Consensus on Learning Time Builds
Interest in Expanding Hours for Students to Master Academic, Social, and Workplace Skills Is Mounting
Under enormous pressure to prepare students for a successful future—and fearful that standard school hours don’t offer enough time to do so—educators, policymakers, and community activists are adding more learning time to children’s lives.
“This issue is hot right now,” said Bela P. Shah, a senior program associate for after-school initiatives at the National League of Cities’ Institute for Youth, Education, and Families. “There’s a real understanding that we have to do more, and that everyone has to take responsibility for it.”
Twenty-five years ago, the still-resonant report A Nation at Risk urged schools to add more time—an hour to the usual six-hour day and 20 to 40 days to the typical 180-day year—to ward off a “rising tide of mediocrity” in American education. Today, in city agencies and school district offices, at statehouses and on the national stage, leaders are engaged in a renewed effort...
This article is available to subscribers only.
To keep reading this article and more, subscribe now or start a 2-week FREE trial.
Subscribe to Education Week
You Save 20% or More!
Access selected articles, e-newsletters and more!
Viewed
Emailed
Recommended
Commented
Sponsored Whitepapers
• Best Practices in Information Management, Reporting and Analytics for Education
• Smart infrastructure report to get your district ready for future IT needs.
• Integrating Social and Emotional RTI to Improve Student Performance
• Taming the wild west: How America’s third largest school district manages PCs, Macs, and iPads
• Overcoming the Odds: Getting Every Student to College YES Prep Shares Its Success Story
- Superintendent
- Round Rock ISD, Round Rock, TX
- Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning
- Roanoke City Public Schools, Roanoke, VA
- Principal
- Amargosa Valley Elementary School, Amargosa Valley, NV
- Principal
- The Berkeley Institute, HAMILTON, Bermuda
- Principal
- Christ the King Preparatory School, NJ