Seeking Educational Nirvana

Failing Schools See a Solution in Longer Day

I have long been an advocate of changing the way we teach our children. Our school day is shorter than the school day in 75% of the industrialized world. Our curriculum over-emphasizes the social components of school through sports, clubs, pep rallies and extra-curricular activities (not that these are unimportant, but they are over-emphasized over academics). Our school calendar is still based upon an agricultural society that doesn't exist, not even in the rural areas of our nation.

With the advent of farming machinery, the need for the school breaks for planting, tending and harvesting crops is no longer necessary, yet we continue to use the agrarian calendar that was formulated in the late 1800s. Other, more competitive, nations have school years that are structured around the way the particular society works. We also have a calendar that demands breaks around the religious holidays of Christianity, which places some significant restrictions on how the school year can be divided. While it is important to allow for religious and cultural celebrations, the entire society doesn't necessarily revolve around those celebrations. Allowing for these celebrations is not the same as centering the schedule around these events.

We also need to include Saturdays into our school schedule. Other nations--especially those that are beating our standards and achievements in education--use Saturday as a regular school day. In my view, Saturdays are more in tune with remedial assistance, additional advanced placement classes, organized and intramural sports, community involvement and professional development. We currently endure too many interruptions to the academic schedule in deference to sports and physical education. Additionally, many students are involved in external physical activities that are far superior to the traditional gym class, but are not given credit or recognition for that form of physical education. Example of this dynamic includes students enrolled in formal martial arts, skating, gymnastics, tennis, golf, cycling, skateboarding, dance, swimming or other programs that require an overall commitment and dedication that far exceeds any requirements of the traditional gym class. More often than not, students enrolled in these external programs are not provided credit, accommodation or recognition of their dedicated and committed efforts in these programs, despite the fact that the fitness regime exceeds anything offered by school.

In my view, the school should become the community center for these activities, forming partnerships with well-established providers of these courses, with curricular support and oversight, and these activities are scheduled after the academic regimen is fulfilled. In this model a high school or middle school student attends academic classes from 7:30 AM until 3:30 PM (or some similar time frame) and then is allotted 1.5 to 3 hours for some form of committed, school-based physical training and activity. Traditional sport programs--including football, soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, hockey, field hockey, track & field--are included in the physical education curriculum. Additionally, dance, gymnastics, cheer leading (in its modern competitive form), Judo, Aikido, tennis, golf, swimming, hiking, cycling and other physical activities that fulfill the requirements of physical education are included.

Those physical education requirements include 1) developing an understanding of exercise; 2) developing an understanding of fitness; 3) an understanding of body structure and function in exercise and fitness; 4) an understanding of injury prevention and care; 5) an understanding of the role of physical activity and sport in society; 6) an understanding of the rules and formal structure of a sport or fitness activity; and 7) an understanding of the fitness, physical activity and sports options available in society.

Additionally, I believe the physical education portion of a curriculum can be achieved by having students enroll in activities that occur outside of the academic activities. Gym classes, physical education, sports and fitness programs need to be worked into the daily schedule in such a way as it promotes a lifelong commitment to fitness, not merely a class that we force our children to endure. We need activities available after the academic activities are complete, are acceptable to the participants, are developmentally appropriate for each participant, and are available on a year-round basis.

But the problem is that most educators, policy makers and politicians think that merely lengthening the day, extending the school year, and setting standards that can be measured by standardized testing is the answer to the problems in our educational system. But the real problem with our education systems stem from the fact that we do not collectively value education. We do not understand education, so we do not value it. We see education as a means for obtaining work. The emphasis in our education systems is to lead students to a job or, better still, a career. We teach our children that our jobs define us, that the boss is almost always right, and that by working hard for our employers that we will succeed. In essence, we set up our children for failure because we lie to them. We do not offer them opportunity. We do not prepare them for critical thinking. We do not challenge them to genuinely seek out opportunities to improve the world and the human condition. We do not understand that it is through education that we can improve our world, our nation, our state, our town and our community.

We do not understand the greatness for which we were destined. We also do not understand that we have choices. Because we do not understand all of this, we spend our time, money and energy on destruction, separation and emphasizing our differences and disputes... and we end up being led around by our collective noses as if we were sheep or cattle, rather than the only creatures on earth that have the capacity for reason, spirit and greatness that we have. It is because of our denial of education and the resulting sense of hopelessness that we breed that we pollute our world, engage in unnecessary conflicts and work toward competing interests rather than collective cooperation, harmony and success for all creation.

Imagine a world like that illustrated in the Star Trek series of dramas. Imagine that every person was able to pursue their own special purpose and interests in life. Imagine the greatness that could be achieved if education were a focus of our society and we were let loose to fulfill the greatest possible potential. Imagine a world where science could be focused on feeding the hungry, creating new forms of agriculture, non-polluting forms of energy, new methods of medicine, where politicians actual worked toward good purposes rather than greed... just imagine.

There have been times in my life where I have been overwhelmed by the world's focus on things other than what I really understood. I have experience great spiritual pain because I cannot fulfill all of my potential. But what has kept me going is the realization of the greatness the world can achieve.

We see glimpses of greatness every day, but we tend to ignore them. We see such greatness when we see a toddler struggle with a cognitive puzzle, conquering it and experiencing the "eureka experience." We see this greatness when we see kids--children who still see the wonder in the world--reach out in an enterprising way to offer a small solution to some social problem. We see such greatness when an advocate provides a blanket to a homeless person on a cold winter day. We saw such greatness in the post-Katrina effort of volunteers and dedicated workers to save lives, homes and dignity. We see such greatness when we do what is beyond of self-interest and serves the greater good.

I firmly believe that such greatness is only achieved through an educational approach that teaches not only the rigors of the "Three R's," but also the awe and wonder of the world, the awe and wonder of humanity, the awe and wonder of all creation, and our responsibility to respond to the awe and wonder in the world by taking positive, caring, compassionate and loving steps to preserve that awe and wonder in each and every one of us... preserving it by establishing and maintaining the universal connection and attachment that we have for each other.

Given that such teachings are inherent in almost every religion of the world, it is stupefying that we rely on these religions to separate us into competing ideological groups that emphasize our differences, conflicts and self-interests. The root of all evil is the greed that comes from losing that awe and wonder we have as children. Some of us lose it by the time we are seven or eight years old. Some of us lose it in our teen years. Some lose it as late as young adulthood. We would have a different world if we worked at keeping it.

The article that prompted this post looks at making the school day longer. That solution will only work if every educator in every school changes their approach to education and brings awe and wonder to every day in the classroom, and that eventually translates into people leaving school with that sense of awe and wonder fully intact.

States and school districts nationwide are moving to lengthen the day at struggling schools, spurred by grim test results suggesting that more than 10,000 schools are likely to be declared failing under federal law next year.

In Massachusetts, in the forefront of the movement, Gov. Deval L. Patrick is allocating $6.5 million this year for longer days and can barely keep pace with demand: 84 schools have expressed interest.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York has proposed an extended day as one of five options for his state’s troubled schools, part of a $7 billion increase in spending on education over the next four years — apart from the 37 minutes of extra tutoring that children in some city schools already receive four times a week.

And Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut is proposing to lengthen the day at persistently failing schools as part of a push to raise state spending on education by $1 billion.

“In 15 years, I’d be very surprised if the old school calendar still dominates in urban settings,” said Mark Roosevelt, superintendent of schools in Pittsburgh, which has added 45 minutes a day at eight of its lowest-performing schools and 10 more days to their academic year.

But the movement, which has expanded the day in some schools by as little as 30 minutes or as much as two hours, has many critics: among administrators, who worry about the cost; among teachers, whose unions say they work hard enough as it is, and have sought more pay and renegotiation of contracts; and among parents, who say their children spend enough time in school already.

Still others question the equity of moving toward a system where students at low-performing, often urban, schools get more teaching than students at other schools.

And of all the steps school districts take to try to improve student achievement, lengthening the day is generally the costliest — an extra $1,300 a student annually here in Massachusetts — and difficult to sustain.

The idea of a longer day was first promoted in charter schools — public schools that are tax-supported but independently run. But the surge of interest has been spurred largely by the federal No Child Left Behind law, which requires annual testing of students, with increasingly dire consequences for schools that fall short each year, including possible closing.

Pressed by the demands of the law, school officials who support longer days say that much of the regular day must concentrate on test preparation. With extra hours, they say, they can devote more time to test readiness, if needed, and teach subjects that have increasingly been dropped from the curriculum, like history, art, drama.

“Whether it’s No Child Left Behind or local standards, when you start realizing that we’re really having a hard time raising kids to standards, you see you need more time,” said Christopher Gabrieli of Massachusetts 2020, a nonprofit education advocacy group that supports a longer school day. “As people are starting to really sweat, they’ve increasingly started to think really hard about ‘are we giving them enough time?’ ”

Still, some educators question whether keeping children in school longer will improve their performance. A recent report by the Education Sector, a centrist nonprofit research group, found that unless the time students are engaged in active learning — mastering academic subjects — is increased, adding hours alone may not do much.

Money also has proved a big obstacle. Murfreesboro, Tenn., experimented with a longer day, but abandoned the plan when the financing ran out, said An-Me Chung, a program officer at the C. S. Mott Foundation, which does education research. Typically, she said, lengthening the school day can add about 30 percent to a state’s per-pupil spending on education.

Given that expense, New Mexico is acting surgically. The state is spending $2.3 million to extend the day for about 2,100 children in four districts who failed state achievement tests. The money, $1,000 a student, goes for an extra hour of school a day for those children, time they spend on tutorials tailored to their weaknesses in math or reading.

Karen Kay Harvey, an assistant secretary of education for New Mexico, said that the state could not afford to do more. Adding the equivalent of one extra day of school a year for all students could run from $3 million to $5 million, she said.

Still, in many districts across the country, the trend has taken hold. In Miami, 39 schools that are farthest behind have added an extra hour to the school day, as well as five days to the school year. In California, the small West Fresno district, with some of the lowest test scores in Fresno County, added an hour more of school a day for students in the fourth to eighth grades.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the education committee, supports the idea of longer school days and is proposing $50 million a year, to rise to $150 million by 2012, under No Child Left Behind to train a corps of 40,000 teachers to help schools redesign academic content for those extra hours.

Though the trend could accentuate the differences between poor and middle-class students, with low-income students forced to spend longer hours behind their desks, Ms. Chung noted that middle-class children “basically have their own extended day that their parents have put together for them.” The virtue of the extended day, educators say, is that it forces children who might not otherwise attend voluntary after-school programs to spend time on studies.

In Massachusetts, schools in that state’s pilot program, teachers have received a 30 percent raise for their extra work. But pay is not the only issue for them.

In Lowell, Mass., for example, teachers balked at the district’s original plan to participate, saying they were too tired at the end of the day for extra work and had their own obligations at home.

Lowell parents also opposed the plan, concerned that longer days would be too taxing for children, especially the younger ones. Parents also feared their children would have to walk home in the dark and said that a longer day would cut into family time, said Karla Brooks Baehr, the school superintendent.

The district shelved the plan and developed an alternative proposal that gives students and teachers more freedom to choose the days they will stay late, and offers a range of activities along with core academics, including tutorials and swimming.

The Massachusetts schools that were awarded the state grants have grappled with ensuring that the extra time helps raise achievement. At many, officials say the program has been a success.

At Matthew J. Kuss Middle School here in Fall River, the time has bolstered instruction in reading, math and science as well as opening the way for electives in art and drama, forensics, karate and cooking — “the fun things for kids,” said Nancy Mullen, the principal — that had been pared away as the school’s standing fell.

So far, attendance is up and lateness is down, two areas that helped fuel the state takeover two years ago of Kuss, Massachusetts’s first school designated as chronically failing. “The students are more engaged in school,” Ms. Mullen said.

At the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School in Cambridge, Mass., where all students learn Mandarin, educators doubled the time spent teaching reading in the elementary grades to three hours a day. They used a method called Literacy Collaborative, which weaves lessons in reading and writing into other subjects, like social studies.

One recent morning, Joan Kerwin, a literacy coach, spent a half-hour with a fourth-grade class discussing a composition by one of the students, Kibir Uddin, who wrote about the thrill of receiving an honors certificate, describing the special paper it came on.

“ ‘The bumps looked like gems and rubies,’ ” Ms. Kerwin read from the essay. “He took that emotion,” she explained to the class, “and put it into exact language.”

It was the kind of lesson, teachers said, that would have been impossible with a shorter day.

At Kuss, students who were having trouble learning fractions built a scale model of a house from architectural drawings. Stephanie Baker, who teaches cooking, has posters around her room with math problems drawn from previous years’ state exams that she incorporates into her classes.

“I know I’m working longer hours,” said Ms. Baker, who wore a white toque, as the aroma of teacakes students had baked wafted from her room. “But this has been the most rewarding year I’ve had in 29 years of teaching.”

Many parents in Fall River said they were pleased by the commitment a longer schedule signaled, reasoning that more hours meant more chances for their children to succeed.

Some parents in this working-class community, like John Chaves, father of a seventh-grader, Mindy, said they supported more time at school simply because so few are home earlier to welcome their children. “We’re never home at the time that they’re home, so at least we know where our kids are,” Mr. Chaves said.

Mindy is studying guitar and forensics after school. “Today,” her father said, “she came home saying that men have a bigger forehead than women. She never used to do that.

“I ask, ‘Where are you learning this stuff?’ ” Mr. Chaves continued.

“ ‘Forensic class,’ she tells me. ‘I love it.’ ”