Last month Seattle parents released an analysis of student learning time (defined as time students actually spend in class) at the city's ten high schools. They found large discrepancies:
At Garfield High in Seattle, classes last at least 55 minutes. At Nathan Hale High, they're often 50. Garfield has eight short days when students arrive late or leave early so teachers can collaborate and train. Nathan Hale has 40, and schedules 100 minutes each week for students to simply read.
At the end of the year, that means students at Garfield spend about 23 more hours in each academic class — roughly the equivalent of four more weeks of instruction, according to an analysis done by a parents group in West Seattle.
The article follows with a dramatic "does it matter" without ever answering the question. Like money, education commentators tend to look to the research without thinking about common sense. Do time and money matter in education? The logical answer is of course they do, but there might not be a direct linear relationship between the two inputs and educational outcomes. There are always confounding variables--things like central office inefficiencies cutting down on the impact of money or a teacher not using her time effectively.
That lost time matters. Nathan Hale has lower percentages of white and low-income students than Garfield, yet it has lower test results in reading, writing, math, and science. Despite having greater diversity, Garfield has lower achievement gaps in reading between men and women, whites and blacks, students on free and reduced lunch and those who are not, and students in special education. Nathan Hale is a good school, but Garfield outperforms it across the board despite a harder assignment.
State and district officials don't seem to see the link between Garfield's success and its additional time. The article quotes Kathe Taylor, policy director at the State Board of Education, wondering if counting minutes is like missing the forest for the trees, saying "If one school district can do in two hours what it takes another six hours to do, and the students achieve equally well, then you have to ask what difference does it make." Nathan Hale's principal chimes in to say, "Raw minutes is nowhere near the whole story."
Not the whole story, maybe. But not one to ignore either.
Hat tip to NCTQ.
1 comment:
As a teacher in a school near these schools, you should also know that Garfield and Nathan Hale are very different schools. Garfield has a set of very devoted kids who are high-achieving as well as a set of kids who need more help. NH is sort of a Alternative without being Alternative school that emphasizes different aspect of education. The longer blocks make sense for them a s a way of getting at critical thinking learning objectives that are harder to measure. Plus, don't we think that giving teachers time to collaborate and plan together is a good thing? How else are they supposed to get better and learn from each other?
Also, this all smack of a huge post hoc fallacy. Just because one aspect of Garfield (longer per pupil class time) correlates with higher test scores does not mean that one caused the other. No doubt, the fact that student class time is easy to measure makes its prevalence as a variable stick out more regardless as to whether it is predictive or causative.
Education is messy.
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