Education Week - February 26, 2014 - 21

"
The state has
coupled the
revival of its
financial fortunes
with a
revolutionary
change in how it
spends its
education dollars."
More Play, Better Focus
By Debbie Rhea
I
ing formula. This new finance formula weights state allocations
according to student need.
Districts with low-income students, English-language learn-
ers, and foster youths receive 20 percent more in the current
version of the formula. Those where 55 percent of students fall
into one or more high-needs categories will get an additional
grant. Special education students will continue to receive additional
funding, as before.
Politically, local-control funding is an investment in rebuilding
trust, and that effort turns the education policy of the last
four decades on its head. As the economist Joseph Stiglitz
PAGE 22 >
CHARLES TAYLOR KERCHNER is a professor at the Claremont
Graduate University in California and co-author of Learning from L.A.:
Institutional Change in American Public Education (Harvard Education
Press, 2008). He will be writing the opinion blog On California on
edweek.org beginning next month.
with college planning, tuition assistance, and
applications.
In focus-group interviews, families reported
that the ILPs, especially when presented in
the context of student-led parent-teacher conferences,
increased positive regard for their
schools and teachers. One family member said
the schools "seem focused on launching adults"
rather than only on increasing test scores.
While we have not yet released our final re-
port, which was commissioned by the U.S. Department
of Labor, we can share our findings
on a number of exemplary ILP implementation
strategies. These include:
* Providing support and professional
development for teachers, school counselors,
and administrators on the implementation
and long-term use of the
plans. This is critical to ensure that plans are
implemented with fidelity and that everyone
involved understands the process.
Additionally, implementation should pro-
vide teachers with advisory time during the
school day to meet with students, and with curricula
that includes grade-level expectations
with career-planning elements. This promotes
schoolwide buy-in that allows for a more effective
and sustainable rollout of ILPs. Wisconsin,
for example, is developing and implementing
an intensive professional-development system
that includes training modules and allows staff
members in each school to build the competencies
they need to implement ILPs effectively.
* Establishing a cross-sector task force
to guide ILP implementation. In addition
to state departments of education and labor,
the state agencies involved can include those
working in vocational rehabilitation, health
and human services, and higher education.
Education department representation should
include school counseling, special education,
and career and technical education. This allows
groups to share expertise and leverage
resources to support ILP implementation. It
also increases access to work-based learning
opportunities and preparation for postsecond-
PAGE 24 >
V. SCOTT SOLBERG is the associate dean for research
and a professor at the Boston University School of
Education. CURTIS RICHARDS is the director of the
Center for Workforce Development at the Institute for
Educational Leadership, in Washington. The writers
lead the National Collaborative on Workforce and
Disability for Youth, a technical-assistance center aimed
at improving transition-age youth outcomes, supported
by the U.S. Department of Labor's office of disability
employment policy.
t seems counterintuitive to
think that less classroom time
and more outdoor play would
lead to a better education for
kids. After all, what many in
our country, including most recently
New Jersey Gov. Chris
Christie, have prescribed are
longer days in the classroom. But longer
days on task don't equate to better
results. Instead, they translate into more
burnout, lower test scores, and more of
the same. All work and no play really
does make dull boys and girls.
For years, educators have tried differ-
ent strategies of more testing and of more
time on task to reverse these trends, but
they have proved to be unsuccessful. The
answer is not additional in-class sitting
time. What kids need is time to move and
have unstructured play.
On a recent sabbatical, I spent six
weeks in Finland studying how that
country practices education. Reading,
science, and math are important in
the Finnish education system, but
so are social studies, physical
education, arts, music, foreign
languages, and a number of
practical skills. The school
day in Finland looks much
different from the school
day in the United States.
In the United States,
for example, a 1st grader
attends school 35 hours a
week, seven hours a day. In
Finland, a 1st grader spends
22.5 hours a week in school, or
4.5 hours a day. Three hours each
day are spent on content in the
classroom, and another 1.5 hours
are spent on recess or "unstructured
outdoor play." Some elementary
schools in the United
States do not have recess time
built into their schedules, let alone
outdoor recess.
Kids are built to move.
Having more time for unstructured
outdoor play is
like handing them a
reset button. It not
only helps to break
up their day, but it
also allows them to
blow off steam, while
giving them an opportunity
to move and redirect
their energy to something
more meaningful
once they return to the
classroom.
When a human sits
for longer than about 20
minutes, the physiology
of the brain and body
changes. Gravity begins
to pool blood into the
hamstrings, robbing the
brain of needed oxygen
and glucose, or brain
fuel. The brain essentially
just falls asleep
when we sit for too
long. Moving and
being active stimulates
the neurons
that fire in
the brain. When
Paci77/iStockphoto
EDUCATION WEEK | February 26, 2014 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary | 21
We should not
sacrifice recess time for
classroom time, and
"
neither should be used
to discipline
students."
you are sitting, those neurons don't fire.
Getting students out of their chairs
and moving outdoors is essential. A 2008
study published in JAMA Opthamology
found that 42 percent of people in the
United States between the ages of 12
and 54 are nearsighted. But 40 years
ago, that number was only 25 percent,
a change that can't be explained by heredity.
Time indoors can weaken our vision,
especially if we are staring at computer
screens and not looking away for
long periods of time. Additional studies
have also shown that when people have
inadequate daylight exposure at work,
particularly in areas that have poor indoor
lighting, it can disrupt their circadian
rhythms-the cycle that allows for
healthy sleep. When these rhythms are
thrown off, it can have a negative impact
on academic performance.
I'm such a believer in more unstructured
outdoor play and recess throughout
the day that I've launched a pilot
program called Project ISIS-Innovating
Strategies, Inspiring Students-that
is being
implemented in
two Texas private
schools,
with an
additional
three
public elementary

schools in
that state
coming on
board by the
fall. While the
program doesn't
reduce the number
of hours spent at school,
it does build in more outside
recess time. Students get two
15-minute unstructured outdoor-play
breaks in the morn-
ing (one is right before lunch,
the other is a full lunch
with a short recess afterward),
and then two
more 15-minute recess
breaks in the afternoon.
These schools will continue
to have physical education
as a content area.
We should not sacrifice recess
time for classroom time,
and neither should be used to
discipline students. The more
movement children have throughout
the day, the better they will be
with attentional focus, behavioral
issues, and academic performance.
As a country, we aren't moving-
figuratively or literally. Kids' access
to physical education has declined
in the name of classroom time.
For the most part, obesity rates
throughout the United States continue
to rise, and our country's Program
for International Assessment,
or PISA, test scores remain disappointingly
flat. It's time we got moving, in
every sense of the word. n
DEBBIE RHEA is an associate dean of
the Harris College of Nursing and Health
Sciences at Texas Christian University in
Fort Worth and the director of Project ISIS
(Innovating Strategies, Inspiring Students),
which is also based at the university.
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Education Week - February 26, 2014

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