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I know it’s cold and once you get home, it’s hard to go out again, but tonight is the first Vision Session regarding the Hamilton Canal Project and your input is needed. The meeting will be held beginning at 5:45 pm at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium, 50 East Merrimack Street, 3rd floor, Veterans’ Wing, with free parking at the Davidson Street lot. Over the next 10 years, this project will include 15 acres, cost $500 million, and transform the canal area and the city’s downtown in ways we can only begin to imagine. Trinity Financial, the master developer, invites you to be part of this development process by learning more about their plans and sharing your ideas. So dress warmly, head downtown, and be part of the process—you can’t complain about how it turns out if you don’t! (I’ll be at the school committee meeting—more on that later.)

Sorry for the delay in posting. My co-author is away, and I got distracted by life in general. No real excuse except for getting caught up in cleaning and decorating my house, visiting with out-of-state family, and partying spontaneously at every opportunity. I apologize for the hiccup in posting and promise to be more diligent.

Tony posted on Dick’s blog today about the benefits of a longer school day. To me, it’s pretty basic: If the U.S. is going to stay competitive in the global market, our students need more time for learning just as students in China, India, Japan and Germany have. Other countries do it because they know that today’s world demands a higher educated populace. Our students need more time simply to keep up with the rest of the world. That said, it’s not going to be easy. In Lowell, over the last few years, we received two planning grants to extend our school day, and we still have not developed a program that works with the teachers’ union, the parents, and the administrators.  I’m not blaming anyone in particular, but these are some of the issues that have blocked progress:  1. Not all teachers want to work a longer day—so what happens to unwilling staff if you make their school a pilot for this program? 2. Not all parents want their children to have longer school days. What about sports, art, dance etc? (The idea is to include enrichment activities such as these into the longer day format.) State requirements initially mandated that an entire school must commit to the extended day format (not sure if this is still true), but that was an obstacle with unions and families who didn’t want to have to change schools to opt out of the program. 3. Not enough money to go around—it’s going to take serious funding; resources have to be put into programming and curriculum, as well as salaries, if it’s going to be worthwhile.