In a recent documentary, Newt Gingrich states that American children are falling behind many other nations’ children in respect of their academic prowess.  He argues that they compare most unfavourably with Chinese and Indian children.  To add weight to this argument, a recent McKinsey report emphasises that the lagging performance of America’s school pupils, particularly its poor and minority children, is wreaking more devastation on the economy than the current credit crunch and recession.  American children, it seesms, are ill-equipped to compete and perform poorly in international educational test.

So, what seems to be the cause of this state of affairs? American academics put it down to ‘the summer learning loss’ over the long summer holidays and argue its exacerbating social inequalities. In addition to the longer summer holidays that the children receive, American kids seem to work fewer days in the year, have a shorter school day and only about an hour’s homework a night. Compared to European and Asian schedules, it appears that American kids lose out on 180 days of school (an entire year) over the course of their schooling.