To add to Bostonian's link above:
The ruling wherein Portland Public ...al hours guaranteed them under state lawThe saddest part? This wasn't even caused by the "emergency" slashing of school days of two to four years ago. This one was part of a "strategic plan" that went through regular channels for approval. The school-day-slashing thing was declared a state of emergency. Now, that meant that OR students were getting fewer hours of instruction than... well, than basically any students in the first world, from what I can gather... but there wasn't anything that parents could do about that one. State of emergency and all.
This was different. Ohhhh, but the stories that I could tell. My daughter, for second year German, has had just 45 hours of POSSIBLE contact time with a teacher-- including office hours and regular instructional time. If we leave out office hours, she's had 16 hours of instruction THIS YEAR.
State says that one credit requires a minimum of 130 hours.
As for the 990 hours that high schoolers are entitled to under state law... my DD has had approximately....
SIXTY-FIVE hours of "instructional" time with teachers. The rest has been canned lesson slides, etc.-- basically independent study.
