States Need to Fill in the Gaps on Expanded Learning Time: Troubling Lack of Detail Seen in No Child Left Behind Waiver Applications

Center for American Progress. 1333 H Street NW 10th Floor, Washington, DC 20005. Tel: 202-682-1611; Web site: http://www.americanprogress.org

N

16

State Policy; Educational Policy; Policy Analysis; Federal Programs; Federal Legislation; School Turnaround; Educational Finance; Guidelines; Comparative Analysis; Time Factors (Learning); Best Practices; Educational Improvement; Improvement Programs; Program Effectiveness; Intervention; Extended School Day; Extended School Year; Scheduling

Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I; No Child Left Behind Act 2001

Schedule redesign is only one small part of the much larger approach to turning around low-performing schools. Even so, most states' No Child Left Behind waiver applications show a disappointing lack of detail on learning time. While they've done some careful thinking about schedule redesign, states must continue to think critically and comprehensively about their current use of time and how it can be better used to improve instruction. More time used well can lead to powerful results. There is a growing body of research detailing best practices that states can use as guidance, so there is no excuse for providing sparse detail if states are serious about schedule redesign. Waivers open up sizeable funding streams for expanding learning time. Yet neither states nor the U.S. Department of Education should be satisfied with the bare minimum when thinking about schedule redesign. It would be quite easy for a priority school to add some time to the end of the school day, satisfying the requirement, and not see any change in student outcomes. States must ensure that districts and schools have the guidance and information necessary to think critically about how more time can be used to the advantage of students and teachers. As is the case with all other intervention strategies, additional learning time and schedule redesign should be thought of as one part of a larger approach to improving instruction and learning. Increasing learning time in school is easy, but using additional time wisely is hard. Simply adding more time to the end of the day or year is wasted. For the most part states did not treat time as a valuable resource in their waiver applications. They would be wise to keep thinking about meaningful schedule redesign as they work to implement intervention strategies, because after all, the clock is ticking. (Contains 36 endnotes.)

ERIC

2012

ED535595