Is the Traditional School Schedule Outmoded?

By guest blogger Leanne Link, communications assistant at the Center for Teaching Quality

We already knew that teachers need more time, but this month's Roundtable participants explained exactly why they want that time—and how they'd spend it. Here are some highlights from their conversation:

Summer Enrichment: Paul Barnwell suggests slightly extending the summer to offer authentic, project-based learning classes.

Fewer Tests: If only a representative sample of students took standardized tests—as is the case in Finland—we'd save time and money, writes Dedy Fauntleroy.

Longer School Year: Brooke Peters supports lengthening the school year so that students of all income levels can experience the same academic opportunities year-round.

24/7 Learning: As an online teacher, Shannon C'de Baca has found that helping her students master concepts and skills requires flexible scheduling.

New Measurements: Mark Sass urges decision makers to move away from the Carnegie Unit and measure competency instead of seat time.

Hybrid Roles: Jessica Keigan's teacherpreneur position allows her to spend half her day teaching and half her day leading policy efforts—a productive combination.

Scheduled Collaboration: Dedy Fauntleroy envisions a future in which teacher collaboration and prep time is built into the school day.

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Shannon C'de Baca

One of the messy details about science is that you learn best by doing. You cannot learn how to do surgery by watching others do it. At some point, you have to get hands-on. Doing a lab well and using it to elicit deep thinking in students takes time. Online instruction makes this so much easier.

My students can do an online or kitchen chemistry lab and discuss it for days online. If they need two hours to do the lab and get clean data, they can do that. But such an activity couldn't fit into a set 50-minute schedule. When it comes to the school day, we must recognize that what may work for language arts may not work for math or science. One size does not fit all in schedules or calendars.

We can move labs online, shift lectures to flipped video, or even schedule in larger time blocks, but the meaty question about calendars and time will be credit. If you are willing to sit for 192 days and do a modicum of work, you can get credit—but not necessarily a rich understanding of the content or skills.

That is the key. We'll get clarity about using time when we redesign the system to focus on learning rather than hours. Shifting to a competency-based system makes sense for my students and allows for the schedule and calendar to change.

And yes, some will demonstrate learning more quickly than others. Our current schedules do not support the need for different paths.

Online schools and blended classes are more flexible, but we need to stop often and examine the unintended consequences of these changes to students, families, and staff. Student learning is critical, of course, but our schools are so much more than the core content. The social aspect of school is important, too.

Ultimately, the answer may be to rethink school hours altogether. What if schools served as learning hubs for communities? Can we afford to have schools open longer each day or each year? Can we afford not to?

Shannon C'de Baca has been a science teacher for the last 34 years. She currently teaches a blended online chemistry course.

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Dedy Fauntleroy

Last time I shared my dream for 2020. This time, I'd like you to close your eyes (metaphorically, of course) and imagine with me what we can do today to get a little closer to that dream.

The quintessential challenge with time is that it is finite. So, in order to "create" more time in schools, we have to give something up or pay for resources that can free up time. We could do both by changing how we handle standardized testing.

What if the United States adopted a testing structure similar to Finland, a country with one of the highest performing education systems in the world? Finland tracks student progress by testing a small representative sample of students each year. (The U.S government already does this when it administers the National Assessment of Educational Progress for grades 4, 8, and 12.)

Imagine recapturing the many hours of instructional time spent on test preparation and administration. We could reallocate that precious time to teach the standards in depth, collaborate with colleagues, and give more attention to struggling students. Imagine further that, as in Finland, the U.S. used these standardized test results to determine what kinds of focused professional development teachers needed.

Imagine recovering a substantial portion of the financial resources spent on standardized testing—test coordination, test preparation materials, and the $1.1 billion per year spent on test creation and scoring. Schools could utilize recovered funds for enrichment teachers, intervention specialists, or half-time release for mentor teachers. Also, with additional staffing, schedules could be organized to provide educators with more time for collaboration and the aforementioned focused professional development.

Now imagine it has been years since we have taken this bold step to change how we structure standardized testing. Years of investing recovered time in professional growth opportunities has led to improved student achievement—and well-supported teachers.

Now open your eyes. Time can and must allow for us to engage with other professionals in order to hone our craft and, ultimately, to serve our students better. I have suggested just one possible way of doing this, but there are others. I believe we will find the best solution to the challenge of time in schools if we empower teacher voices in the conversation. So I leave you with the question: What part will you play in making this vision a reality for our students and for our profession?

Dedy Fauntleroy is an ELL instructional coach in Seattle Public Schools.

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Jessica Keigan

Within this discussion, we have had ideas shared about how to use summer vacation more effectively, how to harness the power of virtual learning, and how to value student mastery rather than seat time.

These teachers and educational coaches have strong ideas about what schedule reforms could make a real difference in student learning.

Imagine what they could do with more time.

In my last post, I talked about the value of five extra minutes in a teacher's day. One commenter pointed out to me that five minutes isn't much extra time. She's right. While five extra minutes is a beginning, it is the paradigm shift of allowing teachers a flexible schedule to teach and lead that interests me more.

This year, I had the privilege of living the life of a teacherpreneur. Within this model of hybrid teacher leadership, my precious five extra minutes of time became a precious 50 percent of my time.

Within my typical day, I spent the mornings teaching students and my afternoons reading, writing, and meeting with various educational stakeholders on a variety of issues. Within this time, I was able to learn about and be involved in educational reform in my state.

The true power of my experience, though, was that I didn't have to leave teaching to lead. I never once entered a conversation or committee project without always having my 80 students in mind. By dividing my time between my classroom and the arenas that impact my classroom, I was able to offer informed and challenging ideas to those who are far removed from the schools they are trying to serve.

We need to restructure our system so that teachers have opportunities to remain in the classroom while also participating in conversations and activities that shape the profession.

Our students can't afford to lose effective teachers and the system needs effective teachers to lead it towards tomorrow. Let's show teachers the value of their time by allowing them to use it to benefit the system as a whole.

As a teacherpreneur, Jessica divides her time evenly between teaching English at Horizon High School in Denver and supporting results-oriented efforts to improve Colorado's schools.

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Mark Sass

My fellow bloggers have been tossing around some ideas about how education views and uses time. Much of the writing has focused on the role of time as it impacts student learning and how it impacts the day-in and day-out lives of teachers. I think we need to expand our domain in which we have been applying the notion of time.

If we are to look at time in education in a different manner, for a different purpose, we also need to look at time as it relates to how we compensate teachers. For example, take a look at most teacher contracts and their pay scales. Salaries are contingent on how many years you have taught and are influenced by the number of either college or professional development credits you have. Do these time-bound units of teacher characteristics accurately portray what we value in teachers?

I have been through what my union calls Appendix E meetings that determine which teacher gets the axe when we are going through forced reductions. The main factor influencing this decision is how long a teacher has been in the building. I believe this is similar in fallacy to giving students credit for "seat time" in class. Let's call it "lectern" or "podium" time. Does this time accurately describe the effectiveness or quality of a teacher? What role should time play in the evaluation of a teacher?

Mark Sass has been teaching high school social sciences for 16 years, for the past 12 years at Legacy High School in Broomfield, Colo.

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Brooke Peters

I completely agree with Jessica Keigan that the conversation around extended school day and year rarely considers the way time is currently spent in schools, especially by teachers. It is commonplace in American schools for teachers to spend time doing things such as booking field trips and busing, troubleshooting technology, buying their own supplies, and filling in in a wide variety of capacities outside the classroom. Having teachers spend a portion of their valuable time away from planning and instruction ultimately does a disservice to students. Just like doctors are not expected to book appointments and file records, teachers should not be burdened with tasks that distract from their central goal of educating children.

What Jessica's post identifies is that any extra time provided to teachers can have a significant impact on their ability to be high-quality educators. In the successful schools I've worked in, the school administration and support teams acknowledged this and worked to enable teachers to spend their time effectively. Schools should be structured with a mission and capacity to support teachers and delegate administrative tasks away from the instructional staff.

While some of this depends on the budget and staffing of individual schools, administrators must be both creative and hardworking to provide teachers with more time during the day. Utilizing interns, community volunteers, and student teachers are great examples of low-cost methods for providing added support within schools. Additionally, when administrators and support staff are working hard and acknowledge their role in supporting teachers, that extra effort both adds time to the day and makes teachers feel like valued members of the school community.

Brooke Peters, currently at Community Roots Charter School, has taught kindergarten and 1st grade in Los Angeles and New York City for 10 years. She is also co-founder of the Odyssey Initiative, a project aimed at discovering and documenting exemplary practices in U.S. schools.

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Paul Barnwell

Kids should be treated differently if we're serious about reforming the traditional school schedule.

One-size-fits-all initiatives relating to standardized testing, teaching strategies, or, in this case, time, rarely achieve stated goals. Equity, or true fairness, relating to educational opportunity will never be achieved unless there is greater emphasis on the reality that different demographic groups, schools, and communities have different needs. So what does this mean in the context of time and schooling?

Brooke Peters's young, high-poverty students should go to school year-round. It is clear that kids without much guidance, structure, or resources at home could benefit from this arrangement. This might mean that students in nearby suburban areas don't go to school year-round, and that's fine by me.

Shannon C'de Baca's students in rural Iowa should have the option of blended online learning, especially if they are needed to help at home on the family farm or with child care. This might mean that students in Sioux City will have a different schedule, and that's fine by me.

As I've argued, some students should perhaps have a hybrid model of time, continuing a similar daily structure for 160 days, then allowing for dynamic summer-enrichment opportunities with businesses, teachers, and community partners. If another local school system doesn't think this model will work or wants to test it out, that's fine by me.

Let's see more models in action.

It's clear that the traditional school day has not worked for millions of students because we've treated them all the same. Therefore, all of our proposals are right, in a sense, because we've worked to recognize individual needs and possibilities.

It's hard work taking risks, creating new systems to help more students, and acknowledging that the way we use time shouldn't be so uniform. I also worry that more federal government involvement in education will create a push for a NCLB-like, uniform plan in the context of school time. This would be a mistake.

Acknowledging that students should be treated differently implies that teachers might have different time needs depending on grade level, locale, and school type. You guessed it—that's also fine by me.

Paul Barnwell teaches English and digital media at Fern Creek Traditional High School in Louisville, Ky.

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Dedy Fauntleroy

The alarm clock rings. Is it 2020 already? I look in the mirror—I've aged well!

I put in my "flex hour" of planning time before school. Some split the hour, some plan after school, and others meet collaboratively. No more clock watching—teachers are trusted to organize their schedules to suit their professional roles.

My 5th graders and I begin the day with our language arts block. Afterwards, they have mandatory recess. This is based on the premise that children learn best in chunks of time, interspersed with opportunities to exercise and socialize. (On the way back to class for our math block, we see a first-year teacher and her veteran co-teacher. Much like a medical resident, she co-teaches with her mentor for a year before being fully certified.)

Then it's lunch hour—which is an actual hour. The administration and instructional assistants conduct family-style meals with the children, followed by some recess time. Meanwhile, teachers eat a duty-free lunch then and participate in collaboration time with colleagues of different grade levels, specialties, and professional roles. Some teams opt to use the entire hour as a collaboration "working lunch."

After lunch—while students are learning about art, dance, music, PE, or technology—grade-level teams meet. We plan lessons, craft common assessments, look at student work together, discuss students of concern, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. (On the way to my meeting, I pass the librarian who is meeting by webinar with his district colleagues.)

Next my class studies astronomy—one of a series of interdisciplinary units that integrate listening, speaking, language arts, math, science, and technology skills. We have the time to offer these kinds of units now that the states no longer require high-stakes standardized testing for every student every year. No need to spend valuable instructional time on test preparation and administration. (Furthermore, by changing how we handle standardized testing, we are able to fund more intervention specialists who work in our classrooms and "in the moment" with students.)

My students go home and I take stock of my day. After my hour prep period, I spent 60 percent instructing students, 25 percent collaborating with colleagues, and 15 percent for recess prep time/lunch collaboration. This is a vast improvement from when I started teaching (without a mentor)—85 percent teaching time, 10 percent collaborative time (during lunch with a generous veteran teacher), and 5 percent preparation time.

The alarm clock rings. Back to 2012? I look in the mirror—I've still got it.

Although we may not be there yet, I feel heartened by my dream of how time can be used more efficiently and effectively in the future. I feel energized to go out and make it happen.

Dedy Fauntleroy is an ELL instructional coach in Seattle Public Schools.

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Jessica Keigan

I recently had the extreme privilege of hearing Michelle Shearer, the 2011 National Teacher of the Year. Of the many great ideas she shared, one of her classroom strategies particularly stood out.

At the start of her school year, she asks students to describe the value of five minutes. Her intention is to help high school students see the value in every minute of their education, which led me to wonder how this activity might benefit other stakeholders in the system.

What would be the value of five extra minutes in an educator's schedule? If any of you teachers are like me, five unplanned minutes in a day are a gift. These five minutes might be spent learning about a new professional strategy, catching up on local and national policy or interacting with peers in virtual or real time venues. Unfortunately, these are more often stolen moments rather than intentional investments of time on the part of the system.

Typically, at least a fourth of a teacher's day is taken up with extra duties and administrative tasks. While these are often necessary for the success of her job, there has to be a more efficient way to cope with these kinds of tasks so that more time is secured for collaboration, professional reading, or other growth promoting activities.

Unfortunately, reformers who are looking at expanded time models are often met with skepticism when sharing their ideas with educators. Quite frankly, it is because we don't just need more time in the educational system, we need a paradigm shift in how time is used. We not only need more time—we need better time.

There are models that achieve this goal. The Generation Schools Model being implemented in Brooklyn and Denver expands the school day and calendar in creative ways to allow for deeper learning for students and more intentional professional time for staff.

Similarly, the teacherpreneur model of hybrid teacher leadership introduced in Teaching 2030 is now being utilized in districts across the country. In this redesign of teacher leadership, teacherpreneurs are released from half of their schedule to practice leadership in a variety of initiatives and arenas, thereby spreading professional learning and opportunity to their peers and their system.

So what is the value of five minutes in an educator's day? The simple answer is that any time dedicated to the education of the students in this country is invaluable. As such, we need to ensure that all time is spent in ways that foster growth for all stakeholders.

As a teacherpreneur, Jessica divides her time evenly between teaching English at Horizon High School in Denver and supporting results-oriented efforts to improve Colorado's schools.

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Brooke Peters

I once worked at a school in Los Angeles that was 99 percent low-income and ELL. Due to overcrowding in the district, the school developed a system with two eight-week breaks instead of a typical schedule. I witnessed first hand the amount of academic progress that is lost when students spend time out of school. My students, like many low-income children, did not have access to meaningful academic and enrichment experiences during break, which drastically affected their academic progress. Moreover, I believe in extending the school year and limiting the time students spend out of school.

Education reformers created the summer break in the 1840's to equalize the learning time in urban and rural schools, alleviate medical concerns, and ensure that students were not over-stimulated. With labor law reform and contemporary developments in technology, medicine, and agriculture, this once reasonable justification is now outdated. A decision made in large part to promote educational equality has now created an achievement gap between those who have access to academic and enrichment summer activities and those who do not.

Significantly shortening summer vacation would have a variety of upsides. First, all students would receive year-round learning experiences to support their social and academic growth. Second, there would be less pressure on teachers because students would maintain progress, and there would be more time to reach benchmarks. Third, schools would have added flexibility with scheduling. The extra time would allow for increased courses offered in the arts and physical education and leave considerably more time for professional development. Additionally, teachers could extend curriculum, provide increased individual support, and devote more time to units of study or concepts when needed.

This plan would certainly affect teacher recruitment and retention, be expensive, and anger a subset of parents. To make this work, education leaders would have to offer creative incentives and develop systems to support a longer school year. Overall, the potential for added curricular flexibility and higher achievement would increase job satisfaction. Additionally, if schools used the extra time to provide engaging academic and enrichment programming, many parents would support the idea. Charter schools across the country have already found success in extending the school year, particularly for students who struggle academically.

Ultimately, long summer vacation is costly for students who lack access to high-quality summer experiences. There are a variety of ways to creatively extend the school year and successfully adjust vacation times based on local context. It's truly painful for me to think about the lost progress students incur during the summer months. While I would certainly miss my summer break, I truly believe that the costs of the current system contradict the goal of teaching itself.

Brooke Peters, currently at Community Roots Charter School, has taught kindergarten and 1st grade in Los Angeles and New York City for 10 years. She is also co-founder of the Odyssey Initiative, a project aimed at discovering and documenting exemplary practices in U.S. schools.

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Mark Sass

In 1906, the Carnegie Foundation coerced college professors into using the Carnegie Unit to measure educational attainment. How did the Foundation do this? They promised the professors that if their universities used the unit they would receive pensions, now known as TIA-CREF. Today the Carnegie Unit is still used as the unit of exchange between schools, as well as between high schools and colleges.

The Carnegie Unit, or "seat time," as it is better known, is based on three hours of class time for 16 weeks. Schools establish yearly calendars and daily bell schedules based on the Carnegie Unit. High school is all about seat time, because students receive credits based on how long they are in a class. The premise is, more seat time equals more credits—and, therefore, more credits equals more learning. But we know that this isn't the case. Universities know this because they require that prospective students take the ACT or SAT, not only to rank and sort students, but to also check for student learning.

The Carnegie Unit represents the amount of time that a student spends under the direct or indirect supervision of a teacher. In other words, it is an investment of teacher time and not of student learning. Time does not equate to learning any more than time in radiation therapy equates to eradicating cancer in a patient.

Because of the antiquated use of the Carnegie Unit, time has been used as a fixed variable in student achievement. Some students attain the necessary skills and content quicker than others, some slower. This results in students failing classes and increasing their risk of dropping out of school, or it results in those students who "get it" quickly becoming bored in class and acting out behaviorally. What if we moved to a competency-based approach to student learning? What if the unit of exchange between schools and post-secondary institutions became based on mastery and not seat time?

Time in schools should be used as the basis by which we make decisions on what students need. Some students may need to move on to the next level quicker than others; some students may need to spend more time in a class before moving on. Time should be a fluid variable, which we apply based on student needs.

Another impact of the Carnegie Unit is how it relates to the teacher. The Carnegie Unit does not give us any indication as to the effectiveness of the teacher. Before the No Child Left Behind legislation, expectations for all students were guided by the fixed amount of time that students spent in class. The role of the teacher was to rank and sort students, regardless of their competencies. We were guaranteed the same results every year. Time was the fixed variable by which students were sorted. After NCLB, the expectation was that all students would reach competency. Time no longer is the fixed variable; mastery is.

The Carnegie Unit is a relic of the past, an artifact that stands in stark contrast to the role and purpose of public education today. It's time to take on the Carnegie Unit as the means by which we measure society's investment in education.

Mark Sass has been teaching high school social sciences for 16 years, for the past 12 years at Legacy High School in Broomfield, Colo.

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Paul Barnwell

May 30th was the last day for students at Fern Creek Traditional High School. For most of our students, work, play, and sedentary screen time will fill the gap until we resume classes on August 21st. Few will read, and even fewer will have the opportunities to participate in summer enrichment activities such as visiting museums or attending camps.

Since summer has begun, it's time to address what is a major issue with our current schooling model: Many kids regress academically during the coming months. According to the National Summer Learning Association, the summer months are related to persistent achievement gaps, and during this period parents have trouble finding productive things for their kids to do. Time off from school may also relate to the growing obesity problem with our youth.

That said, I do not propose a traditional school calendar year-round. I've heard about models where schools are nine weeks on, two weeks off year-round, with traditional holiday breaks still in tact. This model will not serve the purpose for what I propose.

Instead, why not slightly extend the summer, and enlist and train teachers and other community members to lead two two-week enrichment sessions over the course of a 14-week summer. Students must sign up for two of the sessions. Let teachers work with small groups of students, pursuing their own passions while giving the kids a chance to experience something new or authentic. Let teachers and students embark on project-based and real-world application of learning without all of the red tape. Anything but the ordinary school day of sit, move to the next class, repeat over and over, and hop on the bus to return home.

With a school year that begins after Labor Day and ends after 160 traditional school days, teachers will not be working more calendar days with this model. Plus, the benefit for students could be immense.

I recently had the privilege to lead a youth media workshop the week after school let out, collaborating with local professionals. We coached six sophomore students who volunteered to come back to school. We partnered them up, matched them with a coach, and set off to tell photo stories about places in Louisville, such as the Belle of Louisville (the oldest operating steamboat in the country) and a glass-blowing studio. When the week ended, students borrowed cameras and asked me when they could do it again. This type of intensely focused, exciting work sparked something. One parent commented that she had never seen her daughter so excited about school, which is ironic. It wasn't school as we know it, but we used the physical space of room 137 as a home base.

Tell me what has a better chance of exciting kids about an idea, activity, and learning in general: 20 days of what we currently have, or a pumped-up summer elective schedule with teachers doing what they love and kids signing up to be a part of it?

Paul Barnwell teaches English and digital media at Fern Creek Traditional High School in Louisville, Ky.

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Shannon C'de Baca

I walked into the high school I attended in the mid-1960's and was comforted by some of the changes I saw in terms of flexible room arrangements and technology. Then a bell rang and I was back in the 1960's. The students still move from teacher to teacher six to seven times each day. We have made many changes, but we have not altered the most powerful variable in the equation: time.

I teach online—and have seen how time can be used differently. Can ... and must. I have nine students who work more than 40 hours a week on a family farm, eight that handle a significant share of the child care for their working parent(s), six who work two jobs, and many students who have added my class to an already packed daily schedule. I can not teach from 9am to 4pm and meet the needs of all of these kids.

In my classes we negotiate my day to day schedule. The content is always available and my direct instruction is used much more strategically. Students have a regular video meeting with me twice weekly often on Skype. I can usually gather them into three or four working groups and those who miss a meeting catch up using the archived video or email. Here I handle all the questions relating to instruction and some of the labs. We always have three or four asynchronous discussions going. Administrative information (announcements, grades, updates, deadlines and schedules) is posted and available 24/7.

I teach chemistry and I can tell you that deep abstract knowledge requires some think time. Students need to see a concept several times via a variety of lessons and contexts. My goal for my students has always been mastery, and sometimes it takes students more than a day or even a week to reach deep understanding. But some time ago, our assessments began prioritizing coverage. Coverage involves a rigid schedule. Mastery requires more flexible use of time.

Lots of blended classrooms are using time more like online instructors. I think that in the future, face-to-face teacher interaction may be considered more carefully: What is the best use of this time? What groupings, what schedule, how many kids, what kinds of virtual space? All those variables come into play ... but "school time" must span 24 hours, seven days a week.

Changing the schedule in my online classes meant more instructional time for my students. When my students see time as a commodity and a variable, they spend more time with content. My students log on for about five hours of synchronous time each week and put in another 12 to 15 hours on evenings, weekends, and holidays. When we give teachers and/or schools permission to control time, we make better use of it.

Shannon C'de Baca has been a science teacher for the last 34 years. She currently teaches a blended online chemistry course.

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