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  3. School Is Out Too Many Us Kids Fall To "self-care" The kids are hanging out. I pass small bands of students, on my way to wo

School Is Out Too Many Us Kids Fall To "self-care" The kids are hanging out. I pass small bands of students, on my way to wo

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问题                 School Is Out Too Many Us Kids Fall To "self-care"
    The kids are hanging out. I pass small bands of students, on my way to work these mornings. They have become a familiar part of the summer landscape. These kids are not old enough for jobs. Nor are they rich enough for camp. They are school children without school. The calendar called the school year ran out on them a few weeks ago. Once supervised by teachers and principals, they now appear to be "self-care".
    Passing them is like passing through a time zone. For much of our history, after all, Americans arranged the school year around the needs of work and family. In 19th-century cities, schools were open seven or eight hours a day, 11 months a year. In rural America, the year was arranged around the growing season. Now, only 3 percent of families follow the agricultural model, but nearly all schools are scheduled as if our children went home early to milk the cows and took months off to work the crops. Now, three-quarters of the mothers of school-age children work, but the calendar is written as if they were home waiting for the school bus.
    The six-hour day, the 180-day school year is regarded as something holy. But when parents work an eight-hour day and a 240 day year, it means something different. It means that many kids go home to empty houses. It means that, in the summer, they hang out. "We have a huge mismatch between the school calendar and realities of family life," says Dr. Ernest Boyer, head of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
    Dr. Boyer is one of many who believe that a radical revision of the school calendar is inevitable. "School, whether we like it or not, is educational. It always has been." His is not popular idea. Schools are routinely burdened with the job of solving all our social problems. Can they be asked to meet the needs of our work and family lives?
    It may be easier to promote a longer school year on its educational merits and, indeed, the educational case is compelling. Despite the complaints and studies about our kids’ lack of learning, the United States still has a shorter school year than any industrial nation. In most of Europe, the school year is 220 days. In Japan, it is 240 days long. While classroom time alone doesn’t produce a well-educated child, learning takes time and more learning takes more time. The long summers of forgetting take a toll.
    The opposition to a longer school year comes from families that want to and can provide other experiences for their children. It comes from teachers. It comes from tradition. And surely from kids. But the most important part of the conflict has been over the money.
What’s the main purpose of the text?
选项 A、To describe how American children spend their summer.
B、To explain why the school calendar conflicts with the needs of the families
C、To discuss the problems of the current school calendar.
D、To persuade parents to send their children back to school.
答案C
解析 本题考查文章主旨。作者从“孩子们在外闲逛"的现象人手，引出校历或学年这个话题。接着作者通过比较现在和过去的社会环境，指出现行校历不能满足家庭、社会的需求。然后作者又从学校的教育职能出发，指出现行校历不能提供给学生足够的学习时间。最后提到对现行校历进行改革会遇到的阻力。因此[C]是全文讨论的主要内容。[A]只是第一段涉及的内容，本文作者显然不只是为了描述一种现象。[B]在第二、三段有所涉及，但本文不仅提到校历与家庭需求相互冲突，也指出了校历与学校的教育职能相冲突，因此[B]不能概括全文。本文作者只提出了改革校历，并没有提出仟何与家长相关的建议，排除[D]。
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