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　　Here’s an idea: stop focusing on testing and instead support changing the hours of the school day, starting it later for teenagers and ending it later for all children. Indeed, no one does well when they’re sleep-deprived, but insufficient sleep among children has been linked to obesity and to learning issues like attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. You’d think this would spur educators to take action, and a few have.

　　In 2002, high schools in Jessamine County in Kentucky pushed back the first bell to 8:40 a.m., from 7:30 a.m. Attendance immediately went up, as did scores on standardized tests, which have continued to rise each year. Districts in Virginia and Connecticut have achieved similar success. In Minneapolis and Edina, Minn., which instituted high school start times of 8:40 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. respectively in 1997, students’ grades rose slightly and lateness, behavioral problems and dropout rates decreased. Later is also safer. When high schools in Fayette County in Kentucky delayed their start times to 8:30 a.m., the number of teenagers involved in car crashes dropped, even as they rose in the state.

　　So why hasn’t every school board moved back that first bell? Well, it seems that improving teenagers’ performance takes a back seat to more pressing concerns: the cost of additional bus service, the difficulty of adjusting after-school activity schedules and the inconvenience to teachers and parents.


　　There are other reasons to start and end school at a later time. According to Paul Reville, a professor of education policy at Harvard and chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education, “Trying to cram everything our 21st-century students need into a 19th-century six-and-a-half-hour day just isn’t working.” He says that children learn more at a less frantic pace, and that lengthening the school day would help “close the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their better-off peers.”
　　最后一段话开头更是强调了整篇文章的主旨，接下来的专家头衔和直接引用全部可以略去不看，“He says that”开始的间接引用可以再看一下。


标签：中口 中口阅读
2010-08-25 11:54 编辑：mavis1114

