Resources

Expanded Time in Practice

The Massachusetts Expanding Learning Time to Support Student Success Initiative

The Center for American Progress wrote this case study of the Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time Initiative to explore the challenges and successes of creating a statewide initiative to expand learning time. The report chronicles the first year of the initiative.
To read the report, click here.

A New Day for Kids

A description of the multi-tiered effects of expanding time on the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School in Cambridge, MA, a school that was among the first to convert to a longer day through the Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time initiative. Read the article at http://www.ascd.org/authors/ed_lead/el200705_farbman.html.

School Improvement Zone in Miami-Dade Schools

http://thezone.dadeschools.net/
The School Improvement Zone is a differentiated approach to public education that promotes high achievement and eliminates low student performance. The School Improvement Zone uses an extended day and extended school year to afford students with more time on task and to drive a rigorous agenda of professional development. The Extended Day includes an Academic Improvement Period (AIP) that provides students with the opportunity to engage in high interest enrichment courses and experiences that are presented in smaller classes utilizing innovative instructional materials, approaches, and strategies.

The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Charter School Network

www.kipp.org
As part of holding high expectations for every student, each KIPP school operates on a schedule that is about 60% more time than the conventional 180 six-hour day schedule, and considers the expanded schedule one of the pillars of their program.

Vision 2015 and Additional Academic Time in Delaware

Vision 2015 is a collaborative effort by education, government, business and civic leaders, and citizens throughout Delaware to provide a world-class public education to each and every student in Delaware. Vision 2015 sees additional academic time as an important benefit to students, educators and schools. Below are two examples of expanded time in practice in Delaware. Click here to learn more about Vision 2015.

Maple Lane Elementary School (Brandywine School District): Students are offered additional instructional time each year – to get help if they are struggling in some subjects or to participate in enrichment activities, such as karate and photography. Participating students attend school approximately 1202 hours, 142 more than the state recommended 1060 hours. Since beginning to offer additional time three years ago, Maple Lane has seen reduced summer learning loss and state standardized test scores improve for all students. Learn more here.

William C. Lewis Dual Language Elementary School (Red Clay School District): With a student population that is 83 percent low socioeconomic status, 58 percent English Language Learners, and 99 percent minority students, the school maintains a "Commendable" rating and continues to meet targets for adequate yearly progress (AYP) under No Child Left Behind legislation. The principal and teachers at the school have found that a Saturday Academy has proved an effective way to provide extra time, learning and support to the students with the greatest academic needs. Learn more here.

International Comparisons

Click here for slides on international comparisons of various measures of instructional days and time.

Database of Expanded Time Schools

Available summer/fall 2008.

Time and Learning in Context

Nation At Risk

http://www.goalline.org/Goal%20Line/NatAtRisk.html
The National Commission on Excellence in Education was created in 1981 to report on the quality of education in America. Its report, entitled A Nation At Risk, helped to launch standards-based education reform movement which has defined the nation's school system for the past twenty years. Of its five major recommendations, only one more time for core learning has not been enacted widely.

National Time and Learning Commission Report, Prisoners of Time

http://www.ed.gov/pubs/PrisonersOfTime/index.html
Congress established the National Education Commission on Time and Learning as an independent advisory body and called for a comprehensive review of the relationship between time and learning in the nation's schools. After its work was complete, the Commission was able to report (in 1994) that Time is the missing element in our great national debate about learning and the need for higher standards for all students. Our schools and the people involved with them-students, teachers, administrators, parents, and staff-are prisoners of time, captives of the school clock and calendar. We have been asking the impossible of our students-that they learn as much as their foreign peers while spending only half as much time in core academic subjects. The reform movement of the last decade is destined to founder unless it is harnessed to more time for learning.

Choices, Changes, and Challenges: Curriculum and Instruction in the NCLB Era

http://www.cep-dc.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=document.showDocumentByID&nodeID=1&DocumentID=212
This report examines the amount of time spent during the school week on core academic subjects and how that allocation of time across subjects has changed since school year 2001-02 when NCLB was enacted. The report finds that approximately 62% of school districts increased the amount of time spent in elementary schools on English language arts and or math, while 44% of districts cut time on science, social studies, art and music, physical education, lunch or recess.

Research on Expanded Learning

Time for a Change: The Promise of Extended Time Schools for Promoting Student Achievement

This report analyzes the effective practices of eight public schools which feature at least fifteen percent more time than the conventional schedule. The study dissects how these schools which we chose specifically because they had demonstrated success managed to organize, staff, pay for and sustain a school built around more time and to understand how these educators believe the additional time strengthens their capacity to enable all students to achieve proficiency. The research was conducted with generous support from the L.G. Balfour Foundation, a Bank of America Company.

For a copy of the full report, click here
For a copy of the executive summary of the report, click here
Appendix I: Extended-Time Schools Student Schedules, click here
Appendix II: Extended-Time Schools Teacher Schedules, click here

Time and Learning: ERIC Digest (2004)

A brief summary of the main issues related to expanding time in school and what research indicates about these issues.
Click here for article

Berliner, D. What's All the Fuss About Instructional Time? (1991)

Provides a history of important theories and studies on instructional time and shows that the idea of instructional time, especially the Academic Learning Time model, is a useful tool for observing, predicting, and controlling learning behaviors.
Click here for article

Gettinger, M. Time Allocated and Time Spent Relative to Time Needed for Learning as Determinants of Achievement (1985)

Sets up a controlled experiment in which the time spent or time allowed to perform a learning task are less than the time a student needed. Proves that spending less time than needed results in lower rates of learning and retention.
Click here for article

McREL. Teacher Survey of Standards-Based Instruction: Addressing Time (2004)

This study examines the time estimated by teachers it takes to teach to standards in various subjects in four grades as compared to the time available for instruction. The study found that in three of four grades, the standard instructional year provides insufficient time.
Click here for article

Farmer-Hinton, R. When Time Matters: Examining the Impact and Distribution of Extra Instructional Time (2002)

Analyzes the Lighthouse program in the Chicago Public School system which provides additional instructional time and enrichment programming. The study finds that the program is highly effective and that it does not mirror inequalities already present in the schools.
Click here for article

Frazier, J. A. and Morrison, F.J. The Influence of Extended-Year Schooling on Growth of Achievement and Perceived Competence in Early Elementary School (1998)

Sets up a controlled experiment that compares kindergarteners with traditional summer breaks to those who attend school for an additional 30 school days. Finds that the children in the extended-year program learn at an equal rate during the year but make significant gains in cognitive abilities, reading and especially mathematics over the summer.
Click here for article

Miller, B. The Learning Season: The Untapped Power of Summer to Advance Student Achievement (2007)

This report shows that summer enrichment opportunities have a much more profound impact than previously believed on the academic achievement of young people, especially because children experience learning loss over the summer months, and these losses are much greater for children from low income families than they are for other children.
Learning Season Full Report
Learning Season Executive Summary

Hough, D. and Bryde, S. The Effects of Full Day Kindergarten on Student Achievement and Affect (1996)

Studies the effects of full-day kindergarten as compared to half-day kindergarten in Springfield, MO. Finds that there are unequivocal educational benefits to full-day kindergarten, that full-day kindergarten is popular among parents and teachers and that students are capable of attending school for a full day.
Click here for article

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