Dom Giordano Disagrees With Gov. Christie Over His Plan To Extend The School Year

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Dom Giordano took issue today with a plan laid out by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to lengthen the school year. Christie said in his State of the State Address that, "our school calendar is antiquated both educationally and culturally. Life in 2014 demands something more for our students. It is time to lengthen both the school day and school year in New Jersey." On Talk Radio 1210 WPHT Dom disagreed, arguing that lengthening the school year punishes kids that do well during the current calendar system by taking away their summer vacation. He said, "You're taking a kid who is succeeding and doubly succeeding in the summer and dragoon them in there because of these kids that are not succeeding."

LISTEN: Dom Giordano Discusses A Plan Laid Out By Gov. Chris Christie To Lengthen The School Year

Dom also argued that administrators forcing poor and disruptive students to come to school in the summer will not make them any more attentive, stating that, "if they don't understand in the summertime how much more difficult it is with these kids that all year long are pains, in the summertime it would be so much worse."

"It is just bothering people and inconveniencing them. What in the world did we do before this? We were America. We were great and we had long summer vacations," Giordano said of the intrusion into the school year by administrators and politicians.

While Governor Christie made clear his main focus is to improve performance, saying, "if student achievement is lagging at the exact moment when we need improvement more than ever in order to compete in the world economy, should we not take these steps — every possible step — to boost student achievement," Dom's point is that this action will hurt successful students who do things like work in the summer, concluding, "so we're going to take away summer for kids and all the benefits we talked about and all the kids that are succeeding because parents have no place to put the kids in the summertime."