The School Calendar: It's Time to Make Time for
Learning!
How is the school-year
calendar determined in your school system? How is the length of the school
day determined? Is student learning at the center of those decisions?
The length of the school year and the school day are under scrutiny....
Recently, American students' dismaying results on the TIMSS (Third International
Mathematics and Science Study) have raised the concerns of educators,
employers, taxpayers, and parents. Many of the countries where students
outscored ours require substantially more days of school each year --
more than 200 days of school each year. Over twelve years of schooling,
that extra time adds up.
The amount of information children have to absorb has increased since
the nine-month, 180-day school year was instituted. Each year, new subject
matter is mandated -- yet the length of the school day does not increase.
Non-academic events continue to take time out of the school day. We ask,
how in the world can everything be taught? The answer: It isn't. There
is simply not enough time.
HISTORICAL PRECEDENT FOR NINE MONTHS OF SCHOOL
Most schools still follow a traditional calendar: school meets from
September to June and a long summer vacation follows. This model was developed
for the agrarian society of the past when students helped on the family
farm and were needed at home during the busiest times of the year. (In
some rural areas of the country, local school calendars still provide
breaks for farm work.) Economic needs -- not educational needs -- dictated
the school year.
It's the end of the 1990s. In general, life has speeded up. Family time
has decreased; many women with young children are working outside of the
home; society is more diverse; income inequity is growing -- and technology
access widens the gap; drugs, crime, disease, and poverty make the world
a dangerous place for children and families.
But time in school has remained constant.
"It [the September to June school calendar] was not designed to enhance
instruction then, and it does not do so now," Charles Ballinger told Minnesota
Parent. Even now, when school reform is high on local and national
agendas, changes in school schedules can come from many directions. Michigan's
House Tourism Committee even proposed a bill requiring school doors to
open after September 1 starting in 1998, and then after Labor Day beginning
in 2000. (That committee promotes tourism in the state!)
PRISONERS OF TIME
The National Education Commission on Time and Learning issued its eye-opening
report, Prisoners
of Time, in 1994. The report began:
"Learning in America is a prisoner of time. For the past 150
years, American public schools have held time constant and let learning
vary. The rule, only rarely voiced, is simple: Learn what you can in the
time we make available. It should surprise no one that some bright, hard-working
students do reasonably well. Everyone else -- from the typical student
to the dropout -- runs into trouble.
"Time is learning's warden. Our time-bound mentality has fooled
us all into believing that schools can educate all of the people all of
the time in a school year of 180 six-hour days. The consequence of our
self-deception has been to ask the impossible of our students. We expect
them to learn as much as their counterparts abroad in only half the time.
"...If experience, research, and common sense teach nothing
else, they confirm the truism that people learn at different rates, and
in different ways with different subjects. But we have put the cart before
the horse: our schools and the people involved with them -- students,
parents, teachers, administrators, and staff -- are captives of clock
and calendar. The boundaries of student growth are defined by schedules
for bells, buses, and vacations instead of standards for students and
learning."
The report goes on to identify false premises on which the American
educational system is based.
Students arrive at school ready to learn in the same way, on the same
schedule, all in rhythm with each other.
Academic time can be used for nonacademic purposes with no effect
on learning.
Because yesterday's calendar was good enough for us, it should be
good enough for our children -- despite major changes in the larger
society.
Schools can be transformed without giving teachers the time they need
to retool themselves and reorganize their work.
It is reasonable to expect "world-class academic performance" from
our students within the time-bound system that is already failing them.
"The Commission ...recommend[s] that schools provide additional academic
time by reclaiming the school day for academic instruction." This recommendation
would establish at least 5.5 hours of core academic instruction -- an
academic
day -- daily for English and language arts, mathematics, science,
civics, history, geography, the arts, and foreign language. Other activities
would occur within a lengthened day. By protecting that time for core
instruction, the Commission projected a doubling of instructional time.
The Commission concluded that "education must become a new national
obsession, as powerful as sports and entertainment, if we are to avoid
a spiral of economic and social decline." By education, the Commission
meant student learning -- not "seat time" in school.
"American students must have more time for learning. The six-hour,
180-day school year should be relegated to museums, an exhibit from our
education past. Both learners and teachers need more time -- not to do
more of the same, but to use all time in new, different, and better ways.
The key to liberating learning lies in unlocking time."
WHAT'S HAPPENING AROUND THE COUNTRY?
Changing traditional instruction and schedules is a difficult undertaking.
But individual schools and districts around the United States are making
changes in the way they use time. In most cases, the changes are made
locally, and often as pilot programs. Sometimes the change is successful,
sometimes not.
Year-round schools operate with more breaks -- but shorter ones -- during
the school year. While the number of days in the school calendar does
not always change, shorter breaks mean most children retain more of what
they have learned.
The Six to Six Interdistrict Magnet School, in Bridgeport, Connecticut,
is open for twelve hours each day. Principal Anne Hamilton told Education
World that the core day is from 8:30 to 3:00, and both the earlier morning
hours and later afternoon hours are staffed by certified teachers. The
regional school is also open during summer, holiday, and other vacation
periods, again staffed by teachers. Hamilton said that the only time the
school is closed is two weeks before the beginning of the school year
in September.
Twenty schools in Jacksonville, Florida, switched to calendars that
eliminated the long summer vacation over the past five years, according
to an editorial in the Florida
Times-Union. Half of those have either switched back, or are planning
to ask for a return to the traditional calendar.
The school year in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, is increasing. The Philadelphia
Inquirer reports that that town's 1997 teacher contract adds one day
to the school year each year for four years, increasing the calendar from
186 to 189 days. The teachers' workday also increases to an eight-hour
day, the Inquirer reports.
Wake County, North Carolina, students may be going to school for ten
more days starting in 1999, according to a Raleigh
News & Observer report. A school board committee is studying the change.
"Parents have objected to the Wake calendar's creep into summer, which
has been occurring during the past several years," the report states.
"The Wake Association of Classroom Teachers objects to converting planning
days to teaching days."
TIME IN THE SCHOOL DAY
Many schools are adjusting their use of the existing time in the school
day. Block scheduling can provide opportunities for classes to use time
to their advantage -- more time when needed.
Team planning time has allowed teachers to work as teams, following
the same theme through several disciplines. Some elementary schools schedule
music, art, and physical education classes in a block to minimize transition
time in the classroom.
OPTIMAL LEARNING TIMES FOR ADOLESCENTS
New research indicates that adolescents' biological clocks require extra
sleep in the morning. "Asking high school students to absorb and understand
classroom material at 7 a.m. is like asking adults to function in a work
environment at 3 a.m.," Mark Muhowald of the Minnesota Regional Sleep
Disorders Center, told NEA
Today Online. The Minnesota Medical Association asked state school
districts to examine and possibly adjust their high school starting times.
Several Minnesota schools have switched to later start times.
"Kids are in a learning-impaired mode right now," says Muhowald. "I
fail to find a single educationally or societally valid reason to send
kids to school exhausted. If the purpose of school is to educate, then
we should send children to school in a condition that promotes learning
-- not one that interferes with it."
Some Maryland school districts examined the hours that schools are in
session, especially opening times. A study in Anne Arundel county found
that the "first bell has been ringing slightly earlier every year for
the past decade," states a Washington
Post report. High school students in some areas are waiting for the
bus by 6:20 a.m. and some schools begin at 7:17. That's early for anyone.
TIME FOR A CHANGE
Schools are at a crossroads. Emotions always run high when changes to
school calendars are proposed. Students, parents, teachers, and taxpayers
all have their own concerns and are affected in different ways.
Some students fear loss of time for jobs, sports, and other
extracurricular activities. Other students revel in additional school
time or a more flexible approach to the time spent there.
Parents fear disruption of family time and family traditions.
Teachers are concerned about additional hours or days and disruption
that might be caused to their own families and educational opportunities.
Teachers are also aware that change requires time to learn new
methods and plan in new ways.
Taxpayers are concerned with the costs of extended days and years.
Money for transportation and labor contracts would increase.
If we want our kids to be the best, and be prepared to take on the responsibilities
of adulthood, they have to spend more time learning. Long summer vacations
may become history. Thinking about it though, most students do not spend
long, lazy summers, enjoying the wonders of nature. More often they are
involved in camp programs, jobs, or other organized activities. The hazy
memory of "summertime" may already be history. Working parents often cannot
spend additional time with their children even in the summer.
New charter schools and magnet schools are designing their programs
with a concern for time. Many are using time to their advantage. Where
summer heat once made schools intolerable, many new schools (even where
winters are cold) are built with air conditioning.
It's about time for all schools and school districts to plan
time for student learning. And time for adults to consider
the needs of students first. After all, isn't that what school is all
about?
Extending
the School Year and Day According to this ERIC Digest "Arguments
for lengthening the school day and/or school year assume that more time
devoted to learning will yield proportionally higher achievement scores.
Research data reveal, however, that the correlation between time and
achievement is far slighter than expected and suggest that the quality
of time spent in learning is more important than the quantity. Moreover,
the costs of extending school time are disproportionate to any resulting
instructional gains."
Block
Scheduling This AskERIC InfoGuide provides resources for school
administrators who are contemplating a move to block scheduling.
Some
Schools Agree to Let Sleeping Teens Lie The Journal of the American
Medical Association reports "High school will open at 8:30 a.m. this
fall, 65 minutes later than last year, in Edina, Minnesota, a Minneapolis
suburb. School officials hope the 1,300 students in grades 9 through
12 will get more sleep and, as a result, be sharper in class. Area physicians
lobbied for the new hours.…"
Prisoners
of Time A report from Report of the National Education Commission
on Time and Learning (April 1994) addresses the dimensions of the time
challenge and lessons from abroad. The report recommends reinventing
schools around learning, not time; using time in new and better ways;
establishing an "academic day;" keeping schools open longer; giving
teachers the time they need; and more. The report examines some schools
that are trying "a better way."
How is the school-year
calendar determined in your school system? How is the length of the school
day determined? Is student learning at the center of those decisions?