Education Week - November 23, 2022 - 4

The Learning Recovery Strategy
Districts Are Overlooking
Extended learning time hasn't taken
hold, despite its promise
By Caitlynn Peetz
As districts work toward helping
students catch up, a handful of
strategies have emerged as popular
best practices-intensive tutoring,
summer programs, and after-school
opportunities among them.
But one option has been largely
absent from districts' COVID-19 recovery
plans: increasing the amount
of time students are in school, either
by adding more days to the academic
year or tacking more minutes
onto the school day.
Decades of research suggest
that more, well-used time in the
classroom correlates with higher
achievement across student demographic
groups. And while it's not
clear exactly how many schools or
districts have employed additional
days or longer days as a COVID recovery
strategy, it is clear that it has
been a relatively unpopular choice,
even as districts confront historic
lapses in achievement.
The reasons why are complex.
Changing school calendars and
adding required time in the classroom
for all students isn't easy, and
many schools run into resistance
when they try, making optional approaches
more appealing.
On top of the time-consuming
logistical challenges of rearranging
operations like bus routes, the
majority of parents don't favor the
move, according to a study by researchers
at the University of Southern
California. Only 23 percent of
parents in a nationally representative
survey said they supported a
longer school year, and 19 percent
supported a longer school day.
" When you talk about new initiatives,
it's really difficult to launch
them if there's not that buy-in from
families, " said Phyllis Jordan, associate
director of Future-Ed, a think
tank at Georgetown University that
has studied how districts are spending
their federal COVID-19 relief
funding.
Difficult negotiation processes
with teachers' unions and other
labor groups also complicate the
picture.
In Los Angeles, a $122 million plan
to add four days to the year to address
learning loss fell apart as the
district clashed with the city teachers'
union, which called on its members
to boycott the first planned additional
day.
Eventually, the two sides agreed to
add four optional learning days during
vacations for students to receive
one-on-one assistance or smallgroup
instruction.
The Los Angeles Superintendent,
Alberto Carvalho, called the
dispute " disheartening " because a
plan " that was in the best interest of
students " failed.
Optional programs draw low
participation
The problem with optional interventions,
particularly when the majority
of students have regressed or
not made expected academic gains,
is that there's no guarantee students
who most need help will get it.
In a working paper published
in October, researchers at Brown
University and the University of
California, Irvine found that many
struggling and marginalized students
don't opt in. In fact, the authors-Carly
Robinson and Susanna
Loeb, at Brown, and Biraj Bisht at the
University of California Irvine-concluded
that opt-in systems can lead
to the widening of disparities, rather
than a reduction as intended.
The study examined methods used
to increase uptake of optional tutoring
at Aspire Public Schools, a public
charter school network in California.
The researchers found that 12
percent of students who received a
D or an F in at least one class in the
prior semester opted in to optional
tutoring, compared to 23 percent of
students who passed all their classes.
Sending personalized messages to
both parents and students increased
struggling students' opt-in rate by 122
percent, according to the paper. But,
still, only about a quarter of struggling
students opted in.
That's why, the researchers concluded,
integrating tutoring into the
school days is more likely to reach
kids who really need help.
Some schools have taken the
leap, adding hours or days
That same principle goes for extended
learning, too. And despite the
challenges, some schools have managed
to successfully roll out these
learning opportunities.
At the start of the 2021-22 school
year, Atlanta extended elementary
students' school day by 30 minutes
after buildings were closed for nearly
a year at the height of the COVID-19
pandemic. The district plans to continue
the model through at least the
2023-24 school year and modify the
approach as they get new data tracking
its effectiveness.
The San Antonio district added 30
days to its calendar in 2020-21, tacking
days on to the beginning and end
of the year and adding a few throughout,
too.
Dallas issued a survey to schools
whose principals bought in to the
model, and found 46 elementary and
4 | EDUCATION WEEK | November 23, 2022 | www.edweek.org
middle schools with enough interest
from families and staff to implement
year-round calendars at those
schools, infusing more frequent
breaks rather than an extended summer
vacation as it increased the overall
number of days.
There are two year-round options,
depending on the community's
preference, and the district plans to
keep them in place for two years, anticipating
that if it's effective, it will
begin seeing markedly improved
math and reading scores by then.
In May, Dallas' Deputy Chief Academic
Officer Derek Little told FutureEd
he had begun seeing improvements
in reading, but not yet in math,
but was optimistic for the future of
the program.
" The bottom line here is we
haven't learned enough yet to make
a long-term decision, but where we
are right now is promising, " Little
told FutureEd.
Benefits of extended learning go
beyond academics
In Kansas City, Mo., Gordon Parks
Elementary added 31 days to its calendar.
Like the Dallas schools, it did so by
shifting to a year-round calendar.
With an enrollment of about 150
students in kindergarten through 4th
grade, staff saw nearly universal improvements
in students' academics
and social skills. When students return
after a three-week break, rather than
after a multi-month vacation, teachers
have to spend less time doing initial relationship
building and setting expectations.
That time is instead focused on
classwork.
" We found that we weren't doing
a lot of reteaching, although there's
room for some of that, and the kids
came to classes in August knowing the
procedures and processes, their teachers
and administrators, and expectations
of them, " the school's Chief Executive
Officer Kirsten Lipari-Braman
said. " It wasn't brand new again. "
She said those relationships and opportunities
to build social skills are just
as important as the academic progress.
After months, and sometimes more
than a year, of virtual classes, students
of all ages are relearning how to interact
with their peers and to manage
their emotions, Lipari-Braman said.
This is especially true for the youngest
students, who had limited in-person
school experience pre-pandemic or
who started their academic careers
virtually, and those who experienced
trauma.
" Unless we deal with what's in the
heart, we're not going to be able to help
them with the work, " she said.
Gordon Parks also managed to avoid
another challenge other schools and
districts face: When the school rolled
out the new calendar, all but two staff
members decided to stay, Lipari-Braman
said.
She credits the retention to clear
communication about why the extra
instruction time is useful and needed,
and innovative approaches to avoiding
burnout.
Staff members received a stipend for
the extra work, and the school built a
reliable pool of substitutes that can fill
in when teachers inevitably need or
want to take vacation time.
Focusing on moving forward,
rather than catching up
Some districts say the insights
they've gained from successful other
initiatives like summer school could
be applied to make extended learning
more attractive, too.
Scott Muri, the superintendent of
the Ector County Independent School
District in Texas, said his district added
11 days to the calendar prior to the
pandemic, bringing the total number
of instructional days to 180. Then, in
2021, the district launched a new 30day
summer program for elementary
students.
It's optional, but rather than focusing
on " catching up " students who've
fallen behind, it's intended to meet the
needs of all students and push them
forward academically, Muri said.
" The marketing for all of this was all
about engagement and opportunity
and the opportunities and experiences
children would have during the summer,
as opposed to making up a course
or getting caught up, " Muri said. " It
was more about, 'You don't want to
miss this,' and it's exciting. "
The traditional summer school
model used to draw about 1,500 students,
Muri said. This year, about
6,000 students participated out of the
roughly 33,500 enrolled in the district.
Teachers, staff members, and families
bought in to both the addition of
11 school days and the extended summer
program because the district has
regularly communicated data about
both overall and individual student
achievement, making the case for " a
strong why, " Muri said.
Teachers were also intimately involved
in the development of the programs.
They devised a model for the
summer program in which they " job
share, " working one half of the summer
before being tagged out by another
teacher to work the other half.
The approach helps avoid burnout,
important now as districts across the
country struggle with staffing shortages,
Muri said.
Some schools start
at a disadvantage
There's another wrinkle to the
conversation about extended learniStock/Getty
Images Plus
http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - November 23, 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - November 23, 2022
