Class time as a measure of learning potential

JILL MAHONEY
Globe and Mail
August 30, 2007

Wide discrepancies in school schedules across Canada mean that some children get up to 1.5 extra hours of teaching a day, a survey finds
As students prepare to go back to class next week, their days will once again be ruled by that iconic measure of school time: The bell.

While school schedules are largely static, the amount of time elementary students actually spend in class varies dramatically across Canada, with some children getting as much as 1.5 extra hours of teaching a day, a Globe and Mail survey has found. While education experts stress that quality is more important than quantity, time is a measure of learning potential, and disparities in school schedules mean children do not have equal opportunities for achievement, said Douglas Willms, an education professor at the University of New Brunswick who studies school effectiveness.

"Time is one of the critical elements," he said. "Even though education is a provincial jurisdiction, we should have some [national] standards for what the school day looks like."

Unlike test scores and class size, instructional time - which is the amount of teaching time students receive, excluding lunch and recess - is not tracked in Canada. But the issue is receiving greater attention, with both New Brunswick and Quebec boosting class time in recent years.

Overall, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia have the lowest mandated class time for elementary grades, excluding kindergarten, with a minimum of four hours and 45 minutes each school day on average.

On the high end - with up to an additional 45 minutes - are the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, where elementary students receive as much as 5.5 hours of teaching a day. The gap is even wider when examined by grade level: Nova Scotia children in Grades 1 and 2 have a minimum of four hours of class, up to 1.5 hours less than their peers in the two territories. When taken over the span of a year, students in the Northwest Territories spend the equivalent of about five more weeks in school than youngsters in B.C. and PEI. And just 15 additional minutes of daily teaching time - the difference between B.C. and PEI and those provinces that provide five hours a day, namely Newfoundland, Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan - yields an extra two weeks of class a year. (Although the number of instructional days varies annually, most jurisdictions mandate about 185 per year, excluding professional development and administrative days.)

The teaching-time issue, and its potential for giving students an advantage, is dominating much of the education debate in the United States, where the Bush administration's controversial No Child Left Behind act is intensely focused on achievement and testing.

Last spring, billionaire philanthropists Bill Gates and Eli Broad announced a major education public-awareness campaign targeted at the 2008 presidential race, including a push for lengthening the school day and year. And several schools in Massachusetts have adopted extended-day schedules, while officials in other states have increased instructional time at low-performing schools.

Quantity versus quality

In 2001, New Brunswick educators received a rude awakening when their children placed last in a national literacy test.

In an effort to help address the poor showing, the government asked boards to increase class time. Existing contracts with teachers' unions, which often play a role in determining the length of the school day, specified a range of instructional time: A minimum of 4.75 hours and a maximum of 5.25 hours a day, not including recess, for Grades 3 to 5. (For kindergarten to Grade 2, the range is from 3.75 to 4.25 hours a day.) Many districts taught at the floor. Why not, officials suggested, teach to the ceiling? The districts and teachers agreed.

"Even with the maximum time, there's a distinct pressure to be able to deliver a quality education program to meet the needs of kids today. So I think that the time is needed and is well used," said Alex Dingwall, superintendent of School District 18, which includes Fredericton.

In the past few years, provincial Grade 2 literacy-assessment results have improved, with the number of students reading at or above grade level climbing from 59 per cent in the 2003-2004 school year to 71 per cent in 2005-2006. Officials believe many factors contributed to the progress, but acknowledge more class time has probably helped.

Quebec is also keeping children in school longer. A year ago, elementary instructional time was increased by 1.5 hours a week, or 18 minutes a day. Most anglophone schools use the extra time for gym and art, while francophone schools have augmented English instruction.

However, while more class time boosts children's chances of learning, there is little research into the effects of instructional time upon performance. Students vary widely in their abilities to concentrate, and extending school days would eventually reach a point of diminishing returns for squirming youngsters and their wandering minds. Not surprisingly, studies have found that student achievement climbs when class time is used effectively.

"The important part is not time, it's what's done with the time," said Charles Ungerleider, director of research at the Canadian Council on Learning and an education professor at the University of British Columbia.

"From a learning standpoint ... engagement is the important dimension. So you can be in attendance but not engaged in your learning. Well, if you're not engaged in your learning, chances are you're not going to learn much."

Take British Columbia. Despite having the lowest overall amount of instructional time, along with PEI, its students generally do well on national and international achievement tests.

"From our perspective, we look less at the amount of time that children are in school than we do at the results they get while they're in school," B.C. Education Minister Shirley Bond said in an interview.

Indeed, many education experts say the current range of practices are effective as long as class time means quality time.

"There has to be a kind of a saturation point," said Frank Peters, an education professor at the University of Alberta. "And the practice, if nothing else, seems to suggest that this custom that has grown up seems to work quite well."

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YEAR-ROUND SCHOOLING

While there is little research on the optimal length of the school day, some studies suggest year-round schooling - which spreads the academic calendar over the whole year with more frequent breaks, but not necessarily more school days - helps children learn.

A study conducted in Utah, which has some of the highest proportions of schools with so-called balanced calendars in the United States, concluded that Grade 5 students who attended year-round schools outperformed their peers. The research found that 21 per cent of pupils in schools with traditional calendars did not meet state standards, compared to just 4 per cent of those in school year-round.

Children from low-income families benefit the most from year-round schooling, said Carolyn Shields, an education professor at the University of Illinois.

Under the traditional calendar, such youngsters often fall behind during the summer break, forgetting some of what they learned during the previous school year. Come September, they tend to slide even further when compared to their more well-off peers, who are more likely to participate in summer enrichment programs and be stimulated by their parents.

"There's a gap that widens year after year after year between the advantaged and the disadvantaged," said Prof. Shields, who was involved in the Utah study, which examined six years of test scores in eight schools in the 1990s.

However, a recent U.S. study, focused on kindergarten and Grade 1 students, found the vast majority of young children who attend year-round schools do not learn more than their peers at schools with traditional calendars.

But that study concluded that the most disadvantaged students performed slightly better in reading skills than their peers in traditional schools.

Canada has 84 year-round schools, according to the National Association for Year-Round Education, a U.S. advocacy group.

By contrast, the U.S. has more than 3,000. The model has been slow to catch on in this country for a variety of reasons, including tradition and weather, Prof. Shields said.

"The fear of losing summer is part of it."

Jill Mahoney

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RURAL MYTH?

Common wisdom suggests that today's school schedule is a relic of 19th-century agricultural society, designed so farm kids could lend a hand during the hectic summer season while remaining available for morning and late afternoon chores during the rest of the year.

But farmers and academics who have studied the issue point out that the busiest times in agriculture are the spring planting season and the fall harvest.

"People keep talking about our agrarian calendar. It's not," said Carolyn Shields, an education professor at the University of Illinois and an expert on the school calendar.

In the early 1800s, before education was compulsory, rural children generally went to class just six months of the year, usually in the fall and winter.

Meanwhile, their city cousins, many of whom worked in factories, dropped in and out of school, spending a few months in class annually although urban schools were open year-round.

The traditional September-June school calendar evolved as a result of a "whole constellation of factors" largely in cities, argues Joel Weiss, a former professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto who wrote a paper on the school calendar in 2003.

These forces include the introduction of mandatory schooling, a standardized curriculum, increasing urbanization, higher immigration, job scarcity and the growing power of unions.

School hours were developed to make the most of daylight and still allow youngsters to work in factories or help with farm chores after their lessons ended.

Generations later, today's students are still following a pedagogical model set in the horse-and-buggy era.

"It just hasn't changed," Prof. Shields said.

"I keep saying everything else has changed - why are we still using a 200-year-old compromise calendar?"

Jill Mahoney

Time to learn

The amount of time Canadian elementary school students spend in class each day varies widely. While provinces and territories generally mandate the amount of instructional time and the length of the school year, almost every jurisdiction does it differently. Some provide weekly minimums while others establish an annual number of instructional hours, leaving boards and schools to decide their own timetables.

Province Hours per year Days per year Instructional hours
Nfld. 935 187 5 hours/day: max. for Grades 1-3, minimum for Grades 4+
N.S. 748 Gr. 1-2 187 Minimum 4 hours/day for Grades 1-2
888.25 Gr. 3-6 Minimum 4 hours, 45 minutes/day for Grades 3-6
PEI 878.75 185 Minimum 4 hours, 45 minutes
N.B. 777.75 Gr. 1-2 183 Maximum 4 hours, 15 minutes/day for Grades 1-2
960.75 Gr. 3-5 Maximum 5 hours, 15 minutes/day for Grades 3-5
Quebec 900 180 (min.) Minimum 5 hours/day
Ontario 940 188 (min.) Minimum 5 hours/day
Manitoba 930 186 (min.) Minimum 5 hours/day
Sask. 980 (max.) 196 (max.)* 5 hours/day. School boards determine their own number of professional development and administrative days.
Alberta 950 190-200 From 4 hours, 45 minutes to 5 hours/day
B.C. 888.25 187 (min.) 4 hours, 45 minutes/day
Yukon 935 178-184 5 hours, 10 minutes to 5 hours, 20 minutes/day
NWT 997 (min.) 182-187 5 hours, 15 minutes to 5 hours, 30 minutes/day
Nunavut 952 (min.) 185 (avg.) 5 hours, 15 minutes to 5 hours, 30 minutes/day

*Last year, for example, the Regina public board had 182 school days for elementary students.

SOURCE: PROVINCIAL AND TERRITORIAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS AND SCHOOL BOARDS