Alternative Approaches to ORGANIZING the School Day and Year

School Administrator, March, 1994 by Julia Anderson

A National Commission Examines New Structures for Improving Student Learning

In the last decade, our nation has watched young people from other countries outpace our own in scholastic achievement. At the same time, business and industry have cited our students' lack of academic skills to keep our nation technologically and economically competitive.

While the current commitment to improving the U.S. educational system is to be applauded, true and lasting change will not occur unless and until we address time and learning issues. Time as an educational variable has yet to capture the attention of school reformers.

In its landmark 1983 report A Nation at Risk, the National Education Commission on Excellence in Education urged America's schools to allocate significantly more time" to learning: "This will require more effective use of the existing school day, a longer school day, or a lengthened school year." Of all the recommendations made in A Nation at Risk, the commission s suggestion regarding the use of time probably has received the least attention.

Attention to time issues has increased with the establishment of the national goals and the concomitant effort to establish curriculum frameworks, new assessments, and standards for all students.

These developments in education have combined with changes in the social demographics of the United States to place new demands on schools. In the 1990s, most women work outside the home and 82 percent of the women in the workforce have school-aged children. In addition, the number of single-parent families has risen to 14.9 million and the number of at-risk students is expected to grow by more than one-third in the next few decades.

Using time as the lens, or prism, through which to view education reform, several schools have responded to the increased demands by experimenting with reorganizing time. These experiments offer a fresh perspective on creative time use in schools to increase student learning.

By varying the ways in which time is used for learning, schools have the capacity to refine--and even redefine--their role, shaping themselves to meet the goals of the education reform movement and the needs of a changing population.

Federal Analysis

Since 1991, the National Education Commission on Time and Learning has been examining the quality and the adequacy of the time U.S. students devote to learning. The commission has studied:

* length of the school day and year;

* how time is used for learning academic subjects;

* use of incentives to increase student achievement within available instructional time;

* how children spend their time outside school, including time spent on homework;

* year-round professional opportunities for teachers;

* how states might change rules to facilitate a longer day and year;

* analysis and estimate of costs; and

* use of school facilities for extended learning programs.

What follows is not intended to suggest the commission has reached its final conclusions (which will be issued in a report in April), nor does it necessarily represent the views of commission members. Rather, it constitutes a personal reflection on information heard in the course of our work.

At the time the commission began its work in April 1992, we identified only 10 schools with "extended learning programs" that offered 210 days or more of schooling. Since then, a number of other schools and districts have been experimenting with innovative time arrangements, indicating, perhaps, the beginning of a trend.

In an effort to adapt to new expectations, schools throughout the nation are developing and implementing alternative models of school time. The commission has visited a number of these sites.

Possible Options

During the last year, the commission also has listened to the views of a broad range of practitioners, researchers, policy makers, representatives from business, parents, and students regarding time and learning. We also have received testimony from acknowledged luminaries in education.

Through public hearings we have reached out to communities across the country for innovative ideas. This consultation process has allowed us to identify many schools that provide creative time use at the grassroots level. Some models demonstrate imaginative uses of existing time allocations, while others are based on providing extended time--a longer school day, a longer school year, or both.

Innovative programs of time use address one or more of the following concerns:

* provision of additional learning opportunities for enrichment or remediation;

* parents' interest in their children's well-being;

* business interest in having employees focus their attention on productivity rather than worrying about the safety of their children;

* efficient use of school facilities and other resources; and

* use of the school building as a locus for services by community agencies.

Defining Time

Alternative time uses can take various forms--extended day, extended year, year-round, and reorganized day or week. Many schools, of course, offer a combination of alternative time uses.