Submitted by Chelsea Murphy on
Press Date:
Thursday, April 16, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT
April 16, 2015 George Mastoras
(617) 378-3926 [email protected]
Over One Million Students Attend Schools with Expanded Time, New Report and Database Show
Growth fueled by policy and push to innovate to close achievement gaps and improve teacher quality
BOSTON, MA – For the first time, expanded-time district schools outnumber expanded-time charter schools, making district schools a majority of the more than 2,000 expanded-time schools across America. These expanded-time schools (with 7-plus hours in the school day), largely in urban communities, serve over 1 million students (up from 520,000 students in 2012), providing them with more time to accelerate academic growth and enable a well-rounded, enriching education. The National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) released these numbers as it completed its bi-annual update of its expanded-time schools database.
Fueling the growth of schools with expanded schedules are at least 35 districts across more than ten states that have implemented a longer school day and/or year in participating schools, according to a report by the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) and the Education Commission of the States (ECS) also released today. The report identifies more than 40 laws in states’ last two legislative sessions that relate to school time. The report, Learning Time in America: Trends to Reform the American School Calendar, is an update of the 2011 report that serves as the most comprehensive study of time and learning policies ever conducted.
Learning Time in America outlines the policy trends at the federal, state, and local levels that have incentivized schools to innovate and provided new flexibilities in school governance to reconfigure schedules, staffing, and budgeting, often resulting in substantially more learning hours for students. The Obama Administration’s $3.5 billion ARRA investment in the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program to turn around low performing schools required “increased learning time” and has helped to drive a policy trend that many districts and states have embraced. Some state policymakers, including those in Massachusetts and New York, have promoted expanding time as a key reform strategy and have supported the implementation of longer school days with additional resources and, in some districts, including Lawrence, Massachusetts, district-wide increases in student and teacher schedules.
“Across the country schools with redesigned and expanded days are providing students more than two additional years of learning over the course of their education, which leads to students being prepared for success in college, the workforce, and life,” said Jennifer Davis, co-founder and president of the National Center on Time & Learning. “High-performing expanded-time schools have proven to be critical to closing the achievement and opportunity gaps that prevent too many children in low-income communities from reaching their full potential.”
In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of legislative and policy developments at the federal, state, and district levels, Learning Time in America also includes an updated version of a number of
public policy recommendations that take into account the rapidly shifting policy context and provides policymakers with a roadmap outlining how they can best support efforts to effectively provide students with the learning time they need to be prepared for future success.
In addition to Learning Time in America, NCTL released data from its recently updated expanded-time schools database. In 2009, NCTL launched this database to collect and present the latest information on this growing field of expanded-time schools. This database is the only resource of its kind with information on school characteristics as well as on scheduling trends taking shape at expanded-time schools across the nation.
The database has identified 2,009 expanded-time schools across the United States, up from 1,079 schools identified in 2012. These schools serve 1,177,625 students, up from 520,000 students in 2012. The database defines expanded-time schools as public schools that expand learning time for all enrolled students; these schools operate with a school day of at least seven hours, and have a substantially longer day or year when compared with surrounding public schools.
In the last three years, the most rapid growth in schools providing expanded time has occurred among district schools. District schools now account for 61 percent of all expanded-time schools, up from 44 percent of the total in 2012. Other findings include:
Expanded-time schools have significantly more time than the standard school schedule of 180 six-and-a-half hour days. The average length of the school day among the 2,009 expanded-time schools is 7.6 hours. The average number of annual hours among expanded-time schools is 1,353, about 200 more hours a year than the comparison schools.
Nearly 70 percent of expanded-time schools have student populations that are at least 75 percent free or reduced-price lunch eligible, compared with 20 percent of all public schools.
Three quarters of expanded-time schools are located in several key states, such as Florida (104 schools with a statewide literacy initiative driving growth at the elementary level); Illinois (602 schools; most of them in Chicago and the result of Mayor Emmanuel’s education agenda); and Massachusetts (131 schools; with Boston about to expand time across an additional 60 schools). State and local policies increasing the number of charter schools, innovation schools, and district-wide expanded-time initiatives, have helped fuel the growth of expanded-time schools in these states.
You can read Learning Time in America here. You can learn about the database through NCTL’s infographic, The Growing Field of Expanded-Time Schools, here. You can access details on the database population criteria here.
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The National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) is dedicated to expanding learning time to improve student achievement and enable a well-rounded education. Through research, public policy, and technical assistance, NCTL supports national, state, and local initiatives that add significantly more school time for academic and enrichment opportunities to help all children meet the demands of the 21st century.
The mission of the Education Commission of the States is to help states develop effective policy and practice for public education by providing data, research, analysis, and leadership, as well as by facilitating collaboration, the exchange of ideas among the states, and long-range strategic thinking.
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