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In this paper, we examine the fundamental and complex role that time plays in the learning process. We begin by developing a conceptual framework to elucidate the multiple obstacles schools face in converting allocated time into learning time. We then synthesize the causal research and document a clear positive effect of time on student achievement of small to medium magnitude, but also with likely diminishing marginal returns. Further descriptive analyses reveal how large differences in the length of the school day and year across public schools are an underappreciated dimension of educational inequality in the United States. Finally, our case study of time loss in one urban district demonstrates the potential to substantially increase learning time within existing constraints.

Background: Publicly funded four-year-old preschool (or 4K) programs have expanded over the past several decades (Friedman-Krauss et al. 2021). Many high-quality preschool programs lead to gains in academic and social skills for students (Cascio and Schanzenbach 2013; Gormley and Gayer 2005; Weiland and Yoshikawa 2013; Wong et al. 2008), particularly for low-income students (Weiland and Yoshikawa 2013) and for Black students and Hispanic students (Bassok 2010; Gormley and Gayer 2005). However, effects across public programs vary in magnitude (Wong et al. 2008), and not all programs yield positive outcomes (Durkin et al. 2022). Understanding variations in program features is essential to unpacking differences in efficacy. One key dimension by which public preschool programs vary is length of the school day (Friedman-Krauss et al. 2021). Several studies identify positive effects of attending full-day 4K relative to half-day 4K (Atteberry, Bassok, and Wong 2019; Herry, Maltais, and Thompson 2007; Reynolds et al. 2014; Robin, Frede, and Barnett 2006), though others find no differences in outcomes (Leow and Wen 2017; Valenti and Tracey 2009). We add to this body of literature, investigating differences in learning in literacy, numeracy, and executive functioning in full- and half-day 4K classrooms in one medium-sized, urban school district in the Midwest. Question: Are there differences in learning gains at the end of 4K and at the end of five-year-old Kindergarten (5K) for students enrolled in full-day classrooms relative to half-day classrooms? The additional school time should, in theory, allow for additional instructional time, leading full-day attendees to enjoy greater learning gains over the course of the year. If we identify gains in learning, we expect these gains to be sustained through 5K. Setting: The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) is a mid-sized, urban school district in the Midwest. MMSD has offered free, universal half-day 4K since 2011, serving just under 2,000 students per year. In fall of 2021, MMSD introduced free, full-day 4K in eight of its 26 elementary schools. In fall of 2022, MMSD expanded its full-day program to four additional schools. Subjects: This study consists of two cohorts of 4K students. In the Year 1 cohort (2021), we sampled 168 students across 16 full-day and 238 students across 27 half-day classrooms. In Year 2 (2022), we sampled 212 students in 23 full-day and 162 students in 12 half-day classrooms. We also followed a sample of 122 of the 2021 cohort through 5K. (See Table 1 for descriptive characteristics.) Intervention: We investigate differences between students enrolled in full-day, ~7 hours per day, and half-day, ~3 hours per day, 4K classrooms. Evaluation design: As part of an equity strategy to address persistent gaps in outcomes, MMSD chose to initially offer full-day 4K programming at schools that serve relatively high numbers of students of color and students from families that are economically constrained. At the beginning of each school year, we selected schools offering half-day 4K that served similar populations of students as the schools offering full-day 4K. From each selected classroom, we sampled 12 students to participate in the evaluation. We use a difference-in-differences design to measure the effect of full-day relative to half-day 4K on gains in literacy, numeracy, and executive functioning, controlling for student background characteristics. We also conduct a triple-difference-in-differences analysis for literacy, for classrooms with teachers who taught in the same school for at least one year prior. We measure the difference between full- and half-day achievement gains relative to students in the same classrooms in years prior (results forthcoming). Data collection and analysis: In the fall and spring of each school year, a team of graduate assistants assessed students on the Woodcock-Johnson IV-Applied Problems subtest, measuring early numeracy, and on the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) assessment, measuring executive function. Teachers also administered the Phonological Awareness Literacy Assessment (PALS), measuring literacy. The latter assessment is given to all students in the district as part of routine practice. For the 2021 cohort, our main analytical model is: where full-day is a dummy indicating whether (1) or not (0) the student was in the full-day class, spring is a dummy indicating whether the assessment was done in the spring (1) or fall (0), and X are covariates, including student sex, race/ethnicity, parent education, free- and reduced-price lunch status, English proficiency, and special education designation. Data collection for Year 2 is ongoing and results are forthcoming. Findings: In Year 1 (2021-22) of the study, we do not find a difference in achievement gains in literacy, numeracy, or executive function between those in full- and half-day 4K classrooms, conditional on student background (Table 2). We do not find heterogeneous effects across subgroups (Table 3). Conclusions: Contrary to expectations, students enrolled in full-day 4K did not see learning gains relative to their peers in half-day classrooms. We offer several plausible explanations for this null results. It is possible that teachers in the full-day classrooms were unable to take full advantage of the instructional time allotted. This could be due to challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic or point to the need for additional professional development to support teachers to best utilize time afforded by the extended school day. Tracking the second year of the full-day program, along with following a cohort into 5K, will deepen our understanding of these findings. We acknowledge that our identification strategy is imperfect. While we match as best we can on classroom attributes and control for many student characteristics that might affect a student's achievement growth over the course of the year, unobserved characteristics of teachers and students may affect our ability to compare across these groups. However, we believe our difference-in-differences strategy, and our more exploratory triple-difference analyses, address these concerns to some extent. In the absence of random assignment, we argue that these results offer the best evidence available for effects of full-relative to half-day 4K in contexts like that of MMSD.

Instructional time is a fundamental educational input, yet we have little causal evidence about the effect of longer school days on student achievement. This paper uses a sharp regression discontinuity design to estimate the effects of lengthening the school day for low-performing schools in Florida by exploiting an administrative cutoff for eligibility. Our results indicate significant positive effects of additional literacy instruction on student reading achievement. In particular, we find effects of 0.05 standard deviations of improvement in reading test scores for program assignment in the first year, though long-run effects are difficult to assess.

For many years, the Kauffman Foundation has focused efforts on improving educa­tion for children in Kansas City. Prior to opening the Kauffman School, the Kauffman Foundation operated several programs that addressed the challenges faced in urban education, such as Project Early (an early childhood program), Project Choice (a high school dropout prevention program), and the Kauffman Scholars program (an after-school college preparatory program). The success of these programs led Foundation leaders to consider the impact they might have on students in Kansas City if they established a charter school. The path they followed and the lessons they learned may be of interest to those working to found and/or improve charter schools.

With the number of students who are English language learners (ELLs) likely to double in coming years, it is more important than ever for schools across the U.S. to design and implement educational practices and strategies that best meet ELLs' learning needs, says the report, "Giving English Language Learners the Time They Need to Succeed." To inform both practitioners and policymakers in bringing about this higher level of school support, the report profiles three expanded-time elementary schools, providing both the framework and compelling examples for understanding how the strategies and effective practices aimed at helping ELL students blend together to produce a high-quality education and serve as the foundation for future success.

This report analyzes case studies of "more and better learning time" efforts around the country. With support from the Ford Foundation, America's Promise Alliance looked in Grand Rapids, MI; Louisville, KY; Memphis, TN; and Rochester, NY to see how time spent out of the classroom improved outcomes for students in low-income neighborhoods and low-performing schools. Just as different names are used for the same concept in different communities--expanded learning, extended learning or out-of-school-time opportunities--there is no typical approach to effective programs. The report highlights the challenges, successes, variation and innovation present in each community profiled in the report. Each of these communities is at a different stage in making more and better learning a reality for young people. Each, moreover, is following its own distinctive approach that is informed by its situation and unique combination of needs and resources. This variation suggests that communities need not follow one established model to succeed. At the same time, the diverse experiences of these four communities illuminate some of the challenges that all communities face, with implications for how individual communities can advance their own efforts. The hope is that these stories of community collaboration will benefit other communities as they develop and improve their own efforts to expand learning opportunities for all students.

The National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), an organization dedicated to redesigning and expanding school time to improve opportunities and outcomes for high-poverty students, has again teamed up with the Education Commission of the States (ECS), whose mission it is to foster the exchange of ideas on education issues among the states, to produce this snapshot of public school time in America, the third since the original in 2011 (See ED521518). By focusing on some of the key actions that have taken place at the federal, state, and local levels since 2013, these organizations seek to advance the national conversation about how the nation's schools can harness the power of time to realize a vision of high-quality education for all. This brief concludes with an updated version of a number of public policy recommendations that appeared in the original report. These revised recommendations take into account the rapidly shifting policy context and provide policymakers with a roadmap guiding how they can best support efforts to effectively provide students with the learning time they need to be prepared for future success. Also included in the report is the appendix: "Number of Instructional Days/Hours in the School Year."

Governor Sam Brownback has recommended the Kansas Legislature phase-in funding for full day kindergarten programs over the next five years. This proposal has also been adopted by the Kansas State Board of Education. Currently, all kindergarteners are counted as a half-time (0.5) student for funding purposes. About 87 percent of Kansas kindergarteners are already in all day programs. Local school boards and communities made the decision to fund them from state at-risk funding, reallocation of other resources within the district, and in some districts, parent fees. The Governor's proposal to phase-in funding for all-day kindergarten would allow expansion of all day programs. Districts already offering all day programs would receive additional funding to invest in educational programs or reduce cost of attendance to families. This report considers how effectively Kansas school districts have used at-risk and all other financial resources to achieve higher academic outcomes, particularly among "at-risk" students who are more likely to fall short of those outcomes. If the current system is delivering results, it is a strong indication that additional funding provided for all-day kindergarten will be used effectively.

In the last decade, there have been significant increases in the New York City high school graduation rates. Nevertheless, far too many students are graduating high school without the knowledge and skills they will need for college and career, and far too many continue to require remediation once they arrive at college. A central priority of the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) is to ensure that New York City schools provide all students with the academic coursework and developmental experiences they need to graduate ready for college and career. The Office of Postsecondary Readiness (OPSR) established a set of benchmarks to define the qualities and achievements that students need to complete in order to be ready to enroll, persist, and succeed in college or other postsecondary training, and gain entry into meaningful careers. These College and Career Readiness Benchmarks fall into four domains: (1) Common Core Learning Standards; (2) Academic and Personal Behaviors; (3) Academic Programming; and (4) College and Career Access. The focus of this report is on configuring academic programs that not only enable more students to meet the state graduation requirements but that also lead to college and career readiness. To maximize access to courses and opportunities that are predictive of college and career readiness, schools must optimize a fundamental resource--time during the regular school day. School Time Lab (STL), a two-year New York City initiative funded by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, implemented by OPSR, and evaluated by the Research and Policy Support Group (RPSG), studies and bolsters how school leaders use this fundamental asset to provide opportunities for all students to enroll in the higher-level coursework and developmental experiences necessary for college and career. STL consists of two complementary projects. This report describes findings from Project 1: Case Studies of Promising Practices. The purpose of this project is to identify and document effective scheduling models and strategies from schools that are successfully graduating students prepared for college and career. Ten model high schools were selected for study. Key programming and scheduling strategies were identified across the schools and are described in detail through case studies. Following a guide to Key Themes and Case Studies, the following case studies are presented: (1) Academy for Careers in Television & Film (ACTvF); (2) Channel View School for Research; (3) Edward R. Murrow High School; (4) High School of Telecommunication Arts and Technology (HSTAT); (5) Manhattan Bridges High School (MBHS); (6) PACE High School; (7) Pelham Preparatory Academy; (8) The Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science (AMS); (9) The Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice (SLJ); and (10) Williamsburg Preparatory High School. The following are appended: (1) Sample Schedules; (2) Brooklyn Frontiers High School: Using Trimesters to Bolster Credit Accumulation; and (3) Susan E. Wagner High School: Creating a Senior Seminar. A glossary of terms and Minute-by-Minute Readers Guide is included.

With the widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards, public education in the United States is poised to take a major step forward in readying the next generation of Americans for success in higher education and the workforce. Gaining a realistic understanding of students' performance levels, meeting students where they currently are, and raising them to new heights are the tasks at hand and will require more intensive and time-consuming teaching and learning than schools commonly provide now. Fortunately, federal and state policies that support efforts to increase the amount of time students spend in school are resulting in new resources--and freeing up formerly restricted resources--to fund the creation of more expanded-time schools. The Center for American Progress and the National Center on Time & Learning believe that "expanded learning time" provides both teachers and students with one of the critical tools that they need to meet the demands of the Common Core State Standards. Of course, the additional learning time must be well planned and intentional, therefore, in this report, the authors offer seven recommendations that should help with meeting the demands associated with the Common Core for teachers and students. High-quality expanded learning time is one of the most far-reaching implementation strategies and can enable students to successfully meet these higher expectations. In addition to an introduction and summary, this report also provides information on the authors, a section on acknowledgments, and a list of endnotes.

For years, Orchard Gardens K-8 Pilot School was plagued by low student achievement and high staff turnover. Then, in 2010, with an expanded school schedule made possible through federal funding, Orchard Gardens began a remarkable turnaround. Today, the school is demonstrating how increased learning time, combined with other key turnaround strategies, can dramatically improve the performance of even the nation's most troubled schools. This case study, the first in a new series, takes you inside the transformation of Orchard Gardens.

The Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative provides grants to selected schools to redesign their schedules by adding 300-plus instructional hours to the school year to improve outcomes, broaden enrichment opportunities, and provide teachers with more planning and professional development time. The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) and Abt Associates, with grant funding from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute for Education Sciences (IES), completed a five year study of the ELT initiative to examine three primary research questions: (1) How has expanded learning time been implemented in schools that receive ELT grants?; (2) What are the outcomes of expanded learning time for schools, students, and teachers?; and (3) What is the relationship between implementation and outcomes? This study included 24 elementary, middle, and K-8 ELT schools that were funded by the state and 25 matched comparison schools. As random assignment of schools or students to ELT was not feasible, this study's impact analysis relies upon a strong longitudinal quasi-experimental design: a comparative interrupted time-series approach that leverages pre-program data and data from matched comparison schools to produce estimated effects representing differences between ELT and comparison schools beyond what one might expect given pre-program measures and other secular initiatives affecting all schools. Analyses of non-academic outcomes rely on cross-sectional survey data and use multi-level models that produce estimates of differences between ELT and comparison schools to approximate what would have happened in the absence of ELT. Each year, longitudinal student-level MCAS and other extant data for both ELT and matched comparison schools are analyzed. One of the study's key contributions was to integrate implementation and outcomes data using an index based on principles of effective ELT operation; this implementation index provides a measure of fidelity that can be used both to understand school-level implementation and to explore relationships between implementation and outcomes. Findings from the study reveal the following: (1) More ELT teachers were satisfied with time available for instruction and planning, and reported that they spend sufficient instructional time with students. Fewer ELT teachers reported that student academic performance and homework completion rates were problem areas; (2) More teachers in ELT schools reported that teacher and staff fatigue, as well as student fatigue, were problems in their respective schools; (3) Generally, there were no statistically significant effects of ELT on student achievement; (4) Descriptive analysis linking the level of implementation in ELT schools and student achievement outcomes indicate no clear patterns or meaningful relationships; (5) Exploratory analysis of differential effects of ELT in higher- versus lower-implementing schools indicates minimal heterogeneity in the effect by the level of ELT implementation; and (6) The school reform landscape is dynamic; each year, more schools (outside of this ELT initiative) appear to be expanding the amount of time in their school year as well as implementing reforms consistent with the core ELT components. Exhibits are appended.

The Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative was established in 2005 with planning grants that allowed a limited number of schools to explore a redesign of their respective schedules and add time to their day or year. Participating schools are required to expand learning time by at least 300 hours per academic year to improve student outcomes in core academic subjects, broaden enrichment opportunities, and improve instruction by adding more planning and professional development time for teachers. Schools draw upon state resources as well as technical assistance and support from Massachusetts 2020 (Mass 2020) and Focus on Results to implement expanded learning time in their schools. The first cohort of ten ELT schools (Cohort 1) received implementation grants to begin operating their expanded days in the 2006-07 school year; in 2007-08, a second cohort of nine schools (Cohort 2) began to implement ELT; and a third cohort of nine schools began in 2008-09, resulting in an initial group of 261 ELT schools in the Commonwealth. There has not been additional funding for new ELT schools since then. In the most recently completed school year, 2010-11, 19 schools continued to implement the initiative. Abt Associates Inc. is completing a multi-year evaluation of ELT that examines both the implementation of ELT in the funded schools, and the outcomes for schools, teachers, and students hypothesized to result from effective ELT implementation. This report describes current implementation and outcomes for an initiative that has been underway for five full academic years. The staggered nature of the ELT initiative means that as of the end of the 2010-11 school year, participating schools have completed five, four, and three years of implementation (Cohorts 1, 2, and 3, respectively). The overall ELT evaluation is guided by three major evaluation questions: (1) How has ELT been implemented in schools that have received ELT grants?; (2) What are the outcomes of ELT for schools, teachers, and students?; and (3) What is the relationship between ELT implementation and outcomes? This report addresses all three of the evaluation questions. It focuses considerable attention on how the ELT initiative was implemented in the ELT schools during the 2010-11 school year, and also examines the effects of the ELT initiative on schools, teachers, and students in the three cohorts of ELT schools for three and four years of implementation. Finally, the report addresses the third question through a variety of descriptive and exploratory analyses of variation in implementation and associated variation in outcomes. Key findings from the implementation and outcomes components are presented. [This report was written with assistance from: Stephanie Althoff, Beth Boulay, David Bell-Feins, Mieka Lewis, Alyssa Rulf Fountain, Missy Robinson, and Fatih Unlu.]

The Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative was established in 2005 with planning grants that allowed a limited number of schools to explore a redesign of their respective schedules and add time to their day or year. Participating schools are required to expand learning time by at least 300 hours per academic year to improve student outcomes in core academic subjects, broaden enrichment opportunities, and improve instruction by adding more planning and professional development time for teachers. Schools draw upon state resources as well as technical assistance and support from Massachusetts 2020 (Mass 2020) and Focus on Results to implement expanded learning time in their schools. The first cohort of ten ELT schools (Cohort 1) received implementation grants to begin operating their expanded days in the 2006-07 school year; in 2007-08, a second cohort of nine schools (Cohort 2) began to implement ELT; and a third cohort of nine schools began in 2008-09, resulting in an initial group of 26 ELT schools in the Commonwealth. There has not been additional funding for new ELT schools since then. In the most recently completed school year, 2010-11, 19 schools continued to implement the initiative. Abt Associates Inc. is completing a multi-year evaluation of ELT that examines both the implementation of ELT in the funded schools, and the outcomes for schools, teachers, and students hypothesized to result from effective ELT implementation. This report describes current implementation and outcomes for an initiative that has been underway for five full academic years. The staggered nature of the ELT initiative means that as of the end of the 2010-11 school year, participating schools have completed five, four, and three years of implementation (Cohorts 1, 2, and 3, respectively). Appendices include exhibits for chapters 1-5. [This report was written with assistance from: Stephanie Althoff, Beth Boulay, David Bell-Feins, Mieka Lewis, Alyssa Rulf Fountain, Missy Robinson, and Fatih Unlu.]

The Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative is designed to improve academic outcomes by increasing the amount of learning time for students. Schools are expected to provide opportunities to teachers for collaborative planning and professional development as well as add time to the school day or year for instructional and enrichment opportunities. This expectation is consistent with research about student learning that suggests that more time, alone, will not significantly improve students' achievement; rather, research indicates that improved academic performance reflects student engagement in high quality learning activities. Regardless of whether schools have expanded schedules, providing teachers with structured opportunities to work together, align activities, and coordinate instructional decisions has emerged as an important strategy for improving instruction and further developing professional learning communities within schools. Schools considering whether to allocate or increase time for structured teacher collaborative planning will need to consider such decisions as where to place CPT in the school schedule, which groups of teachers should share planning time, and how the time should be used. This brief focuses on key themes identified by schools about the implementation of CPT, based on a comprehensive evaluation of the Massachusetts ELT initiative. The brief draws primarily from surveys of teachers as well as interviews with principals in 17 ELT and 19 matched comparison schools that participated in the ELT evaluation during the 2010-2011 school year. The study found that the majority of teachers had weekly (or more frequent) opportunities for collaborative planning time. During these collaborative planning meetings, teachers reported that they had engaged in a wide range of activities, and the majority of participants described the activities as useful.

Expanded learning time seems to be a simple idea: by lengthening the school day (or year), students have more time to learn. Yet as schools revisit their schedules and decide how to allocate time in their academic calendars, they can and do face challenging decisions related to time allocations. This brief highlights lessons learned from some schools' experiences with redistributing time for students, focusing specifically on schools that participated in the Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative. This set of schools participated in a multi-year study of the ELT initiative. The information presented in this Issue Brief draws primarily from interviews with principals and master schedules for 5th and 8th grade students, and secondarily from surveys of teachers, and surveys of 5th and 8th grade students in 17 ELT and 19 matched comparison schools. The data all refer to the 2010-2011 school year. As school and district administrators consider the redesign of their schools' schedules, time allocation is a key factor. ELT schools used a variety of approaches to arrange instructional and other learning experiences for their students. The longer school day clearly increased the amount of time for core academic subjects as well as noncore classes and specials. Drawing on Aronson et al. and Silva's research, this report reiterates the important point that "while time in school is necessary for learning, time alone is not sufficient."

This brief highlights key information about enrichment activities, which represent one of the main components of the Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative. Over time, the ELT initiative has supported over two dozen schools across the Commonwealth. A comprehensive evaluation of the ELT initiative found that implementation of the core ELT components varied considerably across schools. This brief focuses on enrichment activities provided for students, drawing primarily from surveys of teachers, surveys of 5th and 8th grade students, as well as interviews with principals, in 17 ELT and 19 matched comparison schools that participated in the ELT evaluation during the 2010-2011 school year. Over the course of the ELT initiative, the study found that teachers had increasingly positive views about the value of enrichment. The majority of teachers at ELT schools reported that enrichment opportunities were valuable to students, well integrated into the school day, and of high quality. Most teachers also reported that enrichment was clearly connected to curriculum frameworks or standards. Almost all students at ELT schools were able to participate in at least some enrichment, regardless of academic standing. Enrichment also offered schools the opportunity to develop community partnerships and offered students choice about a portion of their schedules.

Just a few years ago, Boston's Clarence Edwards Middle School was on the verge of being shut down. By 2009, a renaissance at the Edwards made it one of the highest performing and most desired middle schools in Boston, dramatically narrowing and even eliminating academic achievement gaps while delivering a far more well-rounded education to its high-poverty student population. This paper describes their achievement.

In 2004, Kuss Middle School became the first school declared "Chronically Underperforming" by the state of Massachusetts. But by 2010, Kuss had transformed itself into a model for schools around the country seeking a comprehensive turnaround strategy. Kuss is using increased learning time as the primary catalyst to accelerate learning, deepen student engagement, and improve instruction, and has become a rare example of a school on the path to successful turnaround. This is their story.

Across the country, schools operate on a schedule of about 180 six-hour days. This is not because they think it is the best schedule or the right schedule but because it has been in place for generations and would be difficult to change. But does this schedule really provide enough time to help all students achieve academic proficiency? The Massachusetts program, known as the Expanded Learning Time (ELT) Initiative, enables schools to develop and implement plans to redesign their whole day around an expanded learning time plan, in which every student has 300 hours more learning time embedded into the core schedule. The 26 ELT schools are spread across a dozen Massachusetts communities and serve 13,500 students who are taught by more than 1,000 teachers. By comparing the responses from these teachers to those of their colleagues in conventional-schedule schools, we can begin to see the effect that more time has on both student learning and teacher collaboration and professional development. This report aims to address a simple and essential pair of questions from the point of view of the people charged with the awesome responsibility of preparing our children for the ever-growing challenges of the 21st century. What do our frontline educators think about the quantity of time they have now, and how do those who work in ELT schools see their situation differently? (Contains 12 figures and 6 notes.)

The impact of class time lengths on student achievement is a complex issue with multiple extraneous factors and without definitive answers. A major theme across many of the studies reviewed is that the amount of instructional time is not so important as how that time is spent. Key points include: (1) The commonly held conception that students in other countries outperform U.S. students because they spend more time in school is not supported by research; (2) Neither increased days/year nor hours/day have been shown to increase student learning significantly except in special circumstances; and (3) Studies on block scheduling have reported mixed results.

2010 was a pioneering year for Massachusetts public schools. State leaders recognized that while the Commonwealth leads the nation in student achievement on national measures such as NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), more needed to be done to close the persistent achievement gaps between our wealthy and poor students. Combining a strong plan, a new reform law, and broad consensus, Massachusetts won a federal Race to the Top grant and set out to implement bold strategies to accelerate improvements. Innovative approaches to improving our schools are nothing new for Massachusetts. In 2005, inspired by the effective use of expanded time at many high-performing charter schools and a handful of district schools around the country, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) and non-profit Massachusetts 2020 launched a first-in-the-nation initiative for district schools to expand learning time for all of their students. That first year, ten schools in five districts stepped forward to participate. Their school leaders, teachers, parents and community partners understood that as the world changes, schools must evolve to prepare students for the opportunities and complexities of the 21st century, and that the traditional 6.5-hour school day is woefully insufficient. Five years later, the Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) Initiative has grown to include over 10,500 students in 19 schools in nine districts, 78% of whom are low-income and all of whom benefit from an additional 300 hours of learning time across the school year. In 2010-11 ELT continues to thrive due to the persistence of participating schools and districts. It is managed through a unique public-private partnership between ESE and Massachusetts 2020, which share responsibility for oversight and support of the ELT Initiative. In this 2011 update, Massachusetts 2020 seeks to provide a brief snapshot of promising results and lessons learned. (Contains 1 footnote.) [For previous edition, "More Time for Learning: Promising Practices and Lessons Learned. Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time Initiative 2010 Progress Report," see ED534907.]

The National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), an organization dedicated to redesigning and expanding school time to improve opportunities and outcomes for high poverty students, and the Education Commission of the States (ECS), with a mission to foster both the exchange of ideas on education issues among the states and long range strategic thinking, have joined forces to produce this review. Their goal is to help education leaders to better understand the complexities of time related policy and its far reaching educational implications. In exploring how policymakers and educators have dealt with the matter of school time at the federal, state, and local levels, NCTL and ECS hope to accelerate the national conversation on how they can best leverage the power of time to realize the vision of a high quality education for all. This paper offers a number of recommendations highlighting fresh ways that policy and research can best support efforts to expand learning time in schools. State policies on instructional time are appended. (Contains 82 notes and 51 footnotes.) [This paper was supported by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.]

Optional Extended-Day Kindergarten benefits students above and beyond non-Optional Extended-Day kindergarten. While OEK students began the 2009-10 school year with significantly lower scores than non-OEK students, by the end of the year OEK students had closed this achievement gap and scored similarly to non-OEK students. In some cases OEK students surpassed the achievement of non-OEK students at the end of the year. Thus, this report shows that the program benefits at-risk students. Quick facts include: (1) Approximately 18% of kindergarten students participated in an extended kindergarten program in 2009-10; (2) OEK classrooms gained an average of 54 percentage points over the year; non-OEK classrooms gained an average of 36 percentage points; (3) Significantly fewer OEK students were at risk for falling behind in reading at the end of the year than at the beginning of the year (35% to 13%); (4) A higher percentage of OEK students are able to move up from being at risk compared to non-OEK students (22% compared to 2%); (5) In some districts, OEK classrooms even surpassed the achievement of non-OEK classrooms at the end of the year; and (6) This report finds similar outcomes to the 2009 report on OEK student achievement, and both reports conclude that while OEK students begin the year behind non-OEK students, by the end of the year this gap is closed or surpassed. (Contains 4 figures and 3 tables.)

Massachusetts is heralded nationally for being the first in the nation to enact a state policy to redesign and expand the learning day for all students to advance academic achievement, broaden enrichment opportunities, and improve instruction. The Expanded Learning Time (ELT) Initiative has gained momentum over the past several years due to the strong advocacy and leadership of Governor Deval Patrick, Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville, and the Massachusetts Legislature, especially the chairpersons of the Education Committee, Representative Marty Walz and Senator Rob O'Leary. While many important education programs in the state have been impacted by dwindling state coffers, the state leadership's continued commitment and support of this innovative program has been critical to its ongoing success. Today, the 22 ELT schools serving over 12,200 students across the state are models to the Commonwealth and the entire country for how schools can be transformed when teachers, administrators, parents, and the community work together to add learning time and broaden what schools should offer. As the national momentum for expanded learning time continues to build, the Massachusetts ELT Initiative continues to be recognized for its promising results for students, teachers, and schools. This paper presents the Massachusetts ELT Initiative progress report for 2010. It discusses the lessons the founders have learned over the past four years of working with ELT schools--such as how some successful schools are using additional academic time to individualize academic supports to better meet student needs--and how they are refining their model to produce even greater student success. [For previous edition, "Redesigning Today's Schools to Build a Stronger Tomorrow: The Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time Initiative 2007-2008 Annual Report," see ED534910.]

The aim of the paper is to discuss the system of double-shift schooling and assess it from economic, social and educational angles referring to different cases from Sub-Saharan African countries. The paper makes an attempt to prove that despite certain challenges that it faces, the system of double-shift schooling is the best solution for poor countries to achieve the millennium goal of Education for All with limited resources, and an optimum strategy for rich countries to use resources more efficiently. Thus, if wisely implemented and managed, double-shift schools can be the best way to achieve the goal of universal education in both poor and rich countries. (Contains 1 footnote.)

Our children deserve an education that fully prepares them for the future--success in college, the workforce and a healthy, fulfilled life. The Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) Initiative is redesigning and expanding the school schedule to offer children new learning and enrichment opportunities. With state resources, participating schools are expanding the school day by at least 300 hours per year for all students to improve student outcomes in core academic subjects, broaden enrichment opportunities, and improve instruction by adding more planning and professional development time for teachers. The vision of the Expanded Learning Time Initiative is to reshape the American school schedule to provide all students with a well-rounded education that prepares them for full engagement and participation in the economic and civic life of our 21st-century global society. This paper presents the stories, the data, the images, the advocates, and the reasons why ELT is making a difference. This paper presents the annual report of the Massachusetts ELT Initiative for 2007-2008. [For previous edition, "Time for a New Day: Broadening Opportunities for Massachusetts Schoolchildren. Expanded Learning Time Initiative 2006-2007 Annual Report," see ED534906.]

Our children deserve an education that fully prepares them for the future--success in college, the workforce and a healthy, fulfilled life. The Expanded Learning Time (ELT) Initiative in Massachusetts is redesigning schools to offer children new learning and enrichment opportunities made possible because of an expanded school schedule. With state resources, participating schools are expanding the school day by at least 300 hours per year to improve student outcomes in core academic subjects, broaden enrichment opportunities and improve instruction by adding more planning and professional development time for teachers. The vision of the Expanded Learning Time Initiative is to reshape the American school calendar to provide all students with a well-rounded education that prepares them for full engagement and participation in the economic and civic life of our 21st century global society. This paper presents the annual report of the Massachusetts ELT Initiative for 2006-2007.

The Optional Extended Year Program (OEYP), funded by a grant from the state, provides extended learning opportunities for students in kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) who are at risk of academic failure. The primary focus of an OEYP is to reduce and ultimately eliminate the need for student grade-level retention by providing additional instructional time for students to master the state's academic performance standards. OEYP activities occur outside the regular school day. OEYP is designed to accommodate four school-day options: (1) extended day, (2) extended week, (3) intersession for year-round schools, and (4) summer school. A school district may provide instructional services during any of these programs for a period of time not to exceed 30 days. Participating students must receive a minimum of 240 minutes of instruction to meet Texas Education Agency (TEA) reporting requirements. Since 1993, the Austin Independent School District (AISD) has used the OEYP to reduce the number of AISD students at risk of academic failure. This report summarizes AISD's 2005-2006 school year activities and student performance outcomes for the state-funded optional extended year program.

This paper provides an overview of the 4-day school week being utilized by 36 school districts in Colorado. These districts, which tend to be rural and sparsely populated, schedule 7.5 hours per day for 144 days of school instead of the normal 6 hours for 180 days. Colorado law requires school districts to schedule 1,080 hours per year of instructional time for secondary schools and 990 instructional hours for elementary schools. Fifteen districts have no Monday classes and 20 districts have no Friday classes. The law allowing for a 4-day week was passed in 1980, and its implementation proved popular with students, parents, and teachers. The initial reason for the change was financial; the shortened week saved substantial amounts in transportation, food costs, utilities, and staff expenditures. However, the truncated week presents possible problem areas, such as child care for the off days, the effects on instructional time, political concerns over a shortened school year, and how a 4-day week affects student performance. Reliable data on the last feature are yet to be determined. The 4-day week seems to meet a need for communities that are small and rural but may also prove useful for larger, urban areas. Contact information for superintendents of districts on the 4-day schedule are provided. (RJM)

This study examines three aspects of educational time: (1) quantity of time in school; (2) quality of time in school; and (3) students' uses of out-of-school time. The study identified two types of strategies that altered school uses of time--multiage groupings, and flexible school schedules. It concludes that the decision to increase the quantity of time for teaching and learning represents a hollow goal and can even work against other important changes. Undertaking quick policy fixes to extend the school day or year is ill-advised, particularly without deliberate and consensual assessment. Other findings are that: (1) extending noninstructional time at school has important impacts on students; (2) students are willing to commit their free time to well-conceived and well-structured activities provided through their local schools; (3) flexible schedules are important for schools serving at-risk high school students; (4) the most important commodity in which to invest is time itself; and (5) failure to invest in the necessary resources, particularly time, can doom even the most promising innovations. Two exhibits and two figures are included. (Contains 43 references.) (LMI)

A quasi-experimental study explored the ways in which the full-day kindergarten program is beneficial and/or detrimental to students compared to the half-day and/or extended-day program. The sample consisted of six full-day schools matched with half-day schools on geographic location, school size, student norm-referenced data, and socioeconomic status of patrons. Data were collected by means of classroom observations; video- and audiotaped interviews of students, teachers, and parents; report cards of all students included in the sample; survey questionnaires administered to parents and teachers; and a norm-referenced achievement test administered to all students. The findings revealed the following: (1) greater utilization of small group activities by the full-day programs; (2) no significant difference in the amount of fatigue experienced by full-day and half-day students; (3) greater number of social interactions was experienced by full-day students; (4) full-day students outperformed half-day students on the majority of the Language Arts criteria and a few of the criteria used to measure mathematics skills; (5) full-day students outperformed half-day students on every criterion measured by norm-referenced achievement test; (6) overall satisfaction was higher for parents of children attending full-day and extended day programs (they believed that their children had a better chance for success in first grade over the half-day students); and (7) school attendance of full-day students was more regular than for other students. (BA)

Some school reform programs, such as the "Copernican Plan," advocate long blocks of classroom instruction time to allow greater instructional flexibility and active student participation in classroom work. This study investigated the effectiveness of this strategy by examining the perceptions of high school teachers who were entering or who had been working under extended time schedules (ETS). Data were collected through surveys and interviews with teachers at four Pennsylvania high schools: schools A and B, which were about to implement ETS, and schools C and D, which were in their first year of ETS implementation. A total of 90 teachers from schools A and B and 39 teachers from schools C and D participated. Findings included the following: (1) at all schools teachers thought that ETS allowed time to develop and include more new activities in the classroom; (2) discipline problems and waning student motivation during long blocks of time were also cited as problematic; (3) teachers from all schools reported using more cooperative activities; and (4) although teachers from the schools planning to implement ETS expected to increase their preparation time, teachers from the school in their first year of ETS reported no increase in preparation time. Overall teachers saw some advantages to ETS but found that less able students might experience problems under ETS. (Contains 11 references.) (JB)

A central theme in the history of American education in the 20th century is the expansion of formal schooling for more children. This literature review surveys the research on the educational uses of time, with a focus on the quantity and quality of time that teachers and students spent in school and, to a lesser extent, students' out-of-school activities. The review was undertaken as the first stage of a study that identified and evaluated a collection of reforms designed to enhance learning by altering the amount of and/or the quality of time devoted to learning. Chapters summarize the research on the quantity of time in school, the quality of time in school, and the uses of nonschool time and its impact on academic achievement and social development among young children and adults. Each chapter concludes with a summary and references. (LMI)

In November 1994, the U.S. Department of Education invited a group of exceptional public and private school teachers (n=114) to Washington, D.C., to hear their thoughts and to explore ways in which the federal government can work with educators to achieve the National Education Goals. The teachers centered on two dimensions of the time challenge: "What time barriers must be overcome?" and "How can time be restructured?" The participants identified the following barriers to time: teacher isolation, school-day design, top-down thinking, slowness in responding to research, the need for family and community involvement, inadequate student assessment, and the demand for continual improvement. Teachers offered the following solutions to the time bind: (1) Focus on student learning as the constant and time as the variable; (2) create more flexibility rather than more instructional time; (3) realize that increasing planning time for teachers is more important for improving instruction than increasing instructional time with students; (4) encourage attitudinal change along with structural change; (5) involve teachers as policy-making partners in any solutions to the time problem; and (6) connect the issues of time and school reform. The document also lists eight recommendations made by the National Education Commission on Time and Learning's April 1994 report, "Prisoners of Time." A list of participating teachers is included. (LMI)

This report describes the research design of a study that identified and evaluated a collection of reforms designed to enhance learning by altering the amount of and/or the quality of time devoted to learning. The study focused on the quantity and quality of time that teachers and students spent in school and, to a lesser extent, students' out-of-school activities. Researchers conducted case studies of 14 sites that had experimented with different ways of allocating time as a cornerstone of efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning. All the schools served a substantial number of disadvantaged students. The sample included the following: (1) eight public schools and six private schools; (2) three elementary schools, five middle schools, two high schools serving grades 9-12, two secondary schools serving grades 7-12, one school serving grades 1-12, and one school serving students aged 16-21; (3) four residential schools; (4) eleven urban schools; (5) two schools that enrolled only boys; and (6) schools with student enrollments ranging from 20 to approximately 800. During the site visits, data were derived from the site-context record; interviews with teachers, administrators, and support staff; student focus groups; document analysis; and students' out-of-school-time diaries. Five exhibits are included. Appendices contain data-collection instruments and a list of reports derived from the study. (LMI)