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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.

Since the 2012/13 school year Florida law has required the 100 lowest performing elementary schools in reading to extend the school day by one hour to provide supplemental reading instruction. In 2014 the law was broadened to include the 300 elementary schools with the lowest reading performance. A previous study of the state's first two cohorts of 100 lowest performing schools found that observed growth in school reading performance after one to two years of implementing the extended school day policy did not exceed what would have been expected because of natural variation (Folsom et al., 2016). The current study follows up on that study by describing the location, demographic characteristics, and school reading performance of the 300 lowest performing schools and analyzing how the lowest performing schools implemented the extended school day policy (for example, the methods used to add the extra hour, staffing, and delivery of instruction). As with Folsom et al. (2016), the current study was based on a request from the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast Improving Literacy Alliance and Improving Low-Performing Schools Alliance--both of which have Florida Department of Education administrators as members. Based on publicly available data and survey and interview data collected by the Florida Department of Education, the study found: (1) The lowest performing elementary schools were located in 31 of Florida's 65 school districts and in all five regions of the state. The lowest performing elementary schools were smaller on average than other elementary schools and enrolled a larger proportion of racial/ethnic minority students and students eligible for the federal school lunch program. Ninety-nine percent of the lowest performing elementary schools were Title I schools; (2) On average, the school reading performance of the lowest performing elementary schools was 1.8 standard deviations below that of other elementary schools at the end of 2013/14 (the year they were identified as lowest performing) and 1.5 standard deviations below that of other elementary schools at the end of 2014/15 (after implementing the extended school day policy for one or more years); (3) The elementary schools that implemented the extended school day policy reported using a variety of strategies such as increasing reading instruction time each day, increasing staff, providing professional development for teachers, and providing instruction in the extra hour that differed from instruction during the rest of the day; and (4) Participants identified indirect benefits of implementation, including perceived student gains. Interviewees attributed these gains not to the extra hour of instruction but to improvements that occurred in conjunction with it, such as professional development and curricular and pedagogic changes. However, the empirical analyses could not demonstrate whether student gains actually occurred. Barriers to implementation identified by interviewees included lack of resources and issues around logistical planning, such as short timelines. The following are appended: (1) Data and methodology; (2) Florida Department of Education compliance survey and structured interview protocol; (3) Supplemental tables of school characteristics, school reading performance, and survey responses; and (4) Supplemental statistical tests of significance for school characteristics and implementation of extended school day policy in 2014/15. [For the previous study, "School Reading Performance and the Extended School Day Policy in Florida. REL 2016-141," see ED566657.]

Florida law requires the 100 lowest performing elementary schools in reading to extend the school day by one hour to provide supplemental reading instruction. This study found that those schools were smaller than other elementary schools and served a higher proportion of racial/ethnic minority students and students eligible for the school lunch program. The lowest performing schools reported increasing the number of minutes of reading instruction provided to students, increasing staff, and providing instruction in the extra hour that differed from instruction during the rest of the day. When growth in performance is measured, initially low scores generally rise, even in the absence of an intervention, because of natural year-to-year variations. While average school reading performance improved among the lowest performing schools, the increase did not exceed the small year-to-year variations expected when measuring initially low student performance. Appended are: (1) Supplemental tables of school characteristics, school reading performance, and survey responses; (2) Florida Department of Education 100 lowest performing elementary schools in reading extended school day reading instruction plans compliance survey; (3) Data and methodology; and (4) Supplemental statistical tests of significance for school characteristics and implementation of extended school day policy.

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.]

The educational achievement and attainment of young people in the United States has been a long-standing issue of concern. While analyses of long-term trend data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that students in the United States have made gains in reading and mathematics over the past few decades, a sizeable proportion of students in this country fail to demonstrate mastery of basic reading and writing skills, lack knowledge about U.S. history or geography, and perform at below-basic levels in mathematics and the sciences. This report synthesizes what is known about the effectiveness of school and program interventions that aim to address deficiencies and inequities in academic achievement and educational attainment by expanding learning opportunities for students both inside and outside of school. In Chapter 1, the authors introduce and frame the topic by providing background on the educational system in the United States and the need for improving the system to better support optimal achievement and attainment outcomes. The introduction also outlines the current policy context, describes the methodology for conducting the literature review, and provides information on the different types of out-of-school time programs. In Chapter 2, they examine the available literature on models in which districts or schools either expand the length of the day that young people must be in school or expand the number of days in the school year. This chapter is divided into two sections: the first looks at the evidence on extended school-day (ESD) program models; the second focuses on findings from extended school-year (ESY) program models. Because this review aims to cover the effects of extended learning time programs serving students in grades K-12, both sections include information on kindergarten programs. Most of the studies of ESD and ESY models focus solely on academic achievement outcomes, so that will be the focus of this review. In Chapter 3, they summarize the effects of social intervention programs that expand learning opportunities outside of the school day by providing at least one academic component as a part of their regular program offerings. In many cases, these programs are designed to complement learning that happens in school. They refer to these programs as expanded learning opportunities or ELO programs. Because ELO programs take place in community and school settings during nonschool hours, these programs are also commonly referred to as out-of-school time (OST) programs. Because random assignment evaluations were available on ELO programs, but not for ESD and ESY program models, Chapter 3 is structured differently than Chapter 2 and focuses on "what works" based on findings from these rigorous evaluations. In addition, the ELO evaluations tended to include information on a wider range of educational outcomes beyond academic achievement; therefore, their review of the research literature on ELO programs in Chapter 3 includes a broader review of educational outcomes, such as information on student engagement and educational attainment. In Chapter 4, they offer a set of conclusions and recommendations based on what they learned from their investigations. (Contains 2 figures, 2 tables, 3 footnotes and 14 endnotes.)