Voa education report - Longer School Day = More Learning? Not Necessarily

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is the VOA Special English Education Report. Recently we about how some American schools have made changes in traditional school year. Their goal is to improve student . Some have extended the school year, or reorganized it avoid a long summer break. Another choice is to the school day. A new report from the Center Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University examines research how effective this is. The traditional school day has changed much in more than a century. Activities or programs might mean a longer day. But younger children go to school from about nine oclock in the until about three in the afternoon. Older ones are in school from about seven am.. until around two .. Some high schools have changed to later start times of findings that teenagers learn better that way. But new report says results have been mixed. Teachers say are more awake. But students say the changes interfere after-school activities or jobs. By two thousand one, almost of all secondary schools had some form of block . The idea is to provide longer periods in the day to teach basic subjects. More class time should better results. This is the thinking, at least. Yet two thousand one study found that secondary schools with schedules had higher test scores by comparison. Schools with scheduling did have higher scores in science, though. In case, the study agreed with earlier findings that students better about their schools in systems with nontraditional scheduling. how useful is a longer school day? Not surprisingly, policy experts at Indiana say it is what educators with the extra time that has the largest effect student learning. They note a criticism that education leaders make scheduling changes without changing the learning environment of school. The experts say teachers must be trained to the added time effectively. Professional development is needed. The notes that simply adding time to a program that not very good or very interesting will not increase learning. Community support is also valuable for any changes. there is another consideration. Schools may need a lot extra money to pay for an extended day. And the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy . I'm Bob Doughty.

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