The scarcest resource in life is time. Arguably, of all the resources we have to work with, it is the one most equally distributed - and most universally squandered.

Education is an investment of time. A year contains roughly 6,000 waking hours. By the age of seven or eight, school officially occupies about 1,000 of those hours. Reform efforts that relate to the use of time take two forms, broadly: make stronger use of existing time in school, or extend learning time beyond the traditional boundaries of the school day and the school year.

The latter idea, providing more learning time, is a particularly important strategy for getting all kids to achieve at high levels. It starts with the assumption that kids who start out with fewer economic advantages, or who struggle more academically, will do better if they are given more time in school.

What's in this Chapter?

We convinced Jeff to narrate a short video preview of each lesson. We hope you get a kick out of the awkward expressions we captured him in...