September 2011 Archives

Eight strategies set apart high-performing expanded learning time schools from their peers, says a new report from the National Center on Time & Learning.

"Time Well Spent: Eight Powerful Practices of Successful, Expanded-Time Schools," will be officially released at a Center for American Progress event Friday in Washington, with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as the keynote speaker. John King, New York commissioner of education, and NCTL staff including President Jennifer Davis, will discuss their thoughts on the increasing need for schools to lengthen their calendars to help close the achievement gap for low-performing students.

The NCTL's new report profiles 30 expanded learning time schools across the country in 11 states and large cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, and Philadelphia that serve large percentages of low-income kids. All the schools examined in the report have used various expanded-time models and seen improvements in students, staff, and the schools overall. These schools, some of which are charters, shared similar characteristics in how they used the increased time, summarized in eight practices:

1. Making every minute count or maximizing added time;
2. Prioritizing increased hours that are tailored to the school and their students;
3. Individualizing the added time for each student based on diverse needs;
4. Building a positive school culture of high expectations and mutual accountability;
5. Providing new experiences for students that make their education more well-rounded;
6. Preparing students for the future by encouraging college readiness and career goals;
7. Strengthening instruction by providing increased time for teacher professional development; and
8. Evaluating how well goals are met by assessing and analyzing data.

Seven of the schools highlighted are in Massachusetts, which is the only state to date to set up a funding stream for expanded learning time schools. In 2005, the Massachusetts education department, with the support of Mass 2020, implemented an expanded learning time initiative that to date supports 19 schools. These efforts were formative in the establishment of NCTL itself.

But today, according to the report, an increasing number of schools around the country are in the process of expanding their school days and years, and some have used federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) funding as a means to do so. Additionally, there are efforts under way to use federal funding to enable more states and districts to shift to longer school calendars.

NCTL estimates there are currently 1,000 expanded learning time schools nationwide, but not all of them have seen the same results that the schools profiled in the report have, it says.

"Clearly, more time in school does not guarantee improved learning outcomes for every individual child or even for students in the aggregate. As with any initiative or change effort, the quality of the implementation matters," the report says.

"More time is not the only reform needed for struggling schools; expanded time acts as a catalyst, or accelerator, to a series of other reforms as well. Indeed, it is the interaction of more time with other sound practices that leads to meaningful impact."

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"When and where does it make sense to institute a longer school day, and how should it be designed?" asks a New York Times opinion poll of some leading movers and shakers in education, published today.

According to Geoffrey Canada, president and chief executive officer of the Harlem Children's Zone, an expanded learning model would benefit working parents and single-family households, as well as ensure that subjects that often get shortchanged (arts, social studies) are given adequate time, too.

Paul Reville, Massachusetts secretary of education, also voices his support for expanded learning time but says the time needs to be targeted to the neediest students, those from low-income backgrounds and who have special needs, and it needs to be well-structured.

"Educators must use additional time to implement research-based curriculum and instructional strategies to provide students with stimulating enrichment activities, and to give teachers common planning time and high quality professional development," Reville says.

But others disagree.

"I have found no compelling research that supports the proposition that a longer school day improves educational outcomes," writes Vicki Abeles, director and producer of the documentary "Race to Nowhere: The Dark Side of America's Achievement Culture." "The real issue is the quality of the education we're providing, not the amount of hours spent in a classroom."

Yet others support more time, but used and structured in specific ways.
Annie Murphy Paul, author of the book Origins, says the time should be used for arts education, more sleep, and exercise/recess. Mary A. Carskadon, a Brown University professor of psychiatry and human behavior echoes Paul's thoughts about the necessity of sufficient hours of sleep for children, particularly middle and high school students.

A Fairfax County, Va. teacher, Vern Williams, said teachers need more time to teach core academics, not use the time for "glorified recess or unstructured study halls." He says there are still questions that need to be answered

"Would a longer school day reduce the amount of extra teaching duties, which seem to expand each year that I teach? Will it reduce the homework load for students since they will be spending more time in school? Will teachers be adequately compensated?" Williams asks.

Kathleen Porter-Magee, senior director of the High Quality Standards Project at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, also questions if all expanded time models are equal. Porter-Magee asks if expanded learning days within school walls should really be mandated for all students, and instead, if some students could opt to do internships or hands-on volunteer work they view to be beneficial.

"In the end, extending the school day is the easy part," Porter-Magee writes. "Ensuring that the time spent in class is focused and that the extra time adds real value will require much harder choices than simply dismissing students later in the day."

For background on the rising interest in expanded learning time, check out my archived webinar from August.

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Having a shared vision and accountability, local buy-in, and strong partnerships are essential to scaling up a community schools model, reports an interactive online guide from the Coalition for Community Schools, released today.

The guide is an effort by the coalition, an alliance of national, state, and local organizations that advocates the building of community schools around the country, to help interested schools and organizations support a shift to community schools.

Simply put, community schools are those that use a system of partnerships and community resources to enhance the school experience for their students though providing supports like after-school programs, mentorship opportunities, parent education classes, health services, and preschool programs. Single schools can be community schools or entire school districts can be community school districts.

As I posted in the spring, Cincinnati's 5th quarter program is one example of a community school effort: Local organizations in the city have enabled the district to provide an extra month of school for underserved students. In that month, students not only receive additional instruction, but are also able to engage in hands-on learning activities, many of which are provided through community supports.

The new guide from the coalition, "Scaling Up School and Community Partnerships," walks through the process of how to implement this model, specifically how to scale-up a community school to a community district following a framework and facilitating connections with local resources.

"A community schools strategy is based on a culture that builds collective trust and promotes a set of core principles, including high expectations for schools and students, reliance on family and community strengths, and the development of the whole child as critical factors for student success," the guide says. "A set of structural elements, including partnerships, alignment of funding streams with the natural assets of communities, and the integration of academic learning with essential supports and opportunities, helps diverse communities craft their own vehicle for change."

According to the coalition, more and more schools and districts are looking for ways to supplement their existing school programs, especially when budgets are tight, and turning to the community school model as a solution. Just this summer, the coalition announced the Oakland Unified School District in California decided to become a community district and the community school model was recently profiled in the U.S. Department of Education's "Handbook for Family and Community Engagement" as a strategy for turning around low-performing schools.

In addition to the walk-through, the guide profiles some case studies of effective scaled-up community schools programs around the country, such as those in Chicago; Kansas City, Mo.; Portland, Ore.; and Tulsa, Okla.

"Schools just do not have the resources to address all of the forces in student's lives that impact learning; nor can they open up the real world to students that is available in our communities," said Marty Blank, director of the coalition and president of the Institute for Educational Leadership.

"If our nation is to educate our increasingly diverse student population, our schools and communities must work together. Community schools are showing how to do this at scale in more and more places. This guide shows others how to do the same," he added.

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Recently proposed legislation that would streamline the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, along with 58 others, into federal funding block grants has some after-school advocates biting their nails.

The Senate bill, called the "Empowering Local Educational Decision Making Act," sponsored by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), would combine funding from 59 existing funding streams into two pots: the Fund for Improvement of Teaching and Learning and the Safe and Healthy Students Block Grant. States and districts would then have flexibility to use the money at their discretion to support initiatives under the two corresponding umbrella categories: improving teacher, principal, and classroom quality and improving student wellness, health, and safety.

Many after-school and extended-learning advocates are worried the consolidation would pull substantial funding that supports after-school programs to others. The 21st CCLC program currently funds 8,900 centers that serve roughly 1.5 million students at about $1.1 billion annually.

The $1.1 billion allocation would be roughly 75 percent of the total funding for the new block grant (predicted to be $1.4 billion), according to one estimate. This is of concern, given that the block grant would also have to be used to support a number of other programs that were once funded with as many as 24 different funding streams, said one source.

But, according to the bill's authors, the new legislation would provide more freedom for states and districts to determine the best needs of their communities, including funding new and existing after-school programs.

"States and local school districts have lost flexible federal funding sources that allow them and not the latest fad to determine how best to allocate federal funding resources to meet the unique and specific needs of their individual students in their states and districts," a brief released by the senators who drafted the bill says.

This bill is one of many Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization bills. As you may remember, last month I wrote an article about some of this legislation that impacts 21st CCLC and has caused debate in the OST realm.

According to the Collaborative for Building After-School Systems, a coalition of 10 leaders from some of the largest out-of-school-time organizations in the country, the new bill couldn't have come at a worse time, as many in the field are trying to work out the kinks and come to a consensus on the recent proposals referenced in my article.

CBASS members Jennifer Peck, executive director of the Partnership for Children and Youth, and Lucy Friedman, president of The After-School Corporation (TASC), are expected to file a column tomorrow in the Huffington Post that expand on some of the group's points.

Update: Link to Huffington Post piece here.

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The best STEM-focused after-school programs increase students' enrollment and interest in the subjects and their pursuit of careers in science, technology, engineering, and math later, according to a new report from the Afterschool Alliance, to released Monday.

The Afterschool Alliance will present the report, "STEM Learning in After-School: An Analysis of Impact and Outcomes," at a congressional briefing on Monday at 2:00 p.m. Several speakers will focus on promoting STEM learning for girls, corporate interest in STEM after-school programs, and how to improve students' knowledge base of STEM subjects through after-school programs.

The brief draws conclusions about what makes a high-quality STEM after-school program based on evaluations of programs around the country. The authors stress the importance of improving STEM curricula in after-school programs, as many of the programs provide underserved populations with access to experiences they might not typically have. Given the low percentages of women and minorities in STEM careers, these after-school experiences could heighten awareness and improve these students' attitudes towards STEM subjects, the report suggests.

The highest quality programs have the potential to shift attitudes about STEM-related careers, increase test scores and knowledge of STEM subjects, and improve the likelihood of high school graduation and college readiness.

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Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is heading to Chicago today to talk to the country's third largest district about its plans to lengthen the day/school year, which he supports. Duncan, who served as the city's school chief for seven years, said he was excited about the plans to extend the calendar and wished he had been able to do so when he led the Chicago district, according to a Chicago Tribune article out today.

"We were unsuccessful (in pushing for a longer school day), and it was one of my big regrets," the Tribune reports Duncan stating. He also called Chicago's short days a "disgrace."

The new proposals would lengthen the school calendar by 90 minutes per day and two weeks to the year at all schools by 2012-13. In the past week, the district has come under fire from the local teachers' union for offering incentives to elementary schools that shifted to a longer schedule this year.

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Friction continues as the Chicago public schools, the nation's third largest district, moves toward lengthening the school calendar.To date, Chicago school days are some of the shortest in the country.

At the end of August, the district announced it would move to a longer year in all schools by 2012-13; the plan would add 90 minutes of time to the school day and two weeks to the year. But just last week, district officials announced a plan that would provide incentives to schools that lengthened their calendars earlier, much to the chagrin of the local teachers' union.

To implement the plan early, the majority of teachers at a school have to approve a waiver for the longer school days. On Friday, three schools agreed to the incentive package, which would provide an additional $150,000 in funds for the school itself and a $1,250 in bonus, equivalent to roughly 2 percent of an average salary.

The district said this week that it hopes more schools will accept the offer. If schools implement the extended plans this month, they receive the same package; if they implement the plan in January, it is reduced by about half. The incentives could cost the district $72 million if schools agree early.

But the incentive plan has raised a ruckus with the Chicago Teachers Union, which has apparently called the district's efforts to get teacher and principal buy-in "emotional blackmail" and coercion. Union officials say the district's incentive package is a way of circumventing the collective bargaining rights of teachers, according to the Chicago-Tribune.

Also on the extended learning front, the Houston school district has announced plans to implement some charter school techniques in its troubled city schools, including longer school days.

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Check out my story today on the debate over how funding from the 21st Century Community Learning Center federal grant program should be allocated.

Recent legislation has been proposed in Congress that could affect 21st CCLC's eligibility and accountability requirements, and divisions have emerged over whether it's wise to widen the scope of 21st CCLC funding to allow expanded learning time models—which add time to the school year, week, or day—to apply for these grants. Some worry that by including ELT programs, the out-of-school-time programs that have traditionally received funding could see significant cutbacks in the grant amounts or number of grantees that receive money.

Others have seen the debate as an opportunity to discuss the future of programs and school models that focus on using extra time to bring students who are falling behind up to speed.

Currently, the funding supports 3,300 active grants totaling $1.1 billion for what is one of the fastest growing federal grant programs in history.

I have received a flurry of emails in the past few weeks from 21st CCLC grantees who wanted to share stories about their efforts and challenges to make these programs effective and sustainable, especially when funds are tight. I hope to use some of these stories for blog fodder in the future.

For some background on expanded learning time, see my archived webinar from last month here.

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