Alexander Backs Plan for Extending School Day, Year

WASHINGTON —  Education Secretary Lamar Alexander said Sunday he favors extending the school day and school year by making the additional time optional and charging parents for the extra instruction.

That’s how it works in Murfreesboro, Tenn., where seven public elementary schools offer extra classes in the afternoons and the summer, he said.

“About half the parents pay for their children to go,” the former Tennessee governor said on ABC-TV’s “This Week with David Brinkley.” “They voluntarily choose that.”

Alexander offered the idea as a solution to the problem of how to pay for a longer school year.

American students attend classes 180 days a year, fewer than most other industrialized countries.

“I would like to see school districts open their schools in the afternoon, open them in the summer and invite parents to send their children there,” he said. “Let people get accustomed to it.

“The parents . . . choose it and pay for it,” he said.

Alexander defended the emphasis on parental choice in President Bush’s new education strategy. Poor schools should be forced to close if they can’t attract students, he said.

Bush on Thursday unveiled his strategy for a “revolution” in American schooling, including giving parents more choice in picking schools.

Bush and Alexander want to allow federal dollars to follow poor children to whatever school they choose--public, parochial or private--and they urged state and local authorities to allow the same flexibility with their school dollars.

That’s how federal aid for college is handled, Alexander said, denying it would impede racial integration.