And yet we have evidence to support the idea that a longer school day or school year would increase learning in much the same ways as increasing teacher quality or reduction of class sizes (Time for School). Quite a conundrum...
So in the event that a district suffers from substantial weather irregularities or severe weather events, what do we do? Forget increasing time on task--how do we maintain it? Do we hold after school meetings or study sessions on the weekends, assign more homework or become more drill sergeant like in the classroom? Or do we chalk it up to circumstances outside of our control and hunker down though we have on the inside already admitted defeat?
In the larger context of longer school years, the data showing the positives of more time on task are countered by the vocal opponents--tourism industries, some politicians, the expense, and most interestingly many teachers. It would seem that in the face of evidence and real experience regarding the benefits of longer school years, teachers, those dedicated to the success of students, would be among the strongest supporters of change. But we can't cut in to our summer vacation too drastically...
2 comments:
Geoffrey Canada, the founder of Promise Academy in Harlem, would have the answer..."Drill, drill, drill!" ... before school, after school, on the weekends, day after day after day. Both charter and private schools operate in a different paradigm; when a goal has to be met, they pull out all the stops. Can you imagine the reception to asking our students to come to school an hour earlier, stay an hour or two later, or come to a weekend study class? We would have to make it palatable by disguising it as something else. I think there comes a time when you really need results that you have to ask (students and parents) the inconceivable.
It is disheartening to see teachers and school districts opposing the addition of missed days to the end of the year, and especially, the refusal (by the state?) to move the test back. I think that the opposition comes not from a lack of concern on the part of the teachers, but from our education system's culture. In America the school year goes from early September-ish to early June. Adding anything else on at the end, or extending the school day is not part our educational culture (however much it needs to be). The real question is how do we change the current culture in America to make the extended school day and school year the rule, not the exception. If we can to this our "time on task" will not only increase, but the additional time on task will be effective and valuable.
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