Four-Day Weeks

Budgets are tight and schooling is expensive. So it’s not surprising to see state officials proposing new ways to cut costs in education. But this idea to eliminate the required 180-day schedule—something South Carolina state superintendent Jim Rex is proposing—is surprising. This will give districts more options for how they set up their school schedules. More options sounds good. But the most likely result here is that cash-strapped districts will cut the school week to 4-days a week. What’s wrong with this? Pretty much everything related to student learning. Rex estimates that it will cut nearly 20% of costs for maintenance, facilities, and bus driver salaries. But this is the wrong way to cut costs. Aside from the inevitable complications for working parents-- what will kids do on that extra week day?--there is absolutely no reason to think that fewer longer days will help students learn. Research on time and learning suggests just the opposite— kids need quality instruction and learning opportunities on a regular and consistent basis. Knowing this, many other states and districts are actually proposing to extend school time. And while I’ve served as the skeptic on some extended school time proposals, the fact that kids need more, not fewer, opportunities to learn is incontrovertible. So unless South Carolina--and any other state or district thinking about this-- has a solid plan for more quality out-of-school learning opportunities, this is going to mean less learning for students.

So what’s a state to do? Marc Porter McGee of ConnCan has some interesting ideas here, including cutting overhead and shedding unnecessary contracts. States and districts are going to have to be careful, though, with these decisions about what's necessary— bus driver salaries and facility costs may not seem directly connected to student instruction but if cutting these means cutting school time, less cost means less learning.