The Chicago Public Schools

The Chicago Teachers Union filed a first teachers ' strike in 25 years to put additional pressure on Chicago Public Schools administration, who decided to increase a length of a school day. According to the words of "the Father of the Nation" Nelson Mandela - “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”, and on the ground of the importance of education one of the most controversial and disputable problems of our time is how long should be a school day.

I have chosen this global issue, because I have met this problem in my school, where we have 9 lessons every day. So I decided to study positive and negative sides of having longer school day and to know should we spent more than more than 6 hours in schools?

The second reason is that I want to know the experience of schools, which have been practising extended schedule for a long time in other countries and how it influenced on theirs economy, social life, health and other areas.

The third reason is that

Teachers and students are too tired from the lessons, so they have not any desire to stay extra time in school. Barbara J. Leiseth wrote in her book that The Lake Arthur School District in Lake Arthur has practicing four day school week, but with extended learning time per day and it did not experience any additional benefits. After 20 years of following the four – day the district decided to add Fridays back into their schedule in order to shorten their academic days. They found that students and staff were exhausted and consequently did not want to stay after school for staff meetings, student organizational meetings, or athletic practices. The attendance of such extra-curricular clubs as dancing, singing, gymnastics significantly decreased (Leiseth). Overall extended school days influence harmfully on the lessons planning and all-round development of the