The Four-Day School Week: Impact on Student Achievement

1. The Four-Day School Week: Impact on Student Achievement Paul M. Hewitt George S. Denny University of Arkansas

2. Research and Policy – Poor Research = Poor Policy • Research-based policy making. • Curriculum development. • Text book selection • Federal and state policy. • Etc. • All research isn’t truly equal. • Most Policy is being based on “Think Tank” Studies. • Many funded by Foundations with and ideological leaning. • Remember tobacco research?

3. How Can We Tell Good Research from Poor Research? • Where is it published? • Glossy covered report or Respected peer reviewed journal? • Beware: Many ideological groups are now supporting and publishing their own “Peer Reviewed” Journals to support their agenda. • Who funded it? Is the primary funder known for a political or ideological agenda? • Who wrote the “study?” Do they have a history of supporting one philosophical concept? i.e. charters, vouchers, merit pay, alternative licensure, defined benefits vs. defined contribution retirement programs, etc. • Go to the National Education Policy Center at: http://nepc.colorado.edu • and see if they have reviewed the Think Tank Report or “research.”

4. Why is Policy Being Driven by Weak Research? • It’s all about the Publication. • Academia and the Peer Reviewed Journal fixation. • Professional Journals are almost meaningless! • Think Tanks and those trying to impact policy will publish in Education Week, Newspapers, popular magazines, and OpEd pieces published in newspapers. • Major papers are the key. If you can influence policy for the major cities, you impact educational policy for the entire Nation!

5. Re-authorizing ESEA • March 2010 the Obama Administration released their “Blueprint” to re-authorize ESEA. • May 2010 the Administration through USDOE released six documents called “Research Summaries” to support the administrations Plans. • By being “Research Based” they new ESEA will be based on sound principles to improve and transform public education. Who can argue with research?

6. If It’s Research Based – It Must Be True! • “The research summary (for the Blueprint) doesd not provide accurate, comprehensive, or high quality research findings. Nearly half of the references are from organizations with either string ideological predispositions or a clear financial interest in these policy decisions (such as ACT, Achieve, Data Quality Campaign, Center for American Progress, MassInsight, and Education Sector). The research is rife with inaccuracies, misrepresentations and misunderstandings of cited sources, as well as superficial treatment of the topics. The report does not address (or omits altogether) the research on the central issues………….” Diane Ravitch (NYU) & William J. Mathis, University of Colorado, Boulder

7. Some Short Quotes on Other Chapters. • “It distorts evidence by showcasing articles from the popular press, government publications, and advocacy think tank reports while ignoring a great deal of relevant peer-reviewed scholarship.” Paul Shanker, Simon Fraser University • “The evidence cited to support the administration’s proposals does not in fact always support them, and unfavorable evidence seems to be omitted. Gene Glass, Arizona State University, et.al • “In addition, the report’s confusing presentation seems likely to lead readers to draw conclusions about the research support….that are stronger than a judicious reading of te evidence would suggest.” Clive Belfield, Queens College, City University of New York

8. Where Do Students Go to School? • 2001 Data (But it hasn’t changed much.) • 48,100,000 Students K-12 in U.S. • 16,992 School Districts • 24.2% (4,112) of school districts have less than 300 students and educate 1% of the population. • 60.9% (10,348) of school districts have less than 1,500 students and educate on 10% of the population. • Almost 25% of all students attend in the 100 largest school districts. (0.6% of all school districts) • Think about how this drives education policy making!!!!! • http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/10760/How_School_Districts_Size_Up.html

9. My Research Bias. • No bias going into this! None at all!!! • Don’t really care what the results showed. • It just looked interesting. • Note: In Education Leadership at U of A we make our students identify any bias or preconception they might have and they write it into their dissertations. • Now, let’s look at the Four-Day Week.

10. Conventional Wisdom Says: • Longer Day is better. • Longer Year is better. • More time on a task will increase learning. • Less time off for vacations will eliminate learning loss.

11. The Four-Day Calendar • Students attend four days per week but a longer day so total annual minutes are the same as five-day calendar. • Predominately rural. Not a major National Impact. • Few students attend rural school districts. • First known four-day calendar was in South Dakota in 1931. • Scheduled academics for four days and extra-curricular activities on the fifth day.

12. Main reason for going to a four-day week? Money! • Early 70’s Unity Elementary in Maine saved $13,000 in operating costs in the first five months. (Currently 1490 students) • 1973 Oil Embargo forced districts to cut costs. • Closing down one day a week can save up to 20% in utilities and transportation. • Cimarron, New Mexico started four–day in 1973 to save money. They have been on the schedule since then.

13. The Only One Who Likes Change is a Wet Baby! • Initial proposal met with resistance. • Baby sitting/ child care. Number 1 question! • Loss of days of school. • Teachers opposed longer day (and change in general). • Teachers complained they couldn’t cover the material. • Change phenomenon was similar to going to a Multi-Track YRE Calendar. • Hated it. Loved it.

14. Motivators • Cost savings. • Improved Attendance, Discipline and Participation. • Popularity. • Highly popular with students, parents, teachers. • 95% of teachers like it. (But usually not at first.) • Felt they covered more and students were more focused. • 95-96% of parents like it. • One newly elected board was recalled. • Few instances of districts abandoning it.

15. Academic Performance • Studies are lacking. • 1984 Study in Colorado using ITBS. N’s of 62 & 45. Students were taught on 5-day for two years and then on 4-day for two years. No significant change in performance. • Webster County in 2002 to 2005 again compared student on CTBS who switched from 5 to 4-day. The students showed improvement, but the district had already been on an upward trend. • Merryville, LA. (2003) ACT scores went for 18.7 to 20.0. • All studies were very small. However, none showed that four-day week was not at least equal to five-day. • Recent South Dakota newspaper article (May 4, 2010) said that 16 districts on 4-day had saw a drop of .5 percentage points in math and 2.1 percentage points when compared to rest of the state (statistical treatment was probably invalid.) • Colorado 2009: “Both groups of districts perform similarly… Students show very similar results…. As reflected by Colorado Growth Model.”

16. Study Methodology. • Colorado • 178 school districts • 62 are on four-day week. (34% of the districts) • Only 2.7% of the states enrollment. • Matched 4 and 5 day schools on enrollment size and FRL%. • Total students represented in the study was 27,842. • Enrollments were positively skewed so we transformed the enrollment variable by adding 50, then taking the natural logarithm. This made the enrollments nearly normal. • Distribution of FRL% satisfied a test for normality so no adjustments were needed. • Not every district had a match and those were excluded leaving 45 school districts.

17. Variables Tested • Colorado has a combined measure of a percentage all students proficient or advanced overall on their Criterion-referenced exam. • Given the small size of many districts it was difficult to break down accurately for math and ELA scores but most recent Colorado results allowed it. Because of small size we had to exclude a few districts. • Used three paired sample t tests to look at means for elementary, middle, and high school. Sought a .05 level of significance.

18. Statistics 101: Review • Mean Scores are the average score. 50% is always above the mean and 50% is below the mean. Unless you are in Lake Wobegon, half of the people are always below average. Even if the scores increase dramatically, half will always be above and below the Mean (Average). • Standard Deviation: From the Mean (average score) you go up to one Standard Deviation on a Normal Curve and 34% of the people will be between the Mean and one Standard Deviation. • From the mean go down one Standard Deviation and you’ll get another 34% of the people. 68% are plus and minus one Standard Deviation from the Mean. • Importance? It shows the spread of scores.

19. Statistical Significance • Don’t just look at Mean scores. Just because scores are different doesn’t mean there is a ‘Significant Difference. • In statistics the term “Significant” is or has to be defined. • Researchers want to reach a level of .05 or .01 Level of Confidence. If they can reach that level then the difference is Significant. • .05 Level of Confidence tells us that a difference that great would only occur by chance 5 times out of 100. At the .01 Level of Confidence we know hat a difference that great would only occur by chance 1 time out of 100. • Let’s look at Four-Day Week data.

22. * p < .05

24. Conclusions • There is no statistically significant difference between student performance on Four and Five-Day weeks. • Mean scores are higher for students on Five Day week at all levels with the difference greatest at the elementary levels. This indicates need for further study. • The four-day week is not any better than the five-day week but it appears not to be significantly worse (statistically).

25. Reflections – Further Study • The four-day week implementation varies greatly. Some close down totally, others use the fifth day for enrichment. How do these variations impact student performance? • What are the time on task differences between 4 and 5 day weeks? Do teachers really utilize time more efficiently? • Get individual student data and build a virtual district and match it up to get a more in-depth look at ELA and Math as well as sub-population variations. Would require access to individual student data. • Other ideas? Suggestions? • Copies of Power Point at: http://edle.uark.edu/1027.htm Click on “Four-Day Week” at bottom of page.