As the number of schools needing improvement soars, it is increasingly important that school improvement plans include strategies that “expand where, when, and how” students learn, a new report argues.
The report, released Jan. 13 by Learning Point Associates of Naperville, Ill., and the New York City-based Collaborative for Building After-School Systems, says many innovative strategies have used “expanded learning time” to produce better achievement, developmental, and health outcomes for students.
But the expanded-time movement has operated on a parallel track to the movement to promote after-school learning, the report said. With lean budget times and almost 30,000 schools classified as needing improvement under federal law, collaboration is needed “to ensure that available resources—not just funding, but time itself—are strategically used,” the report said.
