What Is A Day Of Learning, Anyway?
The measure crops up frequently in discussions of education policies and, sometimes, products. But what the heck does it even mean?
Charter advocates like to point to a CREDO study that shows urban charters giving students an additional 40 days of learning growth in math and 38 in reading (while critics bring up the 2013 CREDO study finding that charter schools provided seven additional days of learning per year in reading and no significant difference in math). Indianapolis, New York City, and other big systems find charter advocates touting additional days of learning.
Meanwhile, one of the widespread criticisms of online schools is a CREDO study which found that cyberschool students lost 72 days of learning in reading and a whopping 180 days in math–that’s a whole year.
Bridge International Academy describes its success in Kenya in terms of added days of learning. Research into the educational effects of variables such as teacher experience is expressed in days of learning. Sales representatives for edu-products will promise additional days of learning.
But what exactly is a day of learning? Classroom teachers know that a Monday is not equal to a Friday or a Wednesday. Surely it’s not the day that students get out early, or the day that is interrupted by an assembly, or the day that the teacher was pulled out for meetings, or the day that the baseball team was dismissed early for an away game. Certainly not the day that everyone in school was reeling and preoccupied because of a local tragedy. A day in September is not the same as a day in April, and certainly not any day in the season that we’re CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: What Is A Day Of Learning, Anyway?
