Colorado gets $1 million to study lengthening school days
Nine schools in four metro-area Colorado school districts will lengthen school days to 6 p.m. and be put under a microscope to see how effective longer days are to student success, thanks to a million-dollar grant from a nonprofit education organization.
The $1 million Colorado received from the nonprofit National Center on Time and Learning Monday will go to studying how well the longer school day works and implementing the extra time at the nine schools in Adams County, Boulder Valley, Denver Public Schools and Jefferson County to boosting student achievement.
The longer days will start in these districts in the 2013-2014 school year. The extra time could now include an hour of exercise, an hour of art or additional study time.
There are already 54 schools in Colorado with longer school days, but, with the exception of a few charter schools, the programs are new and still in formative stages.
Because union contracts already dictate an 8-hour work day in Colorado, Gov. John Hickenlooper said elongating the day is a matter of shifting and layering teacher schedules.
“The common theme you hear again and again is you need more time with the kids, whether it’s an rural school district, whether it’s an urban school district, whether it’s out in an affluent suburb,” Hickenlooper said in a speech here Monday. “The kids, especially the kids coming from difficult neighborhoods, broken families, single parents, that extra time with their teachers … means all the world.”
Also important to researchers, boosting teacher achievement.
“Teachers are so buried,” said Helayne Jones, executive director at the Colorado Legacy Foundation, which is helping administer the program. “We’re hoping this gives them some space to … work together.”
The traditional school day — along with taking summers off — is a by-product of a century-old agrarian culture in which children needed to help their families harvest.
That schedule is obviously not the model anymore for most communities.
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy joked Monday, “if we do all this who is going to bring the crops in?”
Connecticut is also a recipient of money.
Hickenlooper said it makes no sense for every teacher to start at the same time every day and then scoot kids out of the building early in the afternoon — especially those kids who don’t have parents getting home from work for several hours.
“I’m not sure who, except the students, would fight against requiring that they’re structured until 5 p.m.,” said Hickenlooper. “This is going to enhance what we already have and to enhace where it’s needed. What we’re trying to do is enhance flexibility.”
The school slated for the longer day are:
Adams 50
• STEM 3-8 Magnet School (opening in SY2013-14)
Boulder County
• Angevine Middle School
• Centaurus High School
• Pioneer Elementary School
• Sanchez Elementary School
Denver
• Godsman Elementary School – Innovation School
• Kepner Middle School
Jefferson County
• Pennington Elementary School
• North Arvada Middle School
Allison Sherry
6pm? That’s a joke right?
This is an incredible waste of your tax money.
Let’s call this what it is: $1 million dollar study to find that kids who have crappy parents learn better when they have more time with good role models.
The longer days will drive the responsible parents away from the participating schools, and the teachers will be left to raise the kids who are left.
I can just hear the groans now — and I don’t blame them!! What about family time for those families who still do value family time?! If this half-arsed idea actually goes through, the kids wouldn’t be home until about 6:30, and so after they have dinner, that would leave only about two hours for homework, interaction with friends and/or family, maybe some TV or hobby time, and a bath or shower — only to repeat the next day! (Assuming, of course, that the kids get to bed in time for a good night’s sleep.) And what about extracurricular activities such as sports or music lessons? Yes, I realize that many kids are not exposed to such things, but should the kids who DO have such activities be forced to do without them?
BAD IDEA — BAD, BAD, BAD IDEA!! (However, I think keeping the kids in until 4:00 or until they finish their “home”work MIGHT be a good idea for some!!
I’m a big fan of maximizing efficiency of time as opposed to spending more time on an inefficient system, if the system in question is indeed inefficient. But I congratulate the people who get to spend the free $1 million.
What family time? This is dinner time for those students whose parents can’t or don’t care about feeding them. This is the governments answer in seeing that students have the opportunity to eat something. Nothing more than daycare evolving to evening care. Next step will be over night dormitories. Think of the money saved for bussing.
I am stunned. Personally I could not support my 6 year old grandson being in school from 8 a.m. in the morning until 6 p.m. at night. But of course–he comes from a good family that actually helps him with his homework every night–and encourages him to learn and be a good student.
Is this just an attempt for our schools to take over the responsibilities of parents?
And exactly what does “layering” teachers mean. Does it mean we will cut back on full-time teachers–so we can hire more teachers so they can be layered during this additional time period.
In effect it’s adding 300 more hours per year for these students. Are they going to feed them dinner too? Needless to say–I doubt there’s going to be too many happy parents or students over this decision.
Homework? Extra curriculars? More teachers and useless admins, so they can work in shifts. Don’t bother me with that question, ask your A.M. teacher!
6pm. Much study wearies the body.
Oh man, com’on, Washington is going to give 1 million dollars to “STUDY” longer school days???? What are they thinking, If they have a million to throw away for something like that, why not buy books, computers, and gym equipment for Colorado schools! This is just another stupid idea from Washington. You mean to tell me it would cost MONEY to figure that out?
We are providing money to the same people that can not run a school and hope that after studying this option that they will suddenly succeed at what they have not been able to do before? Get real. A better solution would be to teach more days at a slower pace. An even better option might be to use Khan Academy and reduce the number of teachers to the competent ones and have more days of instruction in the actual school year.
I have better idea. Use the money to bring in people from Shanghai, China, Souel, South Korea, Toyko, Japan, and Canada to evaluate what the current duds are doing wrong.
So the teachers can only teach 8 hours because the unions look out for them working too many hours but the students have to go to school for 9 or 10 hours but have no one looking out for them? It’s not work it’s school, childhood is supposed to be enjoyed but instead some insane rule makers want to suck the joy out of every waking minute for children, pretty sadistic!
Also, what lower income children, single parent families and families in general need is more time together!!! Why do you think this country is going down the drain, it’s because there is no link to community and family bonds are being broken and they are being broken by schools directly. Children need family not more time sitting in sick classrooms unable to express themselves or play, they need time in nature outside! I have never heard of such a thing, it’s just plain cruelty and probably very much against the rights of children.
And for the joker who is deciding this, do they not realize that children who sit down to dinner at least 5 nights a week with their family and this does not matter if it is a single parent family, poor family or filthy rich family- that the children benefit greatly, are way less likely to use drugs, be sexually active or engage in crime. Hello, is anyone out there? We need to take back control of our families!!!
Absolutely horrible idea. More does not equal better. I hope that the districts offering this are willing to allow families to opt out and provide them space and transportation to another school. No way would I keep my child in a school that went until 6pm especially if they were on grade level. I can maybe see offering after school programs for remedial or second language learners with the goal of getting them up to grade level and then graduating them from the program but this idea is nuts.
It’s interesting – or perhaps disheartening – to see all the armchair griping, without a single fact or real-world example cited.
The whole point of this is not just to “research”, or merely to speculate or to theorize, but to try the idea out in some schools where it seems like it might make the most difference, and monitor performance carefully to see what the results actually are – a very business-like approach, really.
As I usually do, I looked to the research, and it appears that in this case it is complex and somewhat contradictory. Anyone who wants to actually be informed on the subject, might want to read the following:
Time in school: How does the U.S. compare?
- http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org … US-compare
The thing that occurs to me, is that the US seems to struggle with educational performance, because our results are dragged down by a minority of schools and students that are high-poverty and low performing, a factor we struggle with much more than any of our peer nations – Finland, for instance, has a child poverty rate just above 2%, while ours is above 20%. The complex answer may be, that struggling kids need more instructional time such as longer school days, but that’s not necessarily something that needs to be applied across the board to our many schools that are doing quite well:
Schools in the United States with less than a 10% poverty rate had a PISA score of 551. When compared to the ten countries with similar poverty numbers, that score ranked first.
- http://nasspblogs.org/principaldifferen … pid_1.html
Overall, in raw scores, the US still ranks about in the middle of the pack on the international-standard PISA test – just ahead of even Germany, surprisingly.
Hickenlooper said it makes no sense for every teacher to start at the same time every day and then scoot kids out of the building early in the afternoon ??? especially those kids who don’t have parents getting home from work for several hours.
“I’m not sure who, except the students, would fight against requiring that they’re structured until 5 p.m.,” said Hickenlooper.
Actually Mr. Hickenlooper, many parents would be against it as well. It sounds like a glorified version of daycare paid for by taxpayers, to be honest. For one, a lot of school children already have enough homework to keep them busy most school nights, and if they’re getting home late, there’s not much time for homework before going to bed. How’s that going to work out? Two, many households have dinner at about 6 pm, so what then, push it off until later and then the kids don’t have any time to burn off calories, further exacerbating the obesity problem with younger people? Oh, and Mr. Hickenlooper, you state 5 pm but it’s actually 6 pm, according to the article. So which one is it?
Could it be the answer is for more parents to actually get involved in their children’s education??
These kids are getting a raw deal.
Now they’re the guinea pigs.
As for the teachers unions, the article says that they can’t work for more than 8 hours, so they would be “staggered.” So, the teachers can’t be there that long but the kids can? One of the points in the article is that teachers shouldn’t send kids home when their parents aren’t off work yet. 1. The State does not need to raise my kids, I do. and 2. How do they know what time each and every parent gets off? I personally end my field work early so that I can get my kids earlier in the afternoon, and then type my reports at night. The government wants to take that time away from us parents?
My experience as a parent and volunteer in DPS, is that there are a lot of kids, particularly the really struggling ones, whose parents aren’t capable of that for various reasons – working too much, not speaking English or not even being educated themselves -or in quite a few cases, being absent more or less entirely. Those are the kids who need help from schools the most, both to realize their potential, and also so that society doesn’t end up with a large permanent underclass. And, traditionally, if your read many American success stories, our schools have succeeded at much of that, encouraging and inspiring kids who in other countries would be written off because of their backgrounds and struggles.
Kipp, a national charter school program that is also in Denver, has tried to get parents involved, with very intensive efforts made in some some experiments in New York City, from what I’ve read, and has had mixed results at best – it’s been no panacea, even when incentives, and what some parents claim borders on coersion, are applied.
If they need more days, how about cutting the number of teacher prep days, teacher conferences days, and teacher what-ever-the-heck-they-are-doing days. The school years isn’t half over and the kids have already been out of class for a dozen full or half days. Heaven forbid they do this before the school year.
6:00 pm? Free lunch program made room for free breakfast programs will now be paying for a free dinner program. How nice for the parents who think school is nothing more than day-care. My kids would be switching schools before they go until 6:00 pm. They are doing just fine current schedule.
School failing? Blame the calender, blame the kids, blame money – blame everyone except the people who should be blamed, parents and the Teacher’s Unions.
The state of Colorado says that children are receiving only 5 hours of instruction in school each day and that’s the requirement applied to homeschoolers – 5 hours per day, 20 hours per week. Why then should public school children have to stay in school for 10 hours a day to gain only 5 hours of instruction?
I’m appalled to see that the state will limit the amount of time teachers will be working each day, 8 hours, and yet the children will be spending 10, or more, hours at school?
Think about it, how do adults feel after working a 10 hour day, a 50 hour work week? Gosh I pulled 50-60 hour work weeks for a few months at a job and quickly became burned out and seriously jeopardized my health.
If a school day is 10 hours and a typical practice for a sport or for band or drama can be about 2 hours – if a school is lucky enough to have these programs – then where’s the opportunity for family time? That’s 12 hour day right there.
Will homework still be a part of this extended day school curriculum? When will that get done?
I’ll state right now that a 50 hour plus school week will have negative impacts on children. That’s my official and final answer. Send that $1 million to me and I’ll donate it to schools for useful things like books, art classes, field trips, longer recess and lunches, instruments for music class, healthy breakfast and lunches for kids.