Innovative Schools Find That Quantity Time Pays Off

Quietly and unobtrusively, Washington area schools are keeping children in class longer, stealing time from afternoon soap operas, summer vacations and Saturday morning cartoons.

It is a trend that has received little notice because many educators want it that way. Winning legislative and school board approval to extend the school day or the school year would be difficult, given the cost and potential teacher union objections. So principals and superintendents are stretching the school day in creative ways, trying to get more time for those students who need it without setting off any alarms.

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A stunning sign that they are on the right track came less than a month ago in Prince George’s County, Md., where Thomas S. Stone Elementary School produced the largest one-year test score gain in the state. A year ago only 14.8% of Stone’s third- and fifth-graders had satisfactory scores on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program examinations. This year, after the new principal, Sheila Murray, kept both grades after school for 90 minutes every Monday and Tuesday for four months, 46% reached the state standard.

Done in Murray’s deft way, the Stone success could be a model for many other struggling schools. The notices she sent to parents did not seek their permission but asked them to see her if the change caused problems. She kept the program small enough to pay for it with federal funds for remedial education. She made sure her teachers were eager participants.

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Nearly every successful school improvement program in the last decade has depended on increasing the amount of time each child spends with a teacher. The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) in Houston and New York, the Garfield High Advanced Placement program in Los Angeles and the Edison Schools in several cities have raised achievement by lengthening the school day.

There are pitfalls. Fairfax, Va.-based educational psychologist Gerald W. Bracey notes that the extra hours won’t help if the instruction isn’t good and the teachers and principal aren’t strongly committed. Year-round school schedules, a change that Murray supports, have not worked in cities where they were forced on unhappy parents and teachers.

Some educators worry about programs like Murray’s, that are offered only to students about to take an important state-required test, and risk being portrayed as little more than public relations stunts.

But Washington area educators have seen enough gains from various experiments in time-stretching to try to get the benefits to more students. The District of Columbia and Alexandria, Va., have seen test scores climb after expanding summer school for lagging students. The Early Start program in Fairfax County, Va., in August let many ninth-graders begin school two weeks ahead of schedule. The D.C. schools have had success with Saturday classes for eager learners and Fairfax has expanded the school week for 20 low-performing schools in its Project Excel program.

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Clever educators see an intriguing, unmentioned benefit to expanding time. It is a subtle way of subverting objections from unions to paying more money to teachers who work with low-performing children. Teachers in the Project Excel schools in Fairfax, for instance, are paid 7% above their usual salaries because their school week is slightly longer, a justification acceptable to labor leaders. Add an hour a day to all rural and urban schools struggling to improve achievement, and you have an excuse for 20% raises, enough to lure many well-trained teachers.

At Stone, Murray said, there were a few teary moments the first Monday last January when children realized she was serious about keeping them after school. But they were all smiles when the spectacular results were announced last week. “Many of those kids just needed the gift of time,” she said.