U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan went on The Colbert Report Monday night to promote the latest of the administration’s proposed education reforms: Increasing the amount of time students spend in school.  Colbert had an “expert” deliver the nightly The Word segment,  which a contained some humorous reasons why increasing the length of the school year was a bad idea.

Still, Duncan makes a good case for lengthening school days and/or adding days to the school year.  He rightly points out that the current school schedule is a remnant of an agrarian economy.  He recognizes that students in other countries spend more time in school.  He also notes that there are places where kids are safer in schools than at home or roaming the dangerous streets of their neighborhood. All of these are valid considerations.

But there are a few questions we should ask before committing to a wholesale increase in schooling time.

The most obvious question is, will kids learn more if they are in school longer? Both common sense and research says that on average, more time in school leads to higher student achievement.  That said, better student achievement—which essentially means better reading and math skills—isn’t the only thing we want for our kids.  The value of increased schooling depends on what children are doing when they’re not in school.

Some are taking piano lessons, playing in chess clubs, participating in organized sports, or spending quality time with their parents.  Others are playing video games or watching television. In other cases, children are roaming the streets unsupervised and joining gangs.

Lengthening the school day or year is a trade-off. Time is finite, and more time in school means less time for other activities. The decision depends on how much we are willing to trade non-school experiences for higher student achievement.

Personally, I think kids spend enough time in school already. Even when they’re not being productive or engaged in something particularly important, there’s something to be said for letting kids be kids. Summer vacation is a cherished memory for most people, and for good reason. There ought to be more to life than the daily grind of schooling.

Another important question is whether or not increased time in school is the best way we could improve student achievement. Despite Duncan’s claim that other countries have longer school years, The Associated Press reports that:

Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days).

Perhaps the answer isn’t to increase time in school, but to figure out how to make more efficient use of the current amount of time. Other approaches supported by Obama and Duncan, like increasing the presence of charter schools and providing incentives to attract effective teachers to the areas that need them most could be a better investment.

The public case Obama and Duncan are making for lengthening the school year coincides with the tragic afterschool beating death of a Chicago student, and one of the reasons Duncan has said that he wants to lengthen the school day is to keep children out of dangerous situations.  It’s hard to argue with such a proposal under those types of conditions.  There is a difference, however, between targeted programs of choice, like the longer school days KIPP schools offers in disadvantaged areas, and a wholesale increase in the amount of schooling every student is required to attend.  If the amount of schooling time is to be increased, it should be in targeted areas.  It should also be in the form of additional services that parents can choose whether or not they want their children to participate in.

Fair warning: Duncan’s appearance on Colbert isn’t particularly informing, nor is it very entertaining.  But here it is for those interested.