Most of this post is full of vast generalizations. First of all adding more hours isn't going to do alot. Your brain needs time to digest information and it needs breaks. If the kid isn't doing homework after school and is instead playing video games or off getting blasted with friends it isn't the systems fault its just bad parenting.georgebushmoron said:
The reason why they are taking away grades for these kids is because it ruins their self esteem and eventually just creates a bunch of dropouts. Is it the kids fault he's fat? Probably not because he's just doing what his parents taught him. Ultimately its his parents that feed him the majority of his food and if they are feeding him hamburgers and chocolate bars then its their fault.
Blaming the system doesn't do anything. Sure all the schools could make kids stay 10 hr's a day and force them do stay and do homework. Who would want this? Some parents might but the majority wouldn't. You'd have to raise taxes making everyone angry. Alot of parents have no trouble making their kids do homework and raising them responsibly already so they would be pissed for the extra taxes. The people with the majority of power in society(the wealthy) would send their lobbyist hounds to whine, cry and bribe the politicians. Threats would be made that they can't afford the taxes and they are going to do lay offs. Wealthy people don't care about public education of course because all their kids are in private schools.
Teachers are also very limited on what tools they can use to influence kids. Calling them lazy is while the majority of them aren't is crap. Alot of the teachers often do 2-3 hours unpaid work a night. Trying to inspire kids when you have to follow such a tight curriculum is hard. If you deviate you get the school board after you and they usually don't teach you how to inspire children in university. I remember I had one teacher when I was growing up that was a good one. Most of the kids liked him, he inspired kids to do their homework and want to learn. The schoolboard didn't like him because he used unorthodox methods. He used his psychology to get kids in the classroom rather than the sending kids to the principles office to be punished which doesn't work usually. I remember one time when he was having problems with one girl that would go out of the class all the time to talk with friends for 10-20mins. He got us all to stare at her quietly when she came back once and while I admit it upset her she never did it again because she was so concerned with her self image. He was canned for doing it a few weeks later but they let him finish the year because it was almost over.
Adhd again you can't blame the system and its ultimately bad parents that give kids adhd. During brain development if your body releases alot of cortisol your brain will start developing the lizard part of your brain more than the neo cortex and frontal lobes(which control attention span, . Cortisol is released when you feel fear and during fast high intensity sports and probably during some video games/movies. While its ok to have abit so playing sports is ok people that are regularly abused have really high levels and as such the lizard part of the brain develops more. For example, I have a friend that was regularly beaten while he was growing up and has a terrible attention span despite being rather witty and intelligent. The lack of attention means that higher education wasn't possible and as such he isn't all that successful even though I know many people that are rather dumb and slow witted but have degree's and decent paying jobs.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/develop.cfm
http://www.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/development/January99.html
http://www.partnershipforlearning.org/article.asp?ArticleID=1080
