In education, as in most everything, the ultimate scarce resource is time. Who “owns” the time spent in education, and how much is it worth? What does it mean to spend time well in education?

How much is an instructional hour worth?

As discussed in Lesson 4.3, there are roughly a thousand instructional hours in an American school year. Everything that a school system does ultimately matters to students (or doesn’t) because of things that happen during those 1,000 hours. What’s the rough per-student cost of an instructional hour? It depends on your school district, and it depends on how you count, but in California in 2021, on average districts spent roughly $15,000 per student per year. So the average rough price of instructional time in California public schools that year was…

Rule of thumb: The value of students' time is about the same as minimum wage

…about fifteen bucks per student per hour.

This rule of thumb can be handy for evaluating the rough dollar value of things that take time or save time in California schools. What is the instructional time cost of a one-hour bus delay that affects 50 students? How much instructional time cost could be recovered through smoother transitions between classes? How can we think about the instructional time cost of administering a standardized test, or of taking kids on a field trip? Putting a dollar value on instructional time per student doesn’t make tradeoffs simple, but it can help make them more concrete. It is also a helpful reminder that students’ time has value. However, fluctuations in federal, state, and local budgets affect education funding and minimum wage, making it difficult to place an exact dollar value on student time.

Spending Time Well: Time Management Can Be Learned

The clock spins in only one direction; each day, teachers have a limited time to inspire and guide students through their lesson plans. Some teachers make masterful use of their limited minutes with students, advancing the powerful use of time to something of an art form. In Teach Like a Champion and his other work, Doug Lemov describes techniques collected from master teachers that enable them to keep students engaged and learning. His instructional videos have become popular because they are practical. His primary thesis is that teaching skills can be learned and improved, with clear examples.

Time in school has a rhythm to it. Classes begin and end at particular, scheduled times, marked by bells, buzzers or chimes. But do they have to be? In the past, clocks were rarely synchronized, but nowadays there is no longer any real doubt about the correct time. Factories and businesses have mostly done away with clocks that make noise, and some schools are getting rid of bells too, as EdSource reports.

Traditionally, school days are simply chopped into class periods of equal length, but they don't have to be. For example, some schools use block scheduling to create a mix of longer and shorter instructional segments that differ from one day to the next. Long blocks of double the usual length reduce transition time between classes. They also enable teachers and students to delve deeper into discussions, problem sets, art projects and lab work. There are different types of block scheduling, each with its own set of benefits.

Some schools create overlapping class periods, with some students and teachers starting earlier and others ending later, in order to create flexibility and address space issues.

Research about the impact of sleep on learning led to changes in California laws in 2019: High schools must not begin the school day before 8:30 a.m. Middle schools must not begin before 8:00 a.m.

Changing something as fundamental as the use of time in school affects everyone involved; it can be transformative, but it is also easy to make mistakes. There is some evidence that longer class periods may be beneficial, but there are many approaches and no easy answers about what works best. The National Education Association (NEA) urges school leaders to plan carefully and talk it all through with teachers before jumping to a new schedule system.

Time to prepare.

To do anything well requires preparation, and preparation requires time. In the context of school, teachers need to know their material and have a solid plan to teach it. In many countries, school systems set aside time [PDF] in the school day and school calendar for teachers to collaborate and prepare (learn more in Chapter 3, Teachers). The Learning Policy Institute provides a good overview of how to use time effectively in professional development.

Updated September 2017, September 2018, October 2018, Dec 2019, July 2022