Extend Learning Time
Give All Children a Real Chance to Succeed
Today’s students spend between six and seven hours per day in school, five days a week, 180 days a year. This school year is 13 days less than the international average for industrialized nations. Across 12 years of study, this 13-day deficit means that our children lose 156 days—almost one entire school year. When that learning loss is viewed against the background of huge achievement gaps among U.S. students and mediocre achievement by our students as a whole, America’s use of learning time cries out for change. Lengthening the school day and school year will help move our education system out of the agrarian age into the information, knowledge-driven era of today. Better preparing our students for the challenges of the 21st century will strengthen our economy and our democracy.
To make more and better use of learning time, beginning with schools serving educationally disadvantaged students, we should:
1. Redesign the formula for distribution of funds under Title I, Part A of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) to provide an extra amount to school districts for each school that they have identified as in need of improvement under NCLB and for which they agree to extend learning time for all students by 30 percent. In addition to all other NCLB requirements for these schools, the district would have to describe in each school’s improvement plan how these funds will be used to significantly improve student achievement.
2. Establish a federal competitive grant demonstration program for states that would pay a portion of the cost of extending learning time in a number of their school districts identified as in need of improvement under NCLB. A small number of states would be funded to initiate one of the three programs below in their selected low-achieving districts:
• Extended learning time (longer days and/or school years) by 30 percent or more in all the schools.
• Innovative, high quality, full-day summer learning programs for low-income students and students who are behind in school that are provided by local school districts or other nonprofit and for-profit entities approved by the state education agency.
• Reorganization of their school year with three-week intersession breaks during which they offer voluntary tutoring or enrichment programs that are free for low-income students.
For more information on student achievement and the rationale for extending learning time, see Getting Smarter, Becoming Fairer: A Progressive Education Agenda for a Stronger Nation.
The Expert: Cindy Brown
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