A quadrennial survey of principals conducted by the National Center on Education Statistics. In the latest analysis we’ve produced in partnership with our good friend, Professor Tammy Kolbe of the University of Vermont, we found on these two basic questions that, among non-charter schools, the length of the school day has increased slightly over the last few years to 6.8 daily hours—and a bit more among charters—while the duration of the school year has remained consistent at 179 days.
Both research and practice indicate that adding time to the school day and/or year can have a meaningfully positive impact on student proficiency and, indeed, upon a child’s entire educational experience.
The authors use data from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) to measure variation in time practices across the nation’s traditional public, private and charter schools.
