FYI from BSF, 04.14.23
Public school students in Massachusetts will be off next week for April break.
After that, it is the home stretch for summer. Absent family resources or access to a public program, many children will be out of school or program settings for up to 10 weeks.
Combating the “summer slide,” international competition, and closing achievement gaps were past arguments to extend school days and school years. Then, the pandemic stretched child care needs for families to the breaking point.
Nonetheless, there has been little recent discussion or examination of the school day or calendar, other than to make it shorter.
This is curious, given the simple math that children spend very little of their childhood in school. Using Boston as an example (180 days, 6 hours and 45 minutes per day), time in school constitutes only ~10% of a child’s time from birth through high school graduation.
If childhood were a minute long, school would be about 6 seconds.
Boston once had one of the shortest school days in the country. Negotiations, across years and two mayors, yielded a 40-minute extension, lauded as a major achievement at the time.
This is how much more school time Boston kids got.
Singapore reportedly has the longest school year of any nation in the world. At 220 days, one would expect a massive shift in the ratio.
This is how much more time in school students in Singapore get.
This is not to say that this additional time doesn't have it merits or impacts. Although not a panacea, research indicates time added and well-spent leads to positive outcomes.
But, it is easy to look at the graphs and question schools' magnitude in shaping student outcomes. With family life, social determinants, non-school activities, and even sleeping dwarfing instructional time, what impact do we expect schools to have?
Or, this can serve as a reminder that scarcity creates value. How the time is spent is the critical factor.
With limited time and an important role to fill, every classroom, every school, every school day - even one before vacation - really matters.
Notes in the Margin
Boston School Committee met this Wednesday. Full materials here, including an update on the district’s “transformation schools” (~25% of BPS schools are in the bottom 10% for state accountability).
The meeting opened with a discussion of errors in exam school invitations. After different errors in 2020 and continued questions from the state around data integrity, BPS had hired international accounting firm Ernst & Young, with 360,000 employees, to provide services. This past year, the exam school contractor was Borderland Partners, with 3 employees and a corporate address you can find on Zillow.
Already passed by Boston School Committee last month, the BPS budget was rolled into the city’s total FY24 budget of ~$4.3B. BPS is the largest city department, and also saw the largest dollar increase of any department, not even accounting for an additional ~$370M in federal and external funds. Handy graph:
The FY24 capital budget was also proposed, with some additions for schools (start on tab 3).
The House’s budget proposes education investments that differ from Governor Healey’s budget. In the case of spending millionaire’s tax revenue, more money for PK-12 (universal free meals, green construction, etc.), and eliminating many higher education investments. Senate proposal and negotiations to follow.
Is legalizing teacher strikes popular in Massachusetts? It depends on how you ask. Braintree may be the next town to have teachers picketing. Budget pinches could create equity tensions in the case of teacher layoffs.
If preschool is so popular, why does NYC have 30,000 empty seats?
In-depth case study of how one school has dramatically improved literacy rates for English learners.
Budget issues at Lesley University after the school has lost one-third of its enrollment in the last decade.
Other Matters
A Revere High musical got a special boost this week.