People always seem to think that our problems in public education can be fixed with increases, additions, extensions…basically “more” of everything. As though the clear absence of quality in America’s primary schools can be fixed with sheer quantity:
Kids fail tests? Let’s test them more.
Teacher turnover? Sign up more and more young, transient employees just to get a new batch the next year.
Bad grades? Why not implement a 12 month school year?
Trouble with math? Get rid of art so first graders can sit in front of flashcards all day.
And now, schools that fail state implemented standards have either been forced to or are considering the switch to longer school days.
Yep, I think that making kids get up earlier, spend longer hours confined to one desk or room, have shorter lunches, get less time for any extracurricular activity, arrive home in the dark, and in general, learn to hate learning seems like a terrific idea.
At first glance, the idea of extending the school day does seem to make sense, for it is basic logic that if you are not good at something, than “practice makes perfect.” But that is part of the problem. Elena Silva, a member of non-profit Education Sector (one of the few groups researching this concept) made this point on National Public Radio earlier this year:
“If these schools are not functioning well, the notion that extending time, in and of itself, is going to improve instruction, is going to improve the opportunities of those kids is simply an error in judgment. (National Public Radio, Morning Addition, February 7, 2007.)
To make a sports metaphor: If you shoot the basketball with fundamentally bad form and therefore consistently miss shots, what you need to do is work on your form—not spend hours practicing in front of the basket with the same faulty method.
If the school already has a system down and wants to extend that success, then longer hours makes more sense, but of course, those are not usually the places that are considering this step. A recent report by that same group, Education Sector, found that unless the time students are engaged in active learning — mastering academic subjects — is increased, adding hours alone may not do much. (New York Times, March 26, 2007)
This may seem sort of like an obvious conclusion. But when you think that it is the failing schools—those schools that cannot quite grasp how to get their students to obtain even basic skills, let alone “master academic subjects” that are being forced into longer school days by the state, that bit of research seems more important.
Finally, take a look at some statistics regarding the hours spent in the classroom in the United States versus Japan as collected by the Organization for Economic Growth and Development:
.
The average number of net teaching hours, the time directly associated with teaching, varies widely across countries. Teachers at both primary and secondary education levels in the United States reported spending more time teaching than teachers in the other six countries with data present. On average, net teaching hours for primary education ranged from 635 hours in Japan to 1139 hours in the United States.
Average teaching hours for lower secondary school teachers followed a similar pattern to that of primary school teachers, ranging from 557 hours in Japan to 1127 hours in the United States.
This to me seems important, because the United States is consistently far behind Japan in the same “mastering of academic skills” mentioned above. Japanese school children out perform American students in basically every kind of academic test, so clearly what our public schools need to work on is not MORE time, but the QUALITY of that time.
Until our public schools can maintain a functioning system of learning, I do not think that extending the school hours is the right solution. We need to address the heart of the matter: the diversity in the schools (and the ensuing language and culture barriers), the quality of the teachers, the role of standardized tests, and the structure of teaching within each classroom. Only then will the school day be worth expanding, and ironically, only then will it not need to be.