Report Explores School-Day Length

Elena Silva, senior policy analyst at the Washington-based think tank Education Sector, summarized the growing interest in longer school days and years in her report "On the Clock: Rethinking the Way Schools Use Time," available at http://www.educationsector.org:

"States and school districts around the country are considering dozens of proposals for extending the school day by several hours to extending the school year by days, weeks or months. Minnesota's school superintendents last year proposed increasing the school year from 175 to 200 days. A business-led group in Delaware is proposing state funding for an additional 140 school hours a year as part of its plan for improving the state education system.

"Philadelphia schools chief executive Paul Vallas announced plans to extend the school year about a month to ten and a half months. Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley has called for year-round schools, while a group of Illinois legislators has proposed extending the school year throughout the state. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson recently proposed a longer school day and year for low-performing schools. . . .

"Research reveals a complicated relationship between time and learning and suggests that improving the quality of instructional time is at least as important as increasing the quantity of time in school. It also suggests that the addition of high-quality teaching time is of particular benefit to certain groups of students, such as low-income students and others who have little opportunity for learning outside of school.

"What's more, the politics and cost of extending time make the reform a tough sell. Additional days and hours are expensive, and changing the school schedule affects not only students and teachers, but parents, employers and a wide range of industries that are dependent on the traditional school day and year."