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EDUCATION
One Simple School Change Would Help Kids, Families, Teachers and Employers
And it would strengthen our country, too
It was as I prepared to embark on a six-hour round-trip drive to cover one hour of childcare gap for my grandchildren that it hit me: We should better align school schedules with work schedules.
This is not an original idea, but its day has come and this is why: While not enough people really care about the travails of working mothers, this change would solve a problem for both conservatives and liberals and would be good for our national security as well.
How it is now
U.S. schools typically dismiss around 3 p.m., but most workers don’t get off the clock until 5. This leaves parents scrambling to fill a couple of hours each day, and summer is a whole other issue.
Of course, this has been painted as a problem for working moms to figure out. Hey, you ladies wanted to be liberated and take jobs, fine, but you still have to figure out how to make sure your kids are supervised. That’s the quiet part that most conservatives don’t say out loud.
However, it’s not a women’s rights issue. It’s a family well-being issue. This affects working fathers just as much. More dads are showing…
