Learning Time in America: Trends to Reform the American School Calendar: A Snapshot of Federal, State, and Local Action

With its profiles of numerous districts and states successfully engaged in longer school days and/or years, this report from the National Center on Time and Learning and the Education Commission of the States is a boost for those pushing to keep intact—and even expand—learning time in this austere climate. It illustrates this with a few real programs (Massachusetts’ Expanded Learning Time Initiative) and initiatives (Oklahoma City’s move to a continuous school year) that have successfully upped hours of student learning. There’s a lot here. But the most useful section offers cost-effective strategies to retain and expand learning time and shows where these strategies are already working. Among them: Stagger staff schedules, use technology as a teaching tool, free schools from restrictive CBAs, and increase class sizes. (For more on each of these, I recommend our Stretching the School Dollar volume.) The report has an obvious agenda and distinct message. But, given the short-sighted and irresponsible cuts to learning time that are all-too-common in states and districts at present, it’s one that is worth heeding.