Some
early signs that reducing the number of school days might lead to a decline in achievement is putting a damper on four-day school week schedules. With free-falling budgets, going to four-day weeks has become an increasingly popular strategy for
districts and
states looking to cut costs on transportation, utilities and maintenance. It’s unclear how great the
cost-savings is, given that most facilities seem to be staying open on the fifth day, but it should be quite clear that fewer days in school will mean less learning, especially for kids who are struggling the most. Sure, it’s the
quality of the time not the quantity that matters, but most of these current moves to shorten the week (and lengthen the days to meet minimum instructional hours) are being made as a drastic budget measure, not as part of a thoughtful redesign strategy for scheduling. If the days are made much longer, the upside is that schools might be able to stay open longer in the summer, and shorten that long learning gap that we know puts poor kids at a disadvantage. Even if this happens, which seems unlikely, we are still just replacing one gap (long summers)
