Longer School Days Are Coming to Select Massachusetts Schools
Massachusetts is one of five states to add 300 hours of class time every year for certain schools. Will it help?
Will more time in school translate to greater student achievement?
Federal and state officials are announcing today that Massachusetts, along with Connecticut, New York, Tennessee and Colorado, are participating in a pilot program to find out.
Csmonitor.com reports that the program will add at least 300 hours of learning time in some schools starting next fall.
Fall River and Lawrence are the two Massachusetts towns included in the pilot project. Boston.com reports that this new program adds to an effort launched six years ago in Massachusetts to lengthen the school day in several school districts.
The pilot program reportedly will last three years and include almost 20,000 students in 40 schools with an eye to bringing in more schools if it is effective, particularly lower-performing schools in lower-income communities. Each school district gets to decide exactly how the school time will be increased: longer school days? More of them? Both?
The pilot is part of a project called the TIME (Time for Innovation Matters in Education) Collaborative, a partnership between the Ford Foundation and the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL).
What do you think about this pilot project; do you think this is a constructive approach to improving student achievement?
TomH
5:59 pm on Monday, December 3, 2012
If the school year is still 180 days, and they want to add 300 hours a year, that averages out to one hour and 40 minutes per school day.
What will they use this time for? Real classroom time? Extra study time? How are they going to negotiate with the teachers unions for these longer school days?
Without any of these answers in hand, I think just keeping the kids supervised and out of mischief until late in the after noon is already a win.