Mass. Renewing Push for Longer School Days

Boston

Massachusetts is renewing its push to lengthen the school day, from adding more charter schools to appealing for federal grant money that could bring longer days to more traditional public schools.

Gov. Deval Patrick talked about the benefits of longer school days, especially in poorer and underperforming districts, during his campaign four years ago — but plummeting state revenues and dramatic budget cuts have made it hard to turn that vision into a reality.

For the current school year, there are just 22 so-called expanded learning time schools in 11 Massachusetts districts serving 12,000 students. That's out of a total of about...