Lawmaker Seeks to Add 7 Days to School Year

Saying that how much students learn is partly a result of how much time they spend in class, an influential state senator Monday proposed that California spend $350 million next fall to add seven days to the school calendar.

“While the length of time spent learning a task is not a guarantee of success, insufficient time spent on a task is almost certainly a guarantor of failure,” wrote Sen. Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga) in a letter seeking support for his proposal.

The number of days California students attend school has long been a sore spot with many legislators and educators. Back in 1983, the state extended the school year to 180 days and made each school day longer. But the Legislature later allowed school districts to use as many as eight of those days for teacher training--meaning that on those days students stay home.

Now, California students attend school an average of just under 176 days. In many districts, students are in class only 172 days.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, students in about a quarter of the schools have classes scheduled only 163 days--though each day is 30 minutes longer than normal.

Some legislators, both Republicans and Democrats, now believe that students simply do not spend enough time in class to keep up with their counterparts elsewhere. Students in China, for example, are in school 250 days a year.

Last year, state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin proposed that the state provide 190 days of instruction each year and pay teachers to attend training sessions for eight days over and above that.

The Legislature, however, eventually added only a single day to the school calendar--and made that day optional.

The proposal by Brulte, a longtime Republican leader in the Legislature, was unveiled in a letter sent to the California School Boards Assn. It would require all school districts to schedule 180 days of instruction and allow them to pay teachers to attend as many as eight days of training in addition to that.

Brulte said that by making his intentions known now, more than a month before the start of the next legislative session, he hopes to build support for it in the Legislature as well as in Gov. Pete Wilson’s plans for next year’s budget.

Kevin Gordon, a lobbyist for the school boards association, said he expects a longer school year to be one of the hottest education topics for next year.

“I would wager that as many as a dozen legislators will want to run similar legislation . . . but I would bet on Brulte because he has a larger network of support on both sides of the aisle and he’s out front with it,” Gordon said.

Brulte said there would be sufficient money in the education budget to pay for the proposal.

The legislative analyst’s office said last week that the state’s robust economy is now expected to produce $507 million more in revenue during the current fiscal year than had been projected. Much of that money will be required by law to be spent on education, enabling the education budget to grow about 7.6% annually in the next two years.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Days in School Here is a look at the number of days per year that California students spend in school: *--*

No. of Days in School No. of Districts No. of Students Under 172 5 5,088 172 197 1,241,574 173 5 285,533 174 123 447,375 175 121 540,401 175.55 Statewide average 176 153 1,160,284 177 61 287,207 178 51 215,029 179 10 37,820 Over 180 19 176,098

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Source: School Services of California Inc.