The kids have had the equivalent of a week off from school already this year and school hasn't been in session for 2 mos yet! Then 3 more days off in early November.....Any questions lingering on why your kids aren't learning - here you go.

They start school earlier and end school later to accommodate the extra days off during the year. I know when I was in school they were trying to make school year round. People were opposed to it, so they started adding in the Jewish holidays as off days. They've been adding more and more days off since then and starting school earlier and ending it later. As a matter of fact, schools have an amount of days they must hit. If they have too many days off (extra snow days, for example) they will extend the school year to meet that requirement.

So anyway, Terry, that makes your assessment of why kids aren't learning kind of moot. A lot of kids are learning just fine and a lot of them aren't learning at all, but you can't blame that all on the schools when it's really a lot of uninvolved, in denial parents.

180 days....that's the magic number! I agree that that the inconsistent schedule, and breaks in the weeks, are problematic. But the number is and as far as I can remember always has been 180.