Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 108 Part 5.djvu/374

 108 STAT. 3864 PUBLIC LAW 103-382—OCT. 20, 1994 "(D) schools, businesses, community-based organizations, tribal leaders, and other community agencies and members should work together to foster effective learning and enrichment programs and activities for students, including programs that operate outside of the regular school day or year; "(E) for most students in the United States, the school year is 180 days long. In Japan students go to school 243 days per year, in Germany students go to school 240 days per year, in Austria students go to school 216 days per year, in Denmark students go to school 200 days per year, and in Switzerland students go to school 195 days per year; and "(F) in the final four years of schooling, students in schools in the United States are required to spend a total of 1,460 hours on core academic subjects, less than half of the 3,528 hours so required in Grermany, the 3,280 hours so required in France, and the 3,170 hours so required in Japan; "(2) increasing the amount and duration of intensive, engaging and challenging learning activities geared to high standards can increase student motivation and achievement; "(3) the benefits of extending learning time, including common core instructional time, can be maximized by concurrent changes in curriculum and instruction, such as accelerated learning, and engaging, interactive instruction based on challenging content; "(4) maximizing the benefit of increased common core and other learning time will require the collaboration and cooperation of teachers and administrators, students, parents, community members and organizations, businesses and others to develop strategies to meet the needs of students during and beyond the school day and year; "(5) a competitive world economy requires that students in the United States receive education and training that is at least as rigorous and high-quality as the education and training received by students in competitor countries; "(6) despite our Nation's transformation from a farm-based economy to one based on manufacturing and services, the school year is still based on the summer needs of an agrarian economy; "(7) American students' lack of formal schooling is not counterbalanced with more homework. The opposite is true, as half of all European students report spending at least two hours on homework per day, compared to only 29 percent of American students. Twenty-two percent of American students watch five or more hours of television per day, while less than eight percent of European students watch that much television; "(8) more than half of teachers surveyed in the United States cite 'children who are left on their own after school' as a major problem; "(9) over the summer months, disadvantaged students not only fail to advance academically, but many forget much of what such students had learned during the previous school year;

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