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In "Creating Learning Environments in the Early Grades that Support Teacher and Student Success," the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) profiles three expanded-time elementary schools that leverage a longer school day to better serve young students. In particular, the report describes how a longer day opens up opportunities to foster children's development across cognitive, social, physical, and emotional domains by: (1) crafting a schedule around a robust educational program; (2) focusing on building strong child-adult relationships; and (3) enabling teachers to collaborate toward continuous improvement. For disadvantaged children, having more time in productive learning environments is vital for setting them on the right path to future success in school and life. The schools profiled are located in Revere, Massachusetts; Meriden, Connecticut; and Denver, Colorado.

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.

West Virginia is committed to ensuring all children have the opportunity to engage in high-quality early learning experiences. As a result, a wealth of data exists to support the continuation of services. The data available to the field has resulted in the development of the West Virginia Early Learning Spotlight Report. This annual report is designed to help stakeholders gain a deeper understanding of the status of children pre-k through third grade. To assist West Virginia in closing the literacy achievement gap by the end of the third grade, recent legislation and subsequent state code and policy have resulted in development of a statewide Transformative System of Support for Early Literacy (WVBE Policy 2512). This systemic process is designed to ensure the success of all young children in West Virginia. Known as the West Virginia Leaders of Literacy: Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, this system of support for early literacy was developed to assist all 55 West Virginia counties in closing the literacy achievement gap in West Virginia by the end of the third grade. These efforts are supported by the West Virginia Department of Education, the West Virginia Board of Education, and the West Virginia Legislature. All 55 WV counties have included school attendance as part of the Grade Level Reading Action Plan. WVDE has engaged with Extended Day/Year Learning partners to develop a framework for extended day and year programs. Counties are tracking the number of students served in extended day/year programming for the first time, and are also engaging with local extended day/year partners to share resources and training opportunities. Participation in the WVDE's Summer Reading Challenge has skyrocketed.

In schools across the country, educators recognize the power of the arts to change young lives. They know that students' sustained engagement with enriching, high-quality experiences in the arts promotes essential skills and perspectives--like the capacity to solve problems, express ideas, harness and hone creativity, and persevere toward a job well done. And yet today, educators at many schools that operate with conventional schedules are forced to choose between offering their students valuable opportunities to pursue the arts and focusing on other rigorous core classes that also are necessary for success in the 21st century. This report presents case studies of five schools utilizing the longer student and teacher days to prioritize time for arts education as they work to improve overall academic instruction and focus on individual student achievement. The five schools are: (1) Berkshire Arts & Technology Charter Public School (BART); (2) Clarence Edwards Middle School; (3) Metropolitan Arts and Technology Charter High School (Metro); (4) Cole Arts and Sciences Academy (CASA); and (5) Roger Williams Middle School.

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.

This study looks deeply inside 17 schools that stand at the vanguard of the current revolution in teaching. This new National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) report reveals the substantive ways in which these schools are providing their teachers with more time to reflect on, develop, and hone their craft, by very explicitly leveraging an expanded-time school schedule and calendar. These schools' expanded time--on average, they are in session almost 300 hours more per year than the national norm of 1,170 hours--affords not only more hours and days focused on classroom instruction, but also a full array of professional learning opportunities. While the average American teacher spends less than 20 percent of her time in school outside the classroom--about seven total hours per week--teachers across the 17 schools featured in this report spend twice that proportion (40 percent) in activities that support their instruction--such as planning with peers or individually, reflecting upon their classroom teaching, and/or learning new content or pedagogies. s explores six specific practices--one each in Chapters Two through Seven--that highly-effective schools have put in place. These practices are: (1) Collaborative Lesson Planning: Improving Teaching through Teamwork. Featuring: UP Academy Boston (Boston, MA); Biltmore Preparatory Academy (Phoenix, AZ); Newton Elementary School (Greenfield, MA); Frank M. Silvia Elementary School (Fall River, MA); The Preuss School (La Jolla, CA); (2) Embedded Professional Development: Building Knowledge through Collaboration. Featuring: Nicolas S. LaCorte-Peterstown School No. 3 (Elizabeth, NJ); Brunson-Lee Elementary (Phoenix, AZ); The Preuss School (La Jolla, CA); Morton School of Excellence (Chicago, IL); KIPP Central City Academy (New Orleans, LA); (3) Summer Training: Establishing Expectations and Planning Ahead. Featuring: Achievement First Amistad High School (New Haven, CT); UP Academy Boston (Boston, MA); YES College Prep--Southwest Campus (Houston, TX); Roxbury Prep, Lucy Stone Campus (Boston, MA); Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School (Brooklyn, NY); (4) Data Analysis: Examining Student Performance to Tailor Instruction. Featuring: McGlone Elementary School (Denver, CO); Newton Elementary School (Greenfield, MA); Frank M. Silvia Elementary School (Fall River, MA); Morton School of Excellence (Chicago, IL); Mastery Charter School--Shoemaker Campus (Philadelphia, PA); The Soulsville Charter School (Memphis, TN); Achievement First Amistad High School (New Haven, CT); (5) ndividualized Coaching: Helping Teachers Succeed through Observation and Feedback. Featuring: Achievement First Amistad High School (New Haven, CT); Douglas MacArthur Girls' Leadership Academy (Cleveland, OH); KIPP Central City Academy (New Orleans, LA); Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School (Brooklyn, NY); (6) Peer Observation: Sharing and Honing Effective Practices. Featuring: Morton School of Excellence (Chicago, IL); Nicolas S. LaCorte-Peterstown School No. 3 (Elizabeth, NJ); Frank M. Silvia Elementary School (Fall River, MA). Using examples and vignettes from the 17 featured schools, "Time for Teachers" documents, deconstructs, and analyzes these practices to reveal how educators strive to make the time they allocate for teacher development most effective. Each of the report's practice chapters concludes with a list of four or five "Keys to Success," which describe the implementation factors that enable the profiled schools to achieve success within these practice areas, as well as a summary chart that educators can use to assess their own implementation of each practice. The aim of this report is to present these featured expanded-time schools--or, more precisely, the systems and practices they have implemented--as models that educators at any school can adopt and adapt to achieve similar success with their own students. Through analysis of the six time-use strategies, "Time for Teachers" offers a road map for other educators who are looking to adjust and improve how they are using both the time they currently have in their school schedules and any time they may plan to add. Individually and collectively, the accounts of these practices offer all educators insights into why this professional learning time is so valuable and also why an expanded-school schedule facilitates the implementation, and helps to elevate the quality, of these opportunities.

Many low-performing schools across the nation have increased learning time in response to federal requirements for the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program. The conditions governing federal waivers of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) also require certain schools to redesign the school day, week, or year to include additional time for student learning and teacher collaboration. Furthermore, the waivers allow greater flexibility to redirect certain federal funding streams toward increased learning time. This report by the Center on Education Policy (CEP) at the George Washington University summarizes the findings of a series of case studies of 17 low-performing schools within 11 school districts in four geographically dispersed states--Connecticut, Colorado, Oregon, and Virginia. This research examined state and local efforts to expand learning time through the unique lens of state and local responses to specific federal provisions. In particular, we investigated the strategies being used by the case study sites to meet federal requirements and encouragements for increased or expanded learning time, and the challenges, successes, and impacts associated with this implementation process. All four states in this study have been granted ESEA waivers. Most of the case study schools received SIG funds and/or were identified as "priority" schools under ESEA waivers, meaning that they were among the lowest-performing schools in their state. From October 2013 through March 2014, CEP staff and consultants visited all of the participating districts and the majority of participating schools. We interviewed 49 education leaders, including 13 state education officials, 18 district leaders, and 18 school principals. We also gathered information from state ESEA waiver applications and other relevant state, district, and school policy documents. As explained later in this report, different federal initiatives use different terminology and definitions for provisions that have the common goal of adding time for student learning and for teacher collaboration, professional development, or planning. For simplicity's sake, this report uses the umbrella term of "expanded learning time," or ELT, to describe these various approaches. Throughout this report, the findings are supported by examples from specific districts and schools. Key findings included: (1) Case study schools are meeting the federal requirements to expand learning time, but ELT is costly, and the short-term nature of federal grants is causing difficulties for some schools; (2) Case study districts and schools differ in when and how they expand learning time; (3) State, district, and school leaders participating in these case studies often emphasized that improving the quality of instruction in low-performing schools was just as important as increasing the quantity of instructional time; (4) There was evidence of improved student outcomes in some, but not all, of the case study schools; however, several schools were in the early stages of ELT implementation at the time of the study; (5) Few case study districts and schools were taking advantage of the flexibility afforded by waivers to redirect certain federal funding streams to ELT; (6) States and districts varied in their level of involvement and support for ELT initiatives in schools; (7) Implementing ELT sometimes required negotiations with teachers' unions about such issues as contractual time and compensation; and (8) Teacher and student fatigue from longer school days was cited as a challenge in implementing ELT in all four states studied. More detailed information can be found in the individual reports developed by CEP for each of the four states and 11 districts. These detailed reports, plus three appendices, are available on the CEP website (www.cep-dc.org). [This report was written with the assistance of Nancy Kober.]

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."

The expansion of Pre-K in early childhood programs, both in the community and in schools, has the potential to build significant new alignment between the traditional K-12 education system and the preschool year. Most communities, however, have only scratched the surface of collaboration between public schools and community programs as prekindergarten expands. Such partnerships hold potential to better align teaching and learning, resources, and capacity, and to ease the transition to kindergarten, leading to improved educational outcomes for children. There is increasing recognition that these partnerships are a critical component for moving toward a coherent system and continuum of services, birth to age 8. Currently more than half of the children enrolled in Pre-K are in community-based settings and this has held steady over the years. New York's Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) legislation that passed in 1997 created an important new opportunity to build these partnerships. These partnerships are complicated by a variety of issues that stem from the different contexts, supports, and infrastructure available to public schools and their community partners. Public education is free and open to all children and managed by a single system, with its own infrastructure and supports. Most early childhood programs and services operate as a single, autonomous entity, not as part of a system. Bridging these worlds holds significant promise of producing better educational outcomes for children and better meeting the needs of and strengthening families. The task ultimately calls for a set of policies and practices to inform and facilitate the work of these new partnerships to assure effective, efficient, and coherent delivery of early education services. The effort will ultimately require new resources, technical assistance, and some system-wide professional development to fill gaps in knowledge in both the early childhood and public school community. This Snapshot offers some new findings on next steps to strengthen these partnerships. Above all, these results indicate a need for common understanding about whether specific policies and practices are in place and understood across all settings. "School Community Partnerships: Moving Pre-K Forward Survey," designed by Sam Stephens, is contained in the appendix. [The Booth Ferris Foundation supported the Center for Children's Initiatives' new School Community Partnerships Project.]

New York is poised to take an important step to improve student achievement by expanding learning time for students attending high-poverty, low-performing schools. Recent district- and state-level investments in expanded learning time--a promising strategy to close achievement and opportunity gaps--will give students more time to learn core academics but not at the expense of extracurricular activities such as music, art, and sports. Expanded learning time also provides teachers with more time for collaboration, planning, and professional development. What's more, New York's strong history of working with community partners will help support schools that decide to significantly lengthen the school day. Other school districts and states that are interested in boosting student performance, closing achievement gaps, and expanding enrichment opportunities should follow New York's example and consider a significant investment in expanded learning time. Contains endnotes.

The Study of School Turnaround examines the improvement process in a purposive sample of 35 case study schools receiving federal funds through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program over a three-year period (2010-11 to 2012-13 school years). This evaluation brief focuses on 11 of these SIG schools with high proportions of English Language Learner (ELL) students (a median of 45 percent ELLs). Three key findings that emerged from the ELL case study data collected in fall 2011 include: (1) Although all 11 schools reported providing specialized supports for ELL students, the schools' approaches to improvement during the initial phase of SIG appeared to include only moderate or limited attention to the unique needs of ELLs; (2) District and school administrators perceived challenges related to teachers' expertise and skills in meeting the unique needs of ELLs; however, teachers' perceptions of their own capacity were more mixed. The capacity of the schools' district offices to support ELLs appeared to vary as well, with two small districts reporting no district-level staff with ELL training or experience and seven larger districts reporting district-level English-as-a-second-language (ESL) departments with multiple trained staff members; and (3) Schools that appeared to provide stronger attention to the unique needs of ELLs in their improvement process were more likely to report having school staff dedicated to ELL needs, such as ELL coordinators, ELL coaches, and ESL/bilingual teachers and tutors. Such schools also were more likely to be located in districts that reportedly provided expertise and an explicit focus on ELLs within the context of SIG. Appended are: (1) Data Collection and Analytic Methods; and (2) Analytic Approach for Assessing ELL Attention.

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 Chicago, over a quarter of students fail at least one semester of algebra in their ninth grade year, and only 13% of students who fail both semesters of Algebra I in ninth grade graduate in 4 years. Offering credit recovery options is one strategy to deal with high failure rates. The primary goal of credit recovery programs is to give students an opportunity to retake classes that they failed in an effort to get them back on track and keep them in school (Watson & Gemin, 2008). While it seems like a good idea, the pay-off may not actually be large for a number of reasons: few students who failed in the prior year may show up in the summer for credit recovery; few students may pass even if they do show up; and the gains of attending summer school for learning and for credit accumulation may be very small compared to students' initial deficits in skills or the number of total credits they eventually need to recover. This study examines the benefits of offering expanded credit recovery options for ninth grade algebra, relative to business as usual (i.e., the summer programming schools would offer in the absence of efforts to expand credit recovery). The study incorporates all regular neighborhood high schools in Chicago (76) and all first-time ninth grade students who entered these schools (about 4,000 students in each cohort) between fall 2009 and fall 2011 who failed second semester algebra (Algebra IB). Tables and figures are appended.

Expanded Learning Time (ELT) is seen as one promising approach for improving academic achievement, particularly in the nation's chronically low-performing schools. Since 1995, Citizen Schools (CS) has developed and supported the implementation of its own ELT model. The CS ELT model uses an additional shift of educators and community volunteers to engage middle school students in hands-on apprenticeships, while simultaneously providing individualized supports to ensure academic and future success. Theory suggests that as a result of ELT, students may become more engaged in school because of additional enrichment and learning opportunities, develop better communication skills due to more time with teachers and peers, and be less likely to engage in disruptive behavior because of less idle time. Ultimately, student achievement may improve as a result of additional learning time. The authors are conducting a five-year evaluation of the CS ELT model that includes an implementation and outcomes component to assess the operation and effects of ELT programming on middle school students. The implementation component of the study incorporates surveys, interviews, and site visits to assess how schools integrate ELT into their school days, organizationally and instructionally. This paper focuses specifically on how to characterize implementation systematically and in such a way as to explain variation in student achievement results.

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.

The community of East Lake, home to Charles R. Drew Charter School (Drew), is 6 miles from downtown Atlanta. In 1995, crime in East Lake was 19 times higher than the national average. Now, violent crime is down 95 percent. In 1995, 88 percent of residents were unemployed. Now, only 5 percent receive welfare. In 1995, just 5 percent of fifth graders at Charles R. Drew Elementary School met state standards in math. Now, more than 90 percent of all students at Drew meet or exceed state standards in all subject areas. Many urban school communities face similar academic crises to the one that existed in the East Lake Community of Atlanta in 1995: dismal academic results and generations of students leaving school ill-prepared for college or a career, perpetuating a cycle of poverty. This Abell Report describes how well-planned coordinated renovation of both the community and the school initiated the break in the cycle of poverty in East Lake and at the Charles R. Drew Charter School. The simultaneous transformation of East Lake's housing stock from low-income to mixed-income and the re-making of the school made Drew an attractive option for families living outside the neighborhood. In addition, re-opening the school as a charter brought about many advantages that have led to more flexibility in resources and the ability to create a mixed-income community. The option to become a charter is not always available to schools, and alone, may not lead to successful transformation. A cadre of administrators over the years at Drew has contributed to its success by strategically using internal funds for programming and curricular choices. Outside partners and funding wrap around and touch many of the curricular decisions and programs initiated at Drew, which has sustained its success. Without these strategic partners, the impact of these programs would not be as dramatic. The cycle of poverty has been broken in the East Lake Community, with Charles R. Drew Charter School as a foothold in the success story. This transformation has received national attention as a model of success and provides lessons for other urban communities searching for best practices to break that same cycle. Additionally, this edition of the Abell Report discusses the Elmer A. Henderson: A Johns Hopkins Partnership School, also known as Henderson-Hopkins. Henderson-Hopkins is the first new Baltimore public school building in East Baltimore in more than 20 years and serves as a cornerstone for the largest redevelopment project in Baltimore: East Baltimore Development, Inc. (EBDI). Like East Lake in Atlanta, this project seeks community transformation with a unique school as its centerpiece.

Over the last several years, public education in the U.S. has experienced a remarkable growth in the number of schools that have expanded their schedules beyond the conventional calendar of 180 6.5-hour days. Spurred by significant policy activity at the federal, state, and local levels, more and more educators have capitalized on opportunities to increase their school days and years to put in place a host of whole-school strategies that aim to improve educational quality and outcomes. In its latest count, National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) identified over 1,500 of these schools, about 900 of which are district (i.e., non-charter) schools. The educators implementing these reforms at schools serving more than half a million students--the vast majority of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds--believe that having more time in productive learning environments, offers the potential for a higher quality education and a stronger future. Today, the many district schools that have undergone a conversion to expanded school time (or that were established with a longer day and/or year) offer the field of education a valuable supply of information about how such expansion can be implemented despite inevitable challenges around financing, programming, and staffing. Indeed, educators and policymakers seeking to generate school improvement through expanded time would do well to learn from those who have engaged in such efforts before them. They also would benefit from understanding the wide variety of ways in which district schools have implemented, paid for, and structured expanded school time, if only to appreciate that there is no single model or set of models that defines the field. This finance study is produced by NCTL, in partnership with the educational consulting group Cross & Joftus. Taking a careful look at five different models of expanded-time district schools, this study unpacks the realities of implementing more school time--the funding sources, challenges, and opportunities--from financial and educational perspectives. The authors examine both these aspects because they are inextricably linked, and one cannot understand financing without describing the programming and staffing that the dollars pay for. Their hope is that these brief case studies, together with the analysis of common themes and key findings, will offer several cost models and provide some preliminary answers to the question of how schools and districts pay for expanded learning time. The five case studies include: (1) Griffith Elementary School (Balsz, Arizona); (2) Dr. Orlando Edreira Academy (Elizabeth, New Jersey); (3) McGlone Elementary School (Denver, Colorado); (4) Elmhurst Community Prep (Oakland, California); and (5) Orchard Gardens K-8 Pilot School (Boston, Massachusetts).

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.

The Center for American Progress previously examined the extent to which states applying for first-round Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) flexibility waivers in 2012 planned to expand in-school learning time to turn around low-performing schools. This report provides an up-to-date review of states' ESEA flexibility plans and assesses the extent, if any, to which states have strategically thought about how expanded learning time can support school turnaround efforts. In doing so, reviewers examined the "Principle 2: State-Developed Differentiated Recognition, Accountability, and Support" section of all state plans for submission windows one through three. Specifically, the analysis focused on the extent to which each state plan outlined its intent to either use more time as part of its strategy to turn around its lowest-performing schools, or redesign the school day to reach student-achievement goals. Among states that requested flexible use of 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) funds, reviewers looked for details about its planned use. State plans were grouped in part based on the level of detail provided in three research-based building blocks for the effective use of increased learning time for core academics, enrichment opportunities, and teacher collaboration. States that provided the most detailed information were considered "standouts." Only four state plans met these criteria: Connecticut, Colorado, New York, and Massachusetts. Six out of 42 states demonstrated a commitment to increased learning time but did not provide enough detail. The majority of states--32 out of 42--did not think strategically about how increased learning time could complement school turnaround plans and increase academic achievement. As a result of the analysis, the following recommendations are included: (1) States develop guidelines promoting high-quality expanded learning time; (2) States develop a guide for school districts and principals that want to implement expanded learning time; (3) States encourage schools that choose to expand learning time to add 300 additional hours to the standard school-year schedule, allowing more time for the three key areas: academics, enrichment programming, and teacher collaboration; (4) States outline how they will use their 21st CCLC funding to increase learning time; (5) Districts and schools implement additional time strategically through an intentional, one-year planning period if possible; (6) Districts and schools use data analyses to strategically implement more time; and (7) Districts monitor schedule redesign.

Increasing the number of hours students spend in school each year, on the assumption that this will improve student achievement, has become a widespread trend. However, the analysis reported here suggests that this trend can be misguided: the time students spend in the classroom is not always positively related to their academic achievement. Instead, it is effective teaching time that is most likely to have a positive impact on student achievement. As such, policies influencing how time at school is allocated can be a good way to improve educational outcomes. Included in this policy brief are answers to the questions: (1) Is increasing the amount of time children spend in the classroom an effective way of improving their academic achievement? and (2) In regard to other factors that might help improve student achievement, does the amount of effective teaching time (i.e., time devoted to purely teaching-related tasks) have a positive effect on student achievement?

This Special Report is a summary of the author's original paper, "It's About Time: Extending Learning to Narrow the Achievement Gap." The family income of students is a consistent predictor of academic achievement across the United States, where an achievement gap between the most and least affluent students has long persisted and shows no sign of narrowing. The current body of research is insufficient to draw conclusions about whether extending learning time is effective in closing the academic achievement gap between lower-income and more affluent students. Studies, however, do find that strategies ranging from extended school years to summer learning opportunities show promise as a means for improving the academic achievement of the lower-income students exposed to them. Although program design varies widely between and within the types of extended learning programs, recent research identifies several characteristics of those that have been shown to be effective. This report discusses these characteristics, the effectiveness of the programs, student implications, how allocated time relates to academic improvement, and other issues related to extended learning programs. [This report was featured as the Special Report in the March 2013 issue of the Office of Child Development's newsletter "Developments."]

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 Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy (CYAAA), which began operation as part of the government schooling system in 2010, incorporates activities across three overlapping "domains": Class--the formal schooling component; Culture--Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural knowledge; and Club--sporting, cultural, music and physical education activities. The Academy operates over an extended school day and makes use of the controversial instructional strategy known as Direct Instruction. A framework for rigorously evaluating the Academy trial has been developed but the evaluation has not been completed. This paper draws on the following sources: (1) Data provided by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the Academy, Cape York Partnerships (CYP) and the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment (DETE); (2) Literature reviews relating to Direct Instruction and Indigenous school reform; (3) Personal observations at the Academy in 2010 and 2011; and (4) Meetings/interviews/discussions with staff at the Academy, DETE and CYP. The available evidence indicates that literacy, numeracy, behaviour and attendance results are mixed. Debate about the degree to which the Academy provides a model for Indigenous schooling reform will be ongoing. (Contains 14 figures, 1 table, and 4 footnotes.)

Since 2000, Maryland has provided state supplemental funds to Head Start and Early Head Start (EHS) programs to improve access. Local EHS programs may use funds, through child care partnerships, to extend the EHS day or year. Maryland's approach to building on EHS includes: (1) Increase the capacity of existing Head Start and EHS programs to expand services for the extended day/year; (2) Develop partnerships between EHS and community-based child care providers to provide EHS services to additional children in child care settings;and (3) Extend the day or year of existing EHS services. (Additional information is provided.)

Research has long suggested that significantly increasing quality time in school for teaching and learning can have a positive impact on student achievement. Recognizing this connection, federal guidance requires low-performing schools to increase student learning time if they are implementing two popular reform models using school improvement grant (SIG) funds appropriated by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA). This special report by the Center on Education Policy (CEP) highlights findings about this increased learning time requirement from two recent CEP studies of SIG implementation in school year 2010-11 and the fall and winter of 2011-12. The first study was based on a CEP survey of state education officials in 46 responding states, including the District of Columbia. The second consisted of in-depth case studies of state and local SIG implementation in Maryland, Michigan, and Idaho. Key findings include the following: (1) All 46 states responding to CEP's survey reported that at least some of their SIG-funded schools are implementing one of two federal school improvement models that require increased learning time; (2) Officials in a majority of the states surveyed said the strategy of increasing learning time is, to a great extent or some extent, a key element in improving achievement in SIG-funded schools; (3) All three case study states have ensured that schools using the transformation or turnaround models are increasing learning time, but the degree of state focus on this strategy varies; and (4) All SIG-funded case study schools that are using the transformation or turnaround models have increased students' learning time, as have some non-funded schools, but implementation and emphasis varied. (Contains 1 table and 1 box.) [For related reports, see "Schools with Federal Improvement Grants Face Challenges in Replacing Principals and Teachers" (ED533563) and "Changing the School Climate Is the First Step to Reform in Many Schools with Federal Improvement Grants" (ED533561).]

The Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative was launched in 2005, and it provides grants to selected schools across multiple districts to increase instructional time by at least 300 hours per academic year. Participating schools receive an additional $1,300 per student to lengthen the day and/or year. Schools are expected to use the additional time to provide more instructional opportunities in core academic subjects, integrate additional enrichment opportunities into student learning, and to increase opportunities for educators to plan for instruction and participate in professional development. ELT schools are also encouraged to provide students with dedicated academic support time as part of the school schedule. Such targeted support is intended to fill gaps in students' knowledge and skill sets by providing them with individualized academic attention. The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE), with support through a research grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education, commissioned a multi-year quasi-experimental study of its Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative. The purpose of the study was to examine implementation of the ELT initiative, compare academic and non-academic outcomes, and assess the relationship between implementation of core elements of the ELT initiative and outcomes. The study found that implementation of the core ELT components varied considerably across schools. The schools considered for the case study were characterized as having high-level ELT implementation, and were also selected with assistance from ESE and other stakeholders. The three ELT schools included are the A.C. Whelan Elementary School in Revere, Frank M. Silvia (formerly known as North End) Elementary School in Fall River, and Clarence R. Edwards Middle School in Charlestown. This report has two major sections. The first section includes descriptions of key themes within each of the three schools, and it also presents illustrative examples of student and teacher activities from classroom observations in text boxes alongside the descriptions. The second section presents a discussion of cross-school findings and conclusions. The following are appended: (1) Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) Implementation Index, 2009-10; (2) Case Study Data Codebook; (3) ELT Student Scan for Engagement (ESSE); (4) Administrator and Teacher Interview Protocol; and (5) Student Focus Group Protocol. [This document was written with assistance from: Rodolfo de la Cruz, Eric Friedman, Kristina Kliorys, Rachel McCormick, and Missy Robinson.]

California's approximately 500 continuation high schools are estimated to serve more than 115,000 California high school students each year--a number that approaches almost 10 percent of all high school students and as many as one of every seven high school seniors. Continuation schools are, however, more racially and ethnically concentrated than the state's traditional comprehensive high schools. Hispanic students comprise 55 percent of all students in continuation schools, and although African American enrollments in continuation schools approximate those of comprehensive schools statewide, they tend to be overrepresented in many districts. California law contemplates more intensive services and accelerated credit accrual strategies so that students who are vulnerable to dropping out of school might have a renewed opportunity to graduate from high school with a regular diploma. Based on a statewide study of these schools, however, the authors conclude that, as a whole, they are failing to provide the academic and critical support services that students need to succeed. This report comes at a watershed moment for American public education. At the federal level, policymakers are poised to reshape the federal school accountability system to promote universal college and career readiness through a new common core curricula and a renewed focus on the lowest performing schools. Likewise, here in California, legislators are considering sweeping changes to a broken school finance system and seek to recalibrate the school accountability system so that it creates stronger incentives for data-driven improvement across all schools. As well, the state legislature is considering almost 10 bills to address school discipline policies and practices that have tended to push low-income and minority students out of comprehensive schools and away from college and career-ready pathways. This ferment in public education presents both promise and peril for the alternative schools that are the subject of this report. The peril is that these schools and programs may remain an afterthought in the emerging curricular and accountability reforms. If so, this report offers a bleak prologue of what the vast majority of these schools will continue to offer those youth who find themselves falling behind but struggling to stay engaged in pursuit of a high school diploma. The promise, however, is that this moment presents a window of opportunity to fully incorporate continuation high schools, intended as second-chance pathways to the diploma, into the thinking, planning, and articulation of new accountability reforms and innovation. To this end, this report explores the role that the state, local districts and school leaders play in affecting school quality and student outcomes in continuation schools. Also examined are the roles of community nonprofit, and county or municipal social services, law enforcement, or juvenile justice agencies that come to play important roles in the lives of adolescents in these alternative schools. The authors' focus is on systemic issues (including relationships within schools and among districts and county authorities) and policy determinants of effective instruction (that is, how work and time are conceived and organized in schools). In earlier reports, their objective was to describe the schools and the challenges they face. In this report, they focus on schools that are performing well under state and federal accountability systems and reflect on what these schools can tell about promising policy and practice interventions. They tread cautiously here because for most students who are not on track to graduate due to poor grades or insufficient credits, alternative schools remain simply early exit ramps from school. But they have seen enough successful schools and students to report with confidence that despite disappointing overall results, continuation high schools can provide important opportunities and resources for a vulnerable population of youth. The "beating the odds" schools they examined also provide valuable lessons for policymakers and practitioners statewide. (Contains 34 footnotes.) [This paper was written with the assistance of Susan Bush, Martha Cortes, Hoorig Santikian, and Susan Tu. For "Raising the Bar, Building Capacity: Driving Improvement in California's Continuation High Schools. Executive Summary," see ED537703.]

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.)

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.]