. Susun Weed is a brilliant herbalist and so much more.

The aroma of winter is wood smoke and evergreen. But winter holidays smell spicy. Herbs that grow only in the tropics — such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, allspice, and vanilla — are called spices. Their aromatic oils and volatile esters entice us with delicious smells and mouth-watering tastes. And spices warm us from the inside, as if we had ingested the tropical sun on a cold day. Spices help preserve food and counter a variety of illnesses, too. Come, sit and warm your feet by the fire. Close your eyes and imagine the dense green forests where aromatic spices grow.

Cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) made me an outlaw. A toothpick soaked in cinnamon oil was the “drug” of choice in my grade school. No matter how much the adults attempted to dissuade us, no matter how they threatened, we found a way to get our cinnamon “fix.” As an adult, I prefer my cinnamon in sticks or finely ground, though I can still vividly recall the hot rush of a fresh cinnamon oil toothpick. Any food can be enhanced with cinnamon, from apple pie to baked beans, from meat marinades to salad dressings. The scent of cinnamon heralds holiday cheer.

Medicinally, cinnamon is a warming tonic. It chases chills, prevents colds, and warms the hands and feet of those who feel cold all the time. Cinnamon has been used for over 2500 years as an appetite enhancer, a stomachic, a carminative, an antimicrobial, an antispasmodic, an anti-rheumatic, and an anti-fungal. A cup of cinnamon tea — made by steeping a cinnamon stick or a scant teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon in a cup of boiling water for no more than ten minutes — is a good way to cheer up and prevent the flu on frosty winter nights.

A cup of cinnamon tea also eases menstrual cramps, soothes sore joints, relieves gas pain, and allays that feeling of fullness after a big meal. A sip or two of cinnamon tea before meals improves digestion and prevents acid reflux. Those who drink cinnamon tea regularly will have less cavities, stronger gums, and fewer insect bites.

Cinnamon made the news recently for its ability to counter diabetes. Modern herbalists are intrigued by its mildly estrogenic and strongly antioxidant effects.

Folk medicine reminds us that cinnamon tea is a gentle but effective remedy for both childhood diarrhea and infestations of worms. In India, cinnamon tea is regarded as a remedy against halitosis, nausea, and vomiting. Cinnamon is frequently used by herbalists everywhere to improve the taste of strong, rooty brews.

The essential oil of cinammon is a good substitute for clove oil in treating toothache. It is particularly effective in killing the organisms that cause periodontal disease.

Those who are pregnant and those with stomach or intestinal ulcers are advised to avoid cinnamon. It can poison. A little of the essential oil of cinnamon (of course the parents were right!) and very large amounts of powdered cinnamon can cause symptoms. Poisoning begins with central nervous system sedation — characterized by sleepiness and depression. This is followed by tachycardia (rapid heartbeat) and stimulation of the vasomotor center, which causes increases in intestinal peristalsis (diarrhea), respiration (panting), and diuresis (perspiration).

Cinnamon has been used for centuries as a perfume and a preservative. It was considered more precious than gold in ancient Egypt where it was valued as essential in embalming. Both Christians and witches are said to have known of the spiritual energy of cinnamon and so included it in their rituals. Why not make cinnamon part of your holiday rituals?

For Cardamon and other spices please go to Susan Weed

Good Morning!

It’s dinosaur week! Children will play, learn and discover a world of dinosaurs this week. It should be fun.

Children may wear long clothes if you haven’t already gotten them out of the drawer or closet.

We will be making Halloween goodies all month.

Roast pork and potatoes, applesauce, biscuits and corn is our menu today.

Loving the cooler weather.

No field trip this week.

Have a great week!

In a discussion last week with a couple of our Garden School mothers, it was proposed that I offer some insight into keeping the food budget way down and still making great meals every day. I’ve been buying for home since 1970, and I added school in 1983, so I’ve had lots of practice. I once made the newspaper in an article about managing a big family on a small budget.

My issue has always been providing the best food I can for as little as possible, providing that food with as little trouble as possible, and always being able to provide it simply because it is easy, quick, and tastes good with the added bonus of being very healthy. I’ve learned a lot over the years from constantly reading about health and nutrition, from using foods differently and lots and lots of experimentation.

Shopping is important, but it’s not so much where you shop as what you buy when you shop. There are times when it’s necessary to buy the more expensive cut, the more expensive product simply because it’s a better overall buy for health. Slowly you figure out where it’s necessary to spend money, and when it’s just silly; what stores provide the best bargains, and when to buy in bulk. The big question to ask is: What is draining the budget?

The next question is: “How much do you WANT to spend?” What is that “perfect” number. I know at school that my budget is about $250.00 per week. If you break that down into meals, it costs me 42 cents a meal per child and that includes milk. Does 42 cents a meal seem like a good number? Today we will eat roast pork and home baked fries, corn, biscuits and applesauce. We had fresh apple/orange muffins for breakfast and homemade chocolate cake will be served for snack. At 42 cents a serving, that’s not a bad deal.

So here are a couple of ideas to ponder: Number One: If you can make it at home, don’t buy it. This applies especially to bread, and baked goods so we will concentrate on those right now.

That includes all the treat foods you buy. That’s easier said than done. Or it is at least easier thought than done. The response when I say this out loud is, “I don’t have time.” That’s the escape route most people choose to saving money and making healthier meals, and it always makes me smile. The truth is, you do have time, and the time is well spent, and the result is saved money and better health.

Let me use one of my favorite examples: If I “bought” muffins for our children every Monday, it would cost me $48.00 per breakfast. By making the muffins, it costs me the price of flour, sugar, baking powder, oil, eggs and milk and whatever extra I put into them. It probably costs $2.00. By not spending the $46.00 on muffins, I can spend my money elsewhere.

The problem and frustration of baking usually lies with the kitchen. Canisters kept full for baking are a must. A mixer left out is a must. The other thing to remember is that we don’t need 24 muffins for breakfast for a family of three, four, five, or six. We need six. Buy a six muffin tin because you don’t need more. Keep left over batter in a plastic container. It does expand and using glass can make a mess. Then, when you want muffins again, the batter is made. I never bake more than half a cake, a quarter of a muffin recipe, or more than a dozen cookies at a time. That way, it’s quick, done, and nobody puts on the pounds and there is a next time soon.

Setting up the kitchen means keeping your stove empty, your equipment available, your mixer out and your ingredients within easy reach. When you set up your kitchen to be able to bake quickly, you can get a cake in the oven in 4 minutes while you are making that last effort on the phone, texting a friend or even using facebook. It’s four minutes. You do have time.

The latest studies on nutrition say we need six helpings of grain product every day for good health. But the grain products should be whole grains, and that’s not going to happen with white flour pre-made junk in a cellophane container that has a shelf life of 400 years. At the same time other things easy to make are noodles, cereal, and crackers – more about that later.

“But don’t I have to have a lot of extra food in the house to do a lot of fancy baking?” The answer is for most cakes, you need flour, sugar, oil or butter, eggs, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and perhaps some chocolate. You also need a pan. Most people have these things in their homes. But don’t get me wrong, it’s not all the cheap stuff from Walmart. I don’t buy bulk white flour products because it’s not good for you. I use some occasionally, but for the most part I do buy the expensive whole wheat pastry flour at $5.00 per bag. It’s still cheaper to make than to buy premade. I also mill my own flours from beans and rice, but that’s a whole other ballgame.

Bread is extremely expensive, and again white bread is horrible for your digestion. It’s as bad as inviting cancer to be your friend. Studies have shown that white bread and white flour products are suspects in causing intestinal cancer, so be careful. I rarely if ever buy a loaf of bread because there are so many other choices out there. When you are in the sandwich rut, it’s hard to think outside the sandwich box, but there are a lot of things that can be used in place of sandwich bread.

In figuring the cost of sandwiches for picnics during the summer at school. Multiply forty children by sandwich bread and you get a cost of $15.00 just for the bread. That three times a week is just painfully expensive. So we use alternatives. We use long hoagy buns, tortillas and sometimes homemade buns.

When you look at the ingredients in any bakery cake, cookie, or muffin, the flour is not even enriched because it is not even trying to be healthy. When the sugar content is listed before the flour, you know you have a “winner” to contend with. When the fat is something you never even heard of, you know you are eating something one molecule away from plastic, so the excuse, “I don’t have time” is like saying, “I don’t have time to lock my doors and turn off my lights” at the end of an evening.

Baking is a habit. It’s something you do while you are making other things in the kitchen, and after placing your equipment within easy use, and filling your canisters with baking ingredients, and making sure these things are on your regular shopping list, you will be surprised by how much you save.

Here is a shopping list to help:

Whole wheat pastry flour – can be used in place of white flour
Brown sugar – is better for you than white, but your product will be slightly heavier.
White sugar – can be reduced from 1/4 to 1/2 on most recipes.
Confectioners sugar – a little goes a long way.
Butter – much better for you than margarine.
Canola oil – best oil for baking.
Cocoa – is a wonderful antioxidant and has a lot of nutritional value.
Coconut – makes muffins/cakes lighter and more nutritious. Coconut is the highest quality nut.
Baking powder – always use generously.
Baking soda – add a little when using fruit.
Salt- use as needed but don’t over do.
Chocolate chips – buy good dark chips. Milk chocolate has no value and is cloyingly sweet.
Eggs – best buy is free range, but an egg is an egg.
Milk – make sure your milk is vitamin D.

Here’s an easy muffin recipe:

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar ( can be reduced)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1-2 cups milk

add nuts, cold cereal, raisins, coconut, cinnamon, berries, chopped apples, cranberries, orange or other fruit or vegetable. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Next time: vegetables and fruits

We had a great day out in the sunshine and crisp cool fall weather. The children were at their best when we listened to a movie about smoke, fire, time, and the danger of burning buildings. The kids answered Fireman Ryan’s questions with intelligence and interest as he asked them if they knew how to crawl in a fire and why, and if they knew how to get out of their houses.

Now it’s time for parents to do a fire drill at home. It’s important for every child to know how to get out of his building if he suddenly wakes up to smoke in his room. There should be a meeting place outside where children will meet with other family members.

Children should be taught their full names, address and phone numbers by parents. They should be taught to dial 911 and to answer questions to others besides parents about their full names, address and phone number. Should your child be separated from you in public – say at the Fall Festival – they know to find a police officer, but do they know what to tell the officer?

We will be asking this week at school and children who know their full names, addresses, and phone numbers will get a prize.

After the fire study, we went to the playground and had a great time. We landed back in school and played the rest of the afternoon. Great day!

Published: September 28, 2009 by Teacher Magazine

Obama Pushes for More School Hours

Comment: I think the longer children stay in class, the lower their test scores. Time does not make the student – desire does, and that desire is learned from parents. It comes from the home. When the home becomes more of a target, children will prosper. ♠

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.”

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.

“Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Fifth-grader Nakany Camara is of two minds. She likes the four-week summer program at her school, Brookhaven Elementary School in Rockville, Md. Nakany enjoys seeing her friends there and thinks summer school helped boost her grades from two Cs to the honor roll.

But she doesn’t want a longer school day. “I would walk straight out the door,” she said.

Domonique Toombs felt the same way when she learned she would stay for an extra three hours each day in sixth grade at Boston’s Clarence R. Edwards Middle School.

“I was like, ‘Wow, are you serious?'” she said. “That’s three more hours I won’t be able to chill with my friends after school.”

Her school is part of a 3-year-old state initiative to add 300 hours of school time in nearly two dozen schools. Early results are positive. Even reluctant Domonique, who just started ninth grade, feels differently now. “I’ve learned a lot,” she said.

Does Obama want every kid to do these things? School until dinnertime? Summer school? And what about the idea that kids today are overscheduled and need more time to play?

———

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.

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).

———

Regardless, there is a strong case for adding time to the school day.

Researcher Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution looked at math scores in countries that added math instruction time. Scores rose significantly, especially in countries that added minutes to the day, rather than days to the year.

“Ten minutes sounds trivial to a school day, but don’t forget, these math periods in the U.S. average 45 minutes,” Loveless said. “Percentage-wise, that’s a pretty healthy increase.”

In the U.S., there are many examples of gains when time is added to the school day.

Charter schools are known for having longer school days or weeks or years. For example, kids in the KIPP network of 82 charter schools across the country go to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., more than three hours longer than the typical day. They go to school every other Saturday and for three weeks in the summer. KIPP eighth-grade classes exceed their school district averages on state tests.

In Massachusetts’ expanded learning time initiative, early results indicate that kids in some schools do better on state tests than do kids at regular public schools. The extra time, which schools can add as hours or days, is for three things: core academics — kids struggling in English, for example, get an extra English class; more time for teachers; and enrichment time for kids.

Regular public schools are adding time, too, though it is optional and not usually part of the regular school day. Their calendar is pretty much set in stone. Most states set the minimum number of school days at 180 days, though a few require 175 to 179 days.

Several schools are going year-round by shortening summer vacation and lengthening other breaks.

Many schools are going beyond the traditional summer school model, in which schools give remedial help to kids who flunked or fell behind.

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.

Extra time is not cheap. The Massachusetts program costs an extra $1,300 per student, or 12 percent to 15 percent more than regular per-student spending, said Jennifer Davis, a founder of the program. It received more than $17.5 million from the state Legislature last year.

The Montgomery County, Md., summer program, which includes Brookhaven, received $1.6 million in federal stimulus dollars to operate this year and next, but it runs for only 20 days.

Aside from improving academic performance, Education Secretary Duncan has a vision of schools as the heart of the community. Duncan, who was Chicago’s schools chief, grew up studying alongside poor kids on the city’s South Side as part of the tutoring program his mother still runs.

“Those hours from 3 o’clock to 7 o’clock are times of high anxiety for parents,” Duncan said. “They want their children safe. Families are working one and two and three jobs now to make ends meet and to keep food on the table.”

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Associated Press writer Russell Contreras in Boston contributed to this report.