5 states to trial increasing time spent in classrooms

[Remix]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Open your notebooks and sharpen your pencils. School for thousands of public school students is about to get quite a bit longer.

Five states were to announce Monday that they will add at least 300 hours of learning time to the calendar in some schools starting in 2013. Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee will take part in the initiative, which is intended to boost student achievement and make U.S. schools more competitive on a global level.

The three-year pilot program will affect almost 20,000 students in 40 schools, with long-term hopes of expanding the program to include additional schools — especially those that serve low-income communities. Schools, working in concert with districts, parents and teachers, will decide whether to make the school day longer, add more days to the school year or both.

A mix of federal, state and district funds will cover the costs of expanded learning time, with the Ford Foundation and the National Center on Time & Learning also chipping in resources. In Massachusetts, the program builds on the state's existing expanded-learning program. In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy is hailing it as a natural outgrowth of an education reform law the state passed in May that included about $100 million in new funding, much of it to help the neediest schools.

Spending more time in the classroom, education officials said, will give students access to a more well-rounded curriculum that includes arts and music, individualized help for students who fall behind and opportunities to reinforce critical math and science skills.

"Whether educators have more time to enrich instruction or students have more time to learn how to play an instrument and write computer code, adding meaningful in-school hours is a critical investment that better prepares children to be successful in the 21st century," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement.

The project comes as educators across the U.S. struggle to identify the best ways to strengthen a public education system that many fear has fallen behind other nations. Student testing, teacher evaluations, charter schools and voucher programs join longer school days on the list of reforms that have been put forward with varying degrees of success.

The report from the center, which advocates for extending instruction time, cites research suggesting students who spend more hours learning perform better. One such study, from Harvard economist Roland Fryer, argues that of all the factors affecting educational outcomes, two are the best predictors of success: intensive tutoring and adding at least 300 hours to the standard school calendar.

More classroom time has long been a priority for Duncan, who warned a congressional committee in May 2009 — just months after becoming education secretary — that American students were at a disadvantage compared to their peers in India and China. That same year, he suggested schools should be open six or seven days per week and should run 11 or 12 months out of the year.

But not everyone agrees that shorter school days are to blame. A report last year from the National School Boards Association's Center for Public Education disputed the notion that American schools have fallen behind in classroom time, pointing out that students in high-performing countries like South Korea, Finland and Japan actually spend less time in school than most U.S. students.

The broader push to extend classroom time could also run up against concerns from teachers unions. Longer school days became a major sticking point in a seven-day teachers strike in September in Chicago. Mayor Rahm Emanuel eventually won an extension of the school day but paid the price in other concessions granted to teachers.

Just over 1,000 U.S. schools already operate on expanded schedules, an increase of 53 percent over 2009, according to a report being released Monday in connection with the announcement by the National Center on Time & Learning. The nonprofit group said more schools should follow suit but stressed that expanded learning time isn't the right strategy for every school.
Some of the funds required to add 300 or more hours to the school calendar will come from shifting resources from existing federal programs, making use of the flexibility granted by waivers to No Child Left Behind. All five states taking part in the initiative have received waivers from the Education Department.

Sly, you're the teacher here. What are your thoughts on this?

 

[GI Cake]

As a student with ADHD from my point of view adding more times in the class is just going to lose focus and get distracted much more easily in longer classes.

Then again I spent most of my days in high school looking up into the ceiling counting the holes in the ceiling.

This can be a great thing if Teachers make use of the extra time, in college a common trend I see is that my 3 hour classes tend to have lass homework and huge papers seeing as we spend the evening going over the course. While my hour classes tend to pile on the research papers and other sets of homework.

 

[klunderbunker]

My first thought on it is if the methods that have failed in the past aren't changed, having more time spent using failing methods isn't going to solve many of the problems.

 

[HBK-aholic]

If children are going to spend longer in the classroom it better not be for 'arts and music' - not when some children are failing to grasp basic life skills such as reading and writing. I agree with KB that much more needs to be done in way of change - a longer school day isn't going to chnge everything. Though how I suggest we DO fix schools has little to do with schools themselves and is much more parent orientated..though that's an argument for a different thread.

Also I'd query where the extra hour was going to - my 10 year old starts high school next year and while I can't speak for the USA I know in England 4pm in winter can be incredibly dark and I would not feel safe in allowing her to walk home from school on her own at that time, especially as she'll have to walk through a high crime area.

 

[Uncle Sam]

Should make classes shorter and smaller. Trust me, I was a student once.

 

[Барбоса]

Should make classes shorter and smaller. Trust me, I was a student once.

That was the plan in the UK only a couple of years ago - 15 min lessons

 

[Uncle Sam]

Let's call it thirty and go for an early lunch.

 

[Lowdown]

What kills me is that they've taken away recess/nutrition for some school districts for more class time, and yet some of these kids coming out of high school still can't read or spell for shit.

 

[Slash-LN]

The town next to me tried a year round school year. Basically no summer break for the kids. They still got a holiday break but it was shorter. They were allowed a few days off every month to make up for no having a 3 month break.
I don't know how well it worked out but I don't think they do it anymore.

 

[Big Nick Dudley]

Some should be in school, some should head straight to the fields. Doctors and ditch diggers. Yep. That's my philosophy.

 

[Slyfox696]

I think we should quit being so worried about how we compare to students from around the world. What a silly thing to be competitive about.

This won't make a substantial difference, just like most educational reforms won't make a substantial difference. Educational reform will never make a difference until we understand that education is not, and should not, be a one size fits all. Education needs to be specialized, with students being given basic knowledge up to a certain point, and then heading off to separate fields in relation to their interests and skills. Some areas of interest should require greater amounts of schooling and some should require less.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Just going to throw out there that for the classroom portions of my military classes, we were strictly kept to no more than 6 - 8 students in a class, for no more than 45 minutes at a time.

 

[One Punch Doug Crashin]

How does that make any sense? If nothing ELSE is working why increase classroom stay? FIX THE WAY YOU TEACH for one.

 

[Slyfox696]

How does that make any sense? If nothing ELSE is working why increase classroom stay? FIX THE WAY YOU TEACH for one.

The problem isn't nearly so much with the way people teach, but rather the conditions students have at home. Fix that problem first.

 

[Барбоса]

Parents with crazy expectations of what their children should be achieving are easily as problematic as substandard teaching.

I hear ridiculous stories about parents coming in to ask my mother, a former PE teacher, as to why their daughter had not gotten an "A" in PE or was not getting onto the hockey team even though she went to practice despite the fact that that girl had extremely limited hand-eye coordination or natural athletic ability. A favourite retort my mum had was "Should your daughter get into the school choir if she cannot sing?"

Of course, that brings up a whole other question about whether PE should be graded or not - I was always in favour of a pupil being given an effort grade (1-5) rather than an actual grade (A-E).

 

[Slyfox696]

Of course, that brings up a whole other question about whether PE should be graded or not - I was always in favour of a pupil being given an effort grade (1-5) rather than an actual grade (A-E).

PE can be graded in a variety of ways. I give participation grade, skills tests and written tests. Most of their grade is participation, but the written test is worth two days of participation. The skills test doesn't measure result but rather technique.

With this, everyone has to work and everyone can achieve a good grade.

 

[Барбоса]

PE can be graded in a variety of ways. I give participation grade, skills tests and written tests. Most of their grade is participation, but the written test is worth two days of participation. The skills test doesn't measure result but rather technique.

With this, everyone has to work and everyone can achieve a good grade.

In my experience, there is no written side to PE in Northern Ireland, perhaps even the UK, until you get to a certain level - GCSE (16 years old) or A Level (18) and even then you have choose to do those as separate subjects on top of your mandatory physical activity.

 

[klunderbunker]

We had a written part of PE in middle school. I believe we had one in high school as well.

 

[Slyfox696]

In my experience, there is no written side to PE in Northern Ireland, perhaps even the UK, until you get to a certain level - GCSE (16 years old) or A Level (18) and even then you have choose to do those as separate subjects on top of your mandatory physical activity.

In my experience, most PE classes here do not give written exams either.

 

[GI Cake]

I had a final for my PE Class in High School, but it was practically bullshit considering the questions were "How many players are there on a basketball court at any given time?" and "How many bases are there in Baseball?"

 

[DirtyD79]

I think we should quit being so worried about how we compare to students from around the world. What a silly thing to be competitive about.

This won't make a substantial difference, just like most educational reforms won't make a substantial difference. Educational reform will never make a difference until we understand that education is not, and should not, be a one size fits all. Education needs to be specialized, with students being given basic knowledge up to a certain point, and then heading off to separate fields in relation to their interests and skills. Some areas of interest should require greater amounts of schooling and some should require less.

So true. I believe more emphasis should be placed on vocational training. Not everybody can be or quite frankly even should be lawyers, doctors, and astronauts. There are only so many of those jobs to go around. Somebody needs to do all the other less glamorous jobs in society. Now don't get me wrong I'm not trying to sound like Judge Smails in Caddyshack with his line about ditchdiggers. Somebody needs to build stuff that needs built, fix stuff that needs repaired, or make the food for everybody.

In some cases it's because some people quite frankly don't want to be doctors, lawyers, or astronauts. I myself have spent most of my life doing blue collar jobs like working in factories and auto repair shops despite being a college graduate with a degree in business management. Why? Because it's what I enjoy doing. I feel more enjoyment working on a car then I would sitting behind a desk in some office somewhere.

As for more time spent in classrooms, it should be about the quality of education rather than the quantity. Like anything else eventually you come to a point of diminishing returns. I know the law of diminishing returns is mostly used in economics but it refers to everything else in life too. There's only so much time someone can spend in a classroom before they're just not getting anything more out of it. You also need a balance. With all the hay being made over kids being obese these days don't you think maybe they should get some time doing physical activity like say gym or recess too? You also need time to relax and have fun. Kids only have so many hours in the day between school, homework, chores, and any activities before having to go to sleep.