Mo' Time, Mo' Better Schools

For several years now educators have been puzzling over a nettlesome new math problem: with high-stakes exams requiring students to learn more, how should teachers go about cramming in the extra classwork? Popular answers have been to poach time from pursuits like art, PE and music or to excise field trips. According to a University of Virginia study published last year, some schools in that state even took to curtailing student bathroom trips to squeeze in extra study time.

At some charter schools, longer hours

There's actually a much more sensible solution — and one that leaves those cherished Presidential Physical Fitness exams intact: simply increase the number of hours kids spend in class.

Last week New York's mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, proposed doing just that, calling on the city to add a sixth day of school for nearly 84,000 struggling students. California's Governor Gray Davis made a similar move last month when he asked his state to extend its school year by 30 days to give 1 million middle schoolers an extra six weeks of class to help pull up sagging test scores. On the local level, schools across the country are extending the hours students spend in their clutches far beyond the typical seven-hour school day and 180-day school year by increasing after-hours classes and activities. And one of the most attractive features of many charter schools is their protracted school days and years. For example, Edison Schools, which are run by a private management firm for local school districts, are open for business eight hours a day, 198 days a year. In the long run, the extra lessons add up to four additional years of schooling.

Overseas, more time in school

The 180-day school calendar is seen by many as a quaint holdover from the agrarian economy when students needed weekends and summers off to help till the family farm. And it's a distinctly American phenomenon. While most American students spend their late afternoons and weekends doing nothing in particular, students in other nations simply devote more days to schoolwork. Italian and Korean children have more than 200 school days; Chinese kids have 250 — and, unsurprisingly, many tend to outscore their American peers. Add that to the growing research showing that during those long summer vacations, when memories fade and learning is not reinforced, kids lose significant academic ground.

But more time means more money — and more people. And as the teaching shortage mounts, neither will be particularly easy to come by. The California plan boasts a $1.45 billion price tag, though officials there estimate the extra days could translate into a 50% increase in test scores. But while more appears to be better, more of the same-old lessons and techniques may not. So before Saturday cartoons morph into a sixth school day, educators ought to take an elongated look at what transpires during the other five. The bi-coastal calls for change are certainly an auspicious start.