Which school do you want to support?
Each year consists of about 6,000 waking hours. Children in America, on average, spend about 1,000 of them in school.
Not including after-school programs, most American children spend about six hours per day in school – fewer in lower grades and more in higher ones. How are those hours actually spent? Are they sufficient? Does changing the number of hours make any difference?
As common sense would suggest, learning takes time. All other things being equal, places where students get more school hours with “time on task” are places where students tend to learn more. One elegant study found a clever way to verify the educational impact of time: it examined the effect of “snow days” (which vary in number by school and by year) on test results. Sure enough, when snow piles up, scores fall down. A day here or there actually does make a measurable difference.
The National Center for Time and Learning collects research about time in American education, and argues that there should be more of it: “While the expectations for how schools prepare the next generation of American workers and citizens have risen dramatically, education and policy leaders have usually not updated policies and practices around learning time to meet these mounting demands. The school calendar looks much the same as it did a century ago…” (From The Case For More Learning Time)
What exactly do we mean when we talk about school hours, or a school day, or a school week, or a school year? These things matter when trying to compare programs. How much time is enough to add up to a “course”? About a century ago, the Carnegie Foundation played a role in setting standards for course length, particularly for higher education. A “Carnegie unit” is 120 school hours of instruction. The standard is still in use.
Schools in different parts of the country and around the world use time in very different ways, with varying school calendars and seasonal breaks. In an effort to permit comparisons, or at least to spur inquiry, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) collects global data about school hours.
Most reports based on the OECD data make America look comparatively rigorous: American kids spend at least as much time in school as kids in other countries do, and probably more. According to the OECD summary, "A typical U.S. student will attend school for a total of 8,884 hours over nine years to complete primary and lower secondary education, 1,293 hours more than the OECD average."
But the harder you scratch at the data, the harder it is to reach easy conclusions. The data is gathered by survey, and the methodology and even the questions vary from place to place. Grade level groupings used in the surveys are responsive to the different ways that schools are organized locally, and the surveys are massive.
International comparisons of education time are further complicated by the fact that not all learning time is part of the “official” system. In Japan and Korea, for example, formal school days are shorter, but there are more of them. Even more important, many families in these countries invest significant hours at private after-school and weekend “cram schools” that help their children prepare for standardized tests and college entry exams. Comparing only the official hours of school operation kind of misses the point.
There’s an apples-and-oranges problem, too. Does it make sense to compare school hours spent in systems that are teaching different things? In Japan and China, students spend many hours learning to write characters accurately and legibly, a skill not needed in western societies. The OECD survey suggests that most European countries invest about a tenth of primary-grade school hours in the study of international languages. America doesn't participate in this part of the survey, but the difference is obvious: few American primary schools teach international languages at all. (See section D1 of the OECD's massive Education at a Glance report for detail.)
Comparing the use of time for education is tricky even within the United States. Like many other states, California generally requires 180 days of school per year, including a specified minimum number of total hours for each grade level. A growing number of school districts are shifting to a four-day school week. Some districts conduct school five days per week, but routinely send kids home early to allow for faculty training or meetings.
Education researcher Amanda Ripley focused significant attention on the different ways that schools use time in different countries in her bestseller The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way.
Of course, not all school hours are instructional hours. In 2009 the Education-Trust West investigated instructional time in California schools. This research found that the true instructional school year is significantly shorter than it seems on paper due to the “overhead” of school events, assemblies, testing days, birthday celebrations and the like.
Not all school hours are instructional. Students in a 180-day calendar only put in about 100 instructional days per year.
In the Great Recession, many California school districts cut five days from their school calendar. Which five? Special days like testing days, or assemblies, or birthdays tend to be preserved. Almost by definition, the days lost were ordinary, unremarkable days with nothing special going on except teaching and learning.
School time is not all about academics. The school experience is also about relationships. Some charter school operators (like KIPP) regard a longer school day as a vital element of their program design. Beyond the academic effect of additional instructional time, a longer day in school may raise the likelihood that school serves as the central context for children’s social relationships.
The National Center for Time and Learning is dedicated to significantly increasing learning time. It also provides research into how schools and districts are using time effectively, the core topic of the next lesson.
Updated May 2017, Oct 2019, Jan 2020.
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Bailey Barber February 26, 2021 at 11:01 am
Victoria Robinson December 11, 2020 at 3:58 pm
Jeff Camp December 11, 2020 at 5:35 pm
Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh November 3, 2019 at 9:05 pm
Apart from this, I feel disappointed by the emphasis on test scores and de-emphasis on social development as well as other learning. What does a child learn through celebrating a holiday or a birthday with peers? This is valuable time for forming character. A snow day fills emotional reservoirs and gives time for the creative mind to refuel. More teaching does not equal more learning. And fewer breaks do not equal more productivity. Look at Europe’s vacation schedules or traditions of siestas as compared to the US, and see who is suffering more depression and anxiety.
Lyra Exekiel December 8, 2018 at 6:49 am
Jeff Camp December 9, 2018 at 3:21 pm
September 17, 2018 at 9:22 am
Caryn September 17, 2018 at 9:48 am
Pamela Wright April 16, 2018 at 3:07 am
Jeff Camp - Founder April 17, 2018 at 12:59 pm
kevin October 8, 2017 at 4:46 pm
Lisette October 3, 2017 at 4:25 pm
Caryn-C October 10, 2017 at 8:50 am
June 13, 2017 at 11:10 am
Carol Kocivar October 27, 2016 at 4:26 pm
California students attending high-concentration poverty schools are not able to access as much instructional time as the majority of their peers. It highlights ways that community stressors and chronic problems with school conditions lead to far higher levels of lost instructional time in these high schools.
Read the report: https://idea.gseis.ucla.edu/projects/its-about-time/Its%20About%20Time.pdf
Mark MacVicar August 13, 2015 at 4:36 pm
Mark MacVicar August 13, 2015 at 5:24 pm
Janet L. April 20, 2015 at 7:13 pm
Oh my. "School events, assemblies, testing days, birthdays and the like" are significant to their learning. Certainly they don't teach to the test, but these events and activities teach our children in ways that should not be discounted. Social interaction, understanding and acceptance of other cultures, social responsibilities and more are taught during this "noise" and is significant in forming the adults and leaders these children will become.
I'm not opposed to longer school days or calendars, but I can't discount the advantage of the so-called "noise" our kids are experiencing.
Tara Massengill April 17, 2015 at 7:19 pm
hwilde April 2, 2015 at 9:40 am
To Sherry- Teacher collaboration and professional development does quite the opposite of reducing the number of effective instructional days. In fact research shows that educators who have time to work in teams or partnerships within and across grade level and fine tune their skills through professional development are more engage and excited about teaching and learning which translates to students who are more engaged and excited about learning within the context of the classroom and beyond.
Susannah Baxendale January 17, 2019 at 12:30 pm
Mamabear March 19, 2015 at 11:41 pm
Sherry Schnell January 22, 2015 at 10:38 am