The recent AP article "Obama wants nation’s children to spend more time in school" reports that President Obama thinks that kids need more time in school to keep competitive in a global economy. Of course the question would be should the additional time be accomplished through more time per day or more days or both. If kids ability to assimilate knowledge declines as the length of the school day increases beyond some point then lengthening the school day may be less effective than increasing the number of school days per year.