Katie Couric's Notebook: School Holidays

In 1901, a man named T. Robinson sent a letter to The New York Times. His complaint? There were too many school holidays. "Enforced idleness," he called it.

More than a century later, the debate continues.

American children spend far less time in school than kids do in China or India -- and a full month less than the kids in South Korea. In Japan, the school year lasts 250 days. Here, it's just 185.

Some worry all that free time puts the nation at a competitive disadvantage. Kids here have fallen to ninth place in the world in math. Thirty percent of them don't even finish high school.

The new education secretary, Arne Duncan, has advocated extending the school week to six, even seven days, and keeping schools open for twelve hours.

Clearly most kids will not support these suggestions. But fewer days off and a longer school calendar may need to be part of the curriculum if we want to continue to grow the best and the brightest.

That's a page from my notebook.