Seems to me, the dominating narrative, driven by some questionable characters, is longer school hours to match business hours. No, we should be lowering business hours to match existing school hours. We can't compete via hard nose puritanical work ethic turned up to 11. The puritans were, frankly, miserable creatures and 'hard work' environments universally create miserable people who ultimately aren't any more competitive than the less working competitors. Its time to consider the emotional experience of being human and as we have more and more automation options, to consider eliminating a few work hours per week and perhaps eventually replace work as we know it.

There's a fight for the future that's particularly ugly. The "to compete with China/India/whoever, we must become them" vs the "we can do better with less human labor and with more automation." If the former camp wins, it'll be horrific for our quality of life and will not produce the gains these people expect. If the latter wins, we will all have better lives and we'll change our society to handle high levels of unemployment and under-employment.

In large part I attribute this to my environment which, now that I'm working from home, is almost completely free of distractions. I get started at about 8 AM and wrap things up by 2 or 3 on most days - which is right when my kids get home. I clock out for anything more than a bathroom break which means my clients are getting a far more potent work-hour out of me then they get from their employees.

The reality is that the 40 work day is an anachronism; and it can't die soon enough. Start evaluating your employees by whether they're actually giving you the value you're paying them for and not by how much time they clock in your building working, looking at Facebook, or goofing off in the breakroom.