Great thinkers have pondered the problems of one calendar for students and an entirely different calendar for workers. Such contemplation gave rise to year-round school calendars that provide the standard 180 instructional days and spread breaks throughout the year, many on a 45-on, 15-off cycle. It also gave rise to all-day schools, where students may attend from 7:45 a.m. to 5 p.m., with late-afternoon classes available in subjects such as music, athletics and cooking, as well as remedial academic tutoring. Proponents contend low-income students spend all that free time on street corners with nothing but trouble for entertainment.
Those in favor cite better academic achievement, especially among underprivileged children. Some of the studies have shown that students from low-income families lose a lot of academic ground in the summertime; students from higher-income families who are more likely to spend their summers at private camps and completing reading challenges do not.
Other scholars decry modified school schedules, arguing that longer days and shorter breaks rob children of their childhoods. They contend that the traditional school calendar fosters valuable learning outside the classroom, providing time for parents to choose their own activities and allow their children to interact with nonclassmates.
Opponents to modified school schedules make one other intriguing claim: The business community would suffer if there wasn’t a pool of cheap, teenaged labor available to fill seasonal jobs.
There is another approach. The traditional school calendar doesn’t work today, and schools should continue to explore alternatives. But they should collaborate with the business community, which should be willing to evaluate work schedules, too. America is not a land of family-friendly workplaces, despite the occasional Silicon Valley outlier, and Oklahoma is no exception.
If Oklahoma’s school and business leaders worked together, we are confident they could devise a coordinated schedule that would result in well-cared-for, educated children and happy, motivated employees who weren’t constantly struggling to coordinate their children’s schedules with their own.
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The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, Aug. 18 - A judge’s decision declaring an abortion-drug law a “special law” in violation of the Oklahoma Constitution certainly disappointed those opposed to abortion on demand. But the ruling’s implications may extend further, even to the point of hindering efforts to combat drug addiction.
Last week, Oklahoma County District Judge Patricia Parrish overturned a state law regulating use of some abortion drugs. The law required that abortion drugs be administered in accordance with U.S. Food and Drug Administration label instructions. Many of those drugs are now provided in ways that don’t comply with those guidelines. Since the law applied specifically to abortion-inducing drugs, Parrish ruled it amounted to an unconstitutional “special law,” citing a prior decision by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
This raises questions that extend well beyond abortion regulation. If the Legislature cannot pass laws that restrict the use of specific drugs under certain circumstances, then does that leave other similar laws subject to successful legal challenge?
One example that springs to mind is a law requiring that all pseudoephedrine products be placed behind the counter. That law imposes strict limits on the amount of pseudoephedrine an individual may purchase in a month, and requires tracking of purchasers.
That law treats similar medicines and customers in decidedly different fashion. Nonprescription allergy medicine without pseudoephedrine can be purchased with little difficulty. But that same consumer must jump through several hurdles to buy a nonprescription allergy medicine containing pseudoephedrine. Both products treat the same problem. Both may provide the same benefit to the same customer. But the two products are treated very differently under state law. Does this
