Texas educators say there is value to keeping students in the classroom for a minimum number of days or hours each term. Wisconsin's governor wants to toss out the classroom requirements and judge schools on their standardized test scores.
Texas education expert Jean Burk says class time is important. She says you have to do the work to learn.
“To really solidify information, so that you can apply it appropriately, you have to hear it again and again. Anybody can memorize something pretty quickly and get a really good score on a test,” Burk says, “but that doesn't mean that they have learned it, memorized it, they internalized it.”
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says keeping a student sitting in a chair doesn't accomplish much, but Burk says all that learning time is valuable if the kids are going to retain what they learn.
“You can't short-cut the short-cuts,” she says. “You gotta do the work. There's no instant success in life, whether it's in school, sports, piano, whatever.”