As if our hyper president didn't have enough to do, he's now making a case for year-round schools. Last week, Barack Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, made their strongest pitch to date for wholesale changes in the school calendar.

Their timing might have been exquisite: As summer vacation's second month approaches, many a mom and dad despair of their bored slugabed kids — some, no doubt, figuring the kids might as well be in school where, perhaps, they won't flush the past year's learning from their minds.

Year-round education, which really isn't as dire as it sounds, already is a reality for a couple of million youngsters in more than 40 states — so for those pioneering pupils and their teachers, the idea isn't total heresy. But it rankles with the traditionalists, especially in rural America, where there's a legitimate need for farmworking brawn during the summer; let the brains get back in gear when most of the crops are in ...

The response to that objection has come in the form of more, but shorter, vacations, allowing a month or so at harvest time and planting season — or, for today's mainly urban population, vacations at times when motoring hordes aren't jamming the roads to Disneyland.

Some of today's year-round programs add up to the same 180 or so days that the August-through-May kids and their teachers attend — the big advantage being that students might be quicker at applying last year's learning to next year's classes, instead of having teachers spend the early weeks reviewing.

However, to hear President Obama and Secretary Duncan go on about America's need to be internationally competitive, we'd be surprised if they don't boost school days per year by two or three weeks for starters.

The response from teachers, and their unions, is mixed: Surveys of year-round teachers show most of them liking the new situation better. And since traditional schools pay teachers for 9-10 months' work, if the schedule gets longer, unions are likely to seek higher pay. That might fit in with Duncan's advocacy of better compensation tied to better performance — and federal economic stimulus could be both carrot and stick to get the states behind all-year school.

Dedicated educators might agree with our national leaders' call for more school; some, in fact, argue for longer school days to go with longer academic years.

Would such a shift show results in better student performance? Studies so far are inconclusive. Would year-round school remedy the dropout problem plaguing New Mexico and the rest of the nation? Or would it prompt more youngsters to rebel by leaving school?

Converting the country to a new school calendar wouldn't be easy. We're creatures of habit, and during so many generations of traditional school years, this one's well ingrained.

Coursework and curricula would be only the beginning; then there are school sports, and the pep bands that are integral to those shows. Would there be time in, say, a quarter system, to mount school plays and musicals?

Hidebound as many Americans may be about their notion of school years, Congress could prove even more difficult — depending, perhaps, on what public-opinion polls show about the issue.

President Obama, assuming that he's not wearing out his fellow Americans' patience with his issue-of-the-week speeches and press conferences advocating this change and that, could bring year-round schools to his bully pulpit, then leave the matter in Congress' lap.

The debate by itself might be worthwhile: Public education's status quo hasn't served the country well — so Obama might well ask what we've got to lose with chronological reform.

Objections might run from air-conditioning bills to loss of summer jobs; from reduced rest for weary minds to, well, just because ...

But our country's got to realize that half the world is out-educating us; that tomorrow's jobs will go to students, wherever they may be, who achieve.

Among the many changes the president sought when he ran for office was educational overhaul. Year-round school would be an excellent first step.