Monthly Archives: December 2007

When an editorial starts with, “It should be obvious…” you would expect that the conclusion drawn thereafter would be exactly that.  Not in the case of The Newburyport Current editorial ( “More time, better scores” ) put forth on December 6th.

The editor’s contention is that putting students and teachers in classrooms longer will “obviously” produce better results.  Says who?

The editor relies on the statistical findings of an organization called Massachusetts 2020 to prove the point.  Would it help to know that Massachusetts 2020 is heavily committed to the idea of adding days and hours to the school experience?  They’re about as reliable a source regarding extra hours/days in the classroom as Planned Parenthood is on whether abortion is a good idea.

The Massachusetts Department of Education apparently will release their findings regarding extended school time next month.  They could well come to the same conclusion as Massachusetts 2020 but at least they wouldn’t have an agenda going into the research.

The only certainty in extending school time is that it will cost more.  Of course with the Chairman of the US Senate Education Committee (our own Ted Kennedy) leading the way, asking for more money comes easy.  He wants $50 million a year, which will increase to $150 million a year by 2012, to train teachers to help schools redesign academic content for extended time.  What a waste!  Don’t these people ever get tired of throwing our money at problems? 

Those advocating the extended day seem to assume that the teachers and students are performing efficiently during the regular school day we now have.  If we just add time they’ll do even better.  We can’t make that assumption.

I believe that school system leaders know exactly why their schools perform poorly on state tests.  They will not tell you specifically but I will attempt it.

First, some students are not too bright and no matter how long the school’s best teacher spends with them they will not shine on a state test.  A student could well be pleasant, hard working, and a genuine nice kid but it will not matter.  In the real world, the underachiever is called out but not in schools. They hide them by releasing group results. The extended-hours folks think that more time in school will make academically challenged students do better.  Very unlikely.

Second, there are teachers who don’t know how to teach.  If students at a certain grade level do poorly on a section of the state test it is easy for a school system to figure out what teacher was supposed to teach that skill or material.  I’m guessing that a high-quality administrator could sort this out and insist that the teacher improve.  The extended-hours folks think that students will somehow benefit by spending more time with an underachieving teacher.  Very unlikely.

Do you get the sense that schools spend most of their time trying to help underachieving students do better?  That’s because they do.   But what about the rest of the students?

I think that US schools should try to compete with the schools in the rest of the world.  What holds the US back is that in many schools classes are mixed with achievers and underachievers.  The schools’ top students are hurt by this arrangement. 

What would happen if only the best students and teachers were given a longer school day?  You combine the ability to learn with the ability to teach and all kinds of good things could happen.  No need to redesign anything.  Just put your two strongest elements together. 

I am very much in favor of extended school time for the top achieving students and teachers.  Extending school for everyone else will never be worth the effort and money involved.

(Appeared in the Newburyport Current on December 21, 2007)