Legislators favor longer school days

By ANTHONY CARDINALE
Buffalo News Staff Reporter
6/29/01

More students would meet state academic standards if they had a longer school day as well as after-hours access to their schools, public officials said Thursday during a forum on the needs of schoolchildren.

A pledge to convince the governor that more money is needed for education was also made by the speakers - Deputy Assembly Speaker Arthur O. Eve, Assemblyman Sam Hoyt and State Sen. Byron W. Brown, all Buffalo Democrats.

They spoke to 20 residents at New Hope Baptist Church on Richmond Avenue, where the sponsor of the forum, the Alliance for Quality Education, distributed leaflets telling how to put pressure on Gov. George E. Pataki and Legislature leaders to pass a state budget with increases in funding for education.

Asked by one parent, Antoinette Guercio, how many students might be harmed by increased pressure to meet state standards, Hoyt said he favors the higher Regents standards but thinks they should be introduced in steps, with full funding to do the job.

"I'm for a longer school year, or a longer school day," Hoyt said. "And we need professional development of teachers to help our students meet these standards."

Regina Eaton, state director of the Alliance for Quality Education, agreed that a longer school day may be needed.

"A kid may need an hour to perform a half-hour task," she said. "This is a huge problem."

Eve said schools also should be open after hours, and even on Saturdays, to allow students to spend more time in mastering English and math requirements. Schools could be opened after school hours by staggering the schedules of school engineers, he said.

"You can call your School Board members, who are negotiating a very lucrative contract with school engineers right now, and tell them not to sign that contract unless it allows schools to open after school hours," he said.

After a lengthy discussion of the many obstacles to student achievement, Brown said, "What I've heard tonight is really reflective of a late state budget, and the governor proposing not to increase funding for education."

Brown encouraged residents to exert pressure to pass a budget by contacting the Albany offices of the governor and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

Hoyt said that Democrats in the Assembly want to increase funding for public education by $1 billion and that the governor has been balking. He and Eve blamed Pataki for the overdue state budget.

"The governor has chosen not to be part of the process," Eve said. "He prefers to pick and choose and line-veto whatever items he doesn't like in the budget" that will eventually emerge from the Legislature.

Eaton said the late state budget is forcing school boards to adopt their budgets "in a vacuum," guessing what their state aid will be and postponing the hiring of new teachers until just before Labor Day.

Teachers Think 5th Year Would Help

By ANJETTA MCQUEEN, AP Education Writer, July 3, 2000
From the L.A. Times

     PHILADELPHIA -- While students may cringe at the idea of a fifth year of high school, a teacher's union president says that's the ideal prescription for those least prepared to continue their education or enter the work force.

     "It's a choice between letting kids fall through the cracks .... or doing whatever it takes to bring them up to par," said Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who's proposing a special "transitional year" for students in danger of failing high school exit exams or of dropping out before even taking the test.

     It's one of the ideas to be discussed as thousands of educators attend simultaneous meetings of the two major teachers' unions this week, shaping their lobbying agendas and plans for the new school year.
 
    Under Feldman's proposal -to be put before her union on Monday -specially trained teachers would help students by using methods employed to catch up military recruits, high school drop outs and other teens and young adults with minimal reading skills. The current system, Feldman said in an interview last week, is unfair to students who have been promoted regardless of grades or test scores, then asked to pass tough tests for their diplomas. About 30 states have such exit exams.

     However, states set their own school schedules. Kindergarten is not even mandatory in every state, so most students only get grades one through 12.

     It's unclear whether teachers, students and parents would welcome any change in the dozen years a child usually spends in school: "When it comes to stigmatizing students, there's not going to be any difference between holding a student back or adding a year," said Galen Price, a North Carolina 12th-grader who heads the International Student Activism Alliance, a nationwide network that follows state and federal education policy.

     Districts -already adding summer, Saturday and after-school classes for struggling students -might balk at another reason to find more classrooms and more teachers for extra kids.

     "It's definitely going to be a financial stress on them," said Judy Seltz, a spokeswoman for the American Association of School Administrators. "Even if that fifth year has a substantially smaller enrollment, there's still staffing and space implications."

     In remarks prepared for Monday's opening of the union's 76th annual meeting, Feldman says educators could provide the extra help if state and federal lawmakers used the nation's economic prosperity to build new schools and hire more teachers: "The fact is, too many of our political leaders and school officials are not doing their part."

     While the AFT, representing 1 million teachers in larger cities, meets here, the National Education Association, the largest group with 2.5 million members, is meeting in Chicago.

     Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, who's won the endorsement of both groups, is slated to appear in Philadelphia and Chicago this week.

     July is traditionally when the nation's schoolteachers meet to set priorities for how they'll teach in classrooms and how they'll bargain with the people who sign their paychecks. This year -with elections nearing -a flurry of proposals will give teachers much to contemplate: Link their pay to students' scores? Take a mandatory test to keep their licenses? Pay higher dues?

     Some of the new issues on the table at both meetings are first nibbles for organizations usually seen as entrenched and resistant to change.

     Roughly 4,000 delegates expected at AFT will decide the union's position on testing teachers and raising standards for charter schools and online colleges.

     Nearly 9,000 delegates of the NEA, recently criticized for how it reports the funds it spends on political activities, are slated to consider the union's policy on turning around low-performing schools, school privatization, and teacher pay based on performance, rather than seniority.

     They will also approve state-level mergers of the two unions in Florida and Montana. Meanwhile, the persistent, but unsuccessful, mission to merge the two labor groups will continue with high-level, behind-the-scenes talks, leaders say.

-------

     On the Net:
     http://www.aft.org
     http://www.nea.org

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School year may be longer for some

WFTV Eyewitness News, 8/3/1999

The new school year is just days away, but the school year could be 30 days longer on some local campuses.

The Volusia County School District has proposed that four schools extend the year from 180 days to 210 days.

The schools are McInnis Elementary, Seville Public, Pierson Elementary and Taylor Middle School.

This is just an experimental program at this point. The state now has to decide whether to fund those extended school calendars. The first three schools are feeders for Taylor Middle, and the new plan would keep kids on the same schedule when they move from elementary up to middle school.

Poll: 53% nix longer school year

Associated Press
Iowa News

. DES MOINES (AP) - Most Iowans oppose the idea of extending the school day and the school year, according to a poll released Tuesday.

The Des Moines Register's copyrighted Iowa Poll said 53 percent of Iowans oppose the idea of lengthening the 180-day school year, while 45 percent approve.

The idea of lengthening the standard school day draws even stronger opposition from Iowans - 60 percent against and just 38 percent in favor.

The poll comes at a time when a state educational reform commission is considering the idea of providing more instruction time for Iowa students.

Marvin Pomerantz, a Des Moines businessman and chairman of the commission, said he expects the commission to recommend that schools be kept open year-round to act as community centers.

Whether that idea leads to a recommendation for longer school days or a longer school year will become clear when the commission issues its report in mid-September.

The commission, which was appointed by Gov. Terry Branstad, is expected to set the agenda for a major debate of school policies in the 1998 Legislature, which convenes in January.

The Iowa Poll, conducted June 26-July 2, is based on telephone interviews with 800 Iowans age 18 or older. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

1997 Associated Press

Longer school year plan could help provide answers

Athens Daily News, March 8, 1998   

It seems logical to assume that the more time one spends studying, doing homework and actively participating in the classroom, the more one will learn.
   There is evidence to indicate a strong correlation between the length of time spent in scholarly pursuits and the level of academic achievement.
   Japanese students, for example, spend 245 days a year in school and consistently score higher on many tests than U.S. students who typically spend only 180 days a year in the classroom.
   Whether a longer school year will help Georgia students is the question posed in a proposition being considered by the state Senate after it was discussed and approved in the House last week.
   Rep. Charles Smith of St. Marys wants to encourage Georgia schools to experiment with a longer year. He won approval in the House for additional funding for those school systems that take up the challenge.
   Under the provisions of a bill sent to the Senate, schools and systems could apply for three-year grants to lengthen the school year.
   The pilot program initially calls for only two grants: for one school and one system. Schools or systems going to a 200-day school year would get a 20 percent boost in state funding. Employees of those schools would get at least a 10 percent raise.
   Schools going to a 220-day school year would get 40 percent more money, and their employees at least a 20 percent raise.
   A number of factors, including economic status, parental involvement, the education level of parents and others circumstances influence academic performance.
   While those elements cannot be controlled by those who want to improve education, the amount of time a child spends in the classroom can be.
   Rep. Smith's proposed experiment may not be the answer to Georgia's education woes, but it could be part of the solution. It's worth a try to see what impact a 200- or 220-day school year would have on the educational achievement of the state's children.

8 to 5: Some educators like Barnes' latest plan to improve schools by lengthening the day Jennifer Brett - Staff Thursday, November 30, 2000

Fear that Georgia's students might be forced into a nine-hour school day kept Gov. Roy Barnes' chief education adviser busy Wednesday. Ron Newcomb stressed to his many callers that an 8 a.m.-to-5 p.m. middle school schedule would not be mandatory.

Still, some metro educators have taken a shine to the idea, proposed earlier this week as a volunteer pilot program by the governor's Education Reform Study Commission. Members also recommend increasing the minimum time middle school students spend in core academic subjects from 4 1/2 to five hours a day. But the nine-hour day was the more powerful attention-grabber.

"It's not something we're mandating or even something we're trying to push," said Newcomb, who fielded calls Wednesday from legislators nervous their constituents' children were about to be forced to go to school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. He said the proposal would benefit schools that already offer after-school enrichment programs and would like funding to offer all students the extra hours of instruction.

"If, on a volunteer basis, some school wants to pilot and fund a longer middle school day, let's take a look at helping them out," Newcomb said. The commission wants the state to provide funding for at least six middle schools to try the longer schedule, which has reportedly proven successful elsewhere in raising student achievement.

DeKalb County schools Superintendent James Hallford likes the proposal so much that he phoned the governor Wednesday and asked that a DeKalb middle school be included in the pilot.

"Our superintendent and each of us who serve at his discretion are totally supportive of the governor's reform proposals," said Marion Anders, executive director for middle school instruction in DeKalb County.

Anders said the DeKalb system is already doing some of the other things mentioned in the reform proposals, including having students spend at least five hours per day in core academic subjects. In addition to that, the system uses grant money to pay teachers extra to tutor low-achieving students in reading.

Paul Kraack, a former teacher and spokesman for the Clayton County school system, also endorsed giving the longer day a try.

"In education, anything we can do to increase student achievement, we need to take a look at," he said.

But he added that such a schedule has logistical ramifications. Longer days would likely put buses on the road in the middle of rush hour, meaning longer commutes for students, more time on the road for bus drivers and greater expenses for operations and driver salaries, he said. Teachers would also have to be paid more, he said.

"The question is going to be whether or not the state can afford it," he said.

Joanie Arcement, co-president of the Gwinnett PTA Council, said school finances aren't the only thing the longer day could hurt. Student fatigue could also become a problem, she said.

"Their little brain cells are going to say 'aiiieeeee, give me a break,' " said Arcement, whose 12-year-old son attends Shiloh Middle School. "I don't know if they need more hours, they just need to do better with the time they have."

Barbara Kriner, principal of Holcomb Bridge Middle School in Alpharetta, said students have a hard enough time sitting still on their current school day, which lasts about 7 1/2 hours. She'd prefer a longer school year to a longer school day. "We end up doing a lot of reteaching the first six weeks," she said.

Don Doran, principal of Atlanta's Inman Middle School, said he has no problem with 30 minutes of additional instruction, and noted that most middle school days extend past 5 p.m. with after-school programs and extracurricular activities. But he said a longer school day needs to be structured so that students are not being force-fed new information all day.

"Kids just don't have that kind of staying power," Doran said. "You are just getting diminishing returns as the day extends."

Staff writers Rochelle Carter, Duane Stanford, Michael Pearson, Henry Farber, Chris Reinolds and Will Anderson contributed to this article.

Calls for Change in the Scheduling of the School Day 

By JODI WILGOREN, New York Times, January 10, 2001

The newest educational mantra may as well be: Never let them leave the building.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York wants Saturday classes. The state's governor, George E. Pataki, says students should stay in school until after dark. And in California, Gov. Gray Davis plans to tack 30 days onto the academic year — stretching it by 17 percent — for middle school students who have fallen behind in an era of mounting expectations.

The proposals, made in recent days during the annual parade of politicians' speeches on the state of their respective domains, add to a mounting sense that America's school schedule — which was based not on educational needs but on those of an agrarian economy — should be ripped up and redrawn.

"Our traditional school calendar has simply outlived its usefulness," said Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a public policy research group based in Washington that published a paper last summer on the concept of all-day, all-year schools.

"This ideological limit on what schools can do and when they can be open is so clearly a remnant of the past," Mr. Teixeira added. "Twenty years from now, we're going to look back on the way schools are today and have been for a long time and think, `How could anyone possibly believe that system would work?' "

In the last four years, federal financing for after-school programs has skyrocketed to $846 million from $1 million. At the same time, millions of schoolchildren have been sent to summer school: nearly one in five in the nation's large urban districts were in class last July. Year-round schools, which sprinkle vacations throughout the year rather than have a long summer break, now serve about 2 million of the nation's 52 million students. And many of the 2,000 charter schools that have sprouted across the country since 1990 are luring families in part by offering longer hours.

Meanwhile, Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has called for a fifth year of high school for those who are struggling, and Richard W. Riley, the secretary of education, has suggested making teaching a 12-month job, largely to make more time for professional development. Teachers' unions generally support this idea.

The trend is powered by a troika of sociological forces: more parents working outside the home; research showing that children get into trouble during the late afternoon and lose educational ground during summer breaks; and the higher standards that have been embraced from coast to coast over the last decade.

Support for the more-time movement is broad and bipartisan, but considerable obstacles include the enormous price tag and the gaping teacher shortage. Educators and politicians also caution that more of the same is not necessarily better, and that expanded calendars must be filled with creative curriculum overseen by qualified personnel.

The Knowledge Is Power Program in Houston and the South Bronx, which has won national recognition for high test scores and has been showcased by President-elect George W. Bush, requires attendance from 7:25 a.m. until 5 p.m., two or three Saturdays a month, and several weeks in summer.

"When we started, everyone thought we were nuts — now everyone wants to do it," said David Levin, principal of the program's New York outlet. "Excellence requires sacrifice. That's a value that's essential to be successful in any endeavor. When you put in all this extra time with kids, they don't get the sense that you're just punching the clock."

The call for increased time in school began in 1983 with the landmark "Nation at Risk" report, but the volume was turned up in 1994 with a pair of papers, by the Department of Education and the Carnegie Corporation, that focused specifically on the calendar. "Time should be adjusted to meet the individual needs of learners," the federal report said, "rather than the administrative convenience of adults."

Since then, the pressure has only mounted, as virtually every state has adopted more rigorous curriculums, and many have introduced tough exit exams. With teachers and principals being held accountable for results on standardized tests, many have complained that they cannot cram more into already crowded days.

"We have asked more of our students and schools than ever before," Governor Davis said in his speech Monday night. "Educators tell me that for all the new investments we've made, the main thing they need is more time to teach."

In part, the motivation is international competition: a 1990-91 study showed that the average number of required school days in the United States, 178, fell behind that of 16 European and Asian countries, many of whose students outperform Americans: Italy, Israel, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and Korea all had more than 200 days; China had 250.

"If we want American kids to catch up with kids who learn more in other countries, American kids might need to spend more time learning like kids in other countries do," said Chester E. Finn Jr., an education official in the Reagan administration.

Noting that most juvenile crime and teenage pregnancies occur between 3 and 6 p.m., and that thousands of children spend those hours parked in front of TV sets, Mr. Finn added, "For an awful lot of kids, school is a more salubrious environment than where else they're likely to be spending their time."

But time is money.

Many state legislatures have rejected proposals to add days after considering the bottom line. The California plan would cost at least $770 per student per year — or $900 million annually once it was fully implemented in three grades. Mayor Giuliani's proposals, to send 45,000 students to weekend science classes, and 45,000 new immigrants to English immersion workshops, would cost an estimated $34 million a year — for only 8 percent of the city's students. Governor Pataki wants to double his $15 million allocation for after-school programs, but that would bring the total number of children served to just 40,000.

"It's going to be very expensive, and we have to be prepared to pay for it," said Diane Ravitch, a pre- eminent educational historian.

Many politicians and educators believe that now is the time to try, since states are swimming in surpluses and the public's interest in education is at an all-time high. But a parallel problem comes in finding people to fill the classrooms for all those extra hours. The nation needs 2.5 million teachers by 2010 as it is.

"Whatever you do, you're going to need the committed, trained and talented people to execute these reforms," said Mr. Levin of the Knowledge Is Power Program, KIPP. "The danger is that the reforms themselves could be devalued."

Another debate is over content. Researchers say the longer day and year should be used to address students' varied learning styles, and to add enrichment activities, like theater.

"We don't believe in repeating what teachers are doing during the day," said Lenore Neier of the Y.M.C.A. of Greater New York, which runs school-based programs for 11,000 children, featuring plays and journal writing, among other activities. "It's literacy made fun."

Jose Hernandez, a KIPP eighth grader, said he appreciated the Saturday and summer sessions because "you get more opportunities to learn." As for the politician's proposals, 13-year-old Jose said added time should not be used for recreational activities that children could do on their own, but for productive ones. "If," he explained, "it's like anything that could help us in the future."

Stretching Time for Schools

Longer days, longer school year may be long overdue

The Christian Science Monitor

Anyone with school-age kids knows that a demanding schedule for education - classes, extracurricular activities, and homework - must run like clockwork.

And yet rarely, does it seem, are there enough hours to perform all these learning activities well.

Not to worry, say many educators and governors around the United States. Pushed by public demand to boost student performance on standardized tests, many schools are making the obvious adjustment: stretching class periods, school days, and even the school year.

The old school schedules of a bygone agrarian era (when children had real chores affecting family livelihood) are coming up short in the race for quality education.

But will merely increasing time spent at school bring an increase in learning? It can certainly help - if it's more than just time that's added.

Some elementary schools in the Washington, D.C., area have lengthened school days by an extra hour or more to give students, particularly those falling behind, remedial help with academic basics. Test scores at these schools have sharply risen.

The governors of California and Georgia are proposing a longer school year and school day for middle- schoolers, because the students' test scores have been particularly difficult to raise. The mayor of New York even wants Saturday classes.

But such quick fixes are rarely that simple. Teachers need to be enthusiastic participants. And if they put in more time, their pay needs to go up, with taxpayers footing the bill. Parents' schedules, including summer vacations, will need adjusting. Above all, any schedule changes should address the needs of kids themselves. A less frantic, more thoughtfully paced day would serve them well.

Many schools are reorganizing the school day into longer "blocks" of time per class, allowing students to go more in-depth on topics. In Minneapolis, high schools are starting the school day at 8:40 a.m. instead of 7:15 a.m. Such a later start better suits the late-to-bed-late-to-rise sleeping habits of most teenagers. Classes also end a little over an hour later, at 3:10 p.m.

This experiment in Minneapolis may soon become a model once it becomes clearer that such a schedule shift truly raises test scores. Some observers already see an improvement in grades. At the least, kids now generally don't show up for the first morning class acting like zombies.

It's worth noting that students in other countries - notably academic powerhouses like Japan and South Korea - spend many more hours and days at school than US children.

Adding class time for America's youth is probably long overdue.

Some High-School Seniors Find A Lack of Purpose in Final Year

By JUNE KRONHOLZ
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Copyright 1999. All rights reserved.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Two and a half months into his senior year at Thomas A. Edison High School last fall, Andy Wong learned he'd been accepted into the University of Virginia freshman class for this fall. So, with 26 courses on his transcript -- five more than he needs to graduate -- he's using his last year of high school to earn credits toward his first year in college.

Which raises the question: What's the point of the senior year anyway?

Forget the idea that it's a time to plan for the future: Huge numbers of kids have that settled even before the football season is over. The make-or-break SAT college-entrance examination is in October -- and students now can sign up for it a year in advance. College acceptance letters start arriving before the leaves turn: Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., offers seats beginning in mid-September. Harvard fills more than half its freshman class by Christmas.

The early-decision process -- in which colleges give priority acceptances to youngsters who then are committed to attend -- means growing numbers of high schoolers are locked into a college decision by December. The College Board says 204 colleges now offer early decision, and filled 49,000 of their seats that way this year -- one for every 17 kids going to a four-year college.

A Long, Slow Windup

Forget, too, the idea that the senior year is a time to summarize or consolidate learning. State exit exams -- which sound like they're meant to test what a youngster has learned in four years of high school -- are over long before the exit is anywhere close. New Jersey's exit exam is in the 11th grade, and based on 10th-grade skills. Tennessee's is in the ninth grade, and geared to what an eighth-grader should know. Indeed, according to educators who monitor such tests, the only students who take exit exams in the 12th grade are those who flunked them in earlier grades.

With the emphasis on passing enough courses to graduate, rather than on taking the right courses to succeed, enrollment in tough math and science classes drops. Only one in five seniors takes trigonometry; one in four takes physics. The government-appointed National Commission on Excellence in Education recommended years ago that all youngsters take at least four English classes, three in social studies, and two each in math and science before they graduate. But 37% of seniors graduate with less than those minimums, and 23% graduate with just that.

All this means that the senior year has gradually become a holding tank for thousands of youngsters. Almost one in four of the country's 2.8 million high-school seniors works 20 hours a week or more, and these aren't baby-sitting jobs that might allow time to study. About 25% of those seniors work in food-service jobs; another quarter work in sales or as cashiers. Laurence Steinberg, a professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia, studied seniors to see if they took easier courses when they began working; a third of them said they did.

Perhaps not surprisingly, 22% of the students in public four-year colleges take at least one remedial-education course in their first year. When Public Agenda, an independent polling organization, asked if recent high-school graduates had the skills they needed to succeed in college or at work, 68% of employers and 52% of professors said no.

Also forget the idea that the senior year is a time to develop leadership or demonstrate responsibility. Whether out of boredom or rebellion, 91% of seniors cut school now and then, the Department of Education says. "They're moving on, and they start a little early," says Janice Dreis, a senior-class adviser at New Trier Township High in Winnetka, Ill.

About 60% of seniors concede that they spend fewer than six hours on homework every week, while 40% say they spend at least three hours every day watching television. Lots of seniors tell researchers they regularly read for pleasure, go to church, take music lessons and spend time with their parents. But 27% also admit that they had at least five drinks in a row during some night over the past two weeks.

Finally, forget the idea that it's necessarily the kids who are to blame for the senior-year malaise. Record numbers of seniors are finding their courses so unchallenging that they're signing up for advanced-placement, or AP, classes, which earn them college credits while they're still in high school. The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor says that 80% of its freshmen arrive with some college credits. The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill says it has admitted youngsters with as many as 48 college credits -- enough to make them second-semester sophomores before they ever set foot on campus.

Radical Rethinking

All this is prompting some schools to rethink the senior year. Affluent, hyper-achieving New Trier, where almost everyone goes on to college, still finds that "we have seniors dying on the vine," says Mrs. Dries. So, beginning six years ago, New Trier gave seniors the option of spending the last four weeks of school on a senior project that undergoes a jury evaluation and is exhibited for the whole school to see. Last year's seniors, among other things, cataloged fish for the Field Museum, shadowed a police officer, studied Farsi, planned a golf tournament and practiced for a trumpet recital.

Central Park East Secondary, a New York public school, requires that its seniors take a course at City College to graduate from high school, and complete a 100-hour internship at such neighboring institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, the police station or Mount Sinai Hospital (the morgue is a popular assignment).

A group of high schools around Ithaca, N.Y., encourages students with an interest in medicine to spend their senior year at the local hospital. The high schools base teachers at the hospital for English and other required courses; seniors spend the rest of the day with professional mentors. "It makes the curriculum really relevant," says Katrin Turek, assistant superintendent of the Ithaca schools.

Vito Perrone, director of teacher education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, says educators have talked for years about remodeling the senior year to require a project or recital or internship -- "something that matters," he says.

Beyond that, parents often battle anything that would make their kids' high-school curriculum different from anyone else's. Harvard professor Janine Bempechat remembers the scuffle when she advised a Connecticut high school to switch to block scheduling -- that is, offering math and English two hours a day for one semester each, rather than one hour a day for two semesters each. Fearing some undefined disadvantage on the SAT or in college admission, "the parents went nuts," says Ms. Bempechat.

An Ending With Few Surprises

At Thomas Edison High here in suburban Washington, D.C., springtime graduation rituals are gathering speed on a recent day, even as a winter snowstorm rages outside. There's a poll under way to choose prom colors. But, for most seniors here, that's about the extent of the surprises. The theme for the June 22 graduation party is set: A city recreation center will be decorated to look like a cruise ship. A senior-class beach week follows that, and motel reservations already are in. And most who are college-bound have known for weeks, if not months, where they'll be attending school next fall.

Edison is a sprawling place, built in the 1960s to school the early baby boomers. Remodeled and enlarged, it's now educating the record numbers of kids the record number of boomers produced. Edison's 1,420 students aren't much different from those at many suburban schools: Half of them are minorities, 30% qualify for free lunches because of family income, 6% are learning English as a second language, 12% are in special education. Their SAT scores were just below the national average last year, nicely above it this year. Just over half go on to four-year colleges.

Andy Wong, who took early decision from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville to study engineering, settled his future sooner than most of his Edison classmates. Still, the once-common practice of universities sending out their acceptances in April is long past. Brianna Wilkins, who plans to study government and law, heard from the University of Michigan and Michigan State in December. Rosalia Gaytan, who dreams of opening a pastry shop, was accepted into a culinary course at the College of Mexico in Mexico City in early February.

"By the senior year, you already know where you're going to go and what you're going to do," says John Francis, who has been accepted by the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y. That means that motivating kids who already have one foot in the future can be problematic. "Kids who start out the year pumped somehow get distracted," says Luther Fennell, who has been a principal for 27 years, seven of them at Edison.

Most colleges demand final grades from graduating seniors to prevent a slide, and can revoke an admission. But Esther Ramirios, assistant director of admissions at Purdue, says that for that to happen "you'd have to completely screw up: not go to class, not turn in homework, change drastically." Jerome Lucido, director of admissions at North Carolina, says he has canceled admissions only "a handful of times," and then more often for things like cheating or being convicted of a crime.

Things could change for some future seniors when Virginia's tough new standardized tests become mandatory for graduation in the year 2004. But in any event, students will take them at the end of certain courses beginning in the ninth grade, and could finish all six required tests before their senior year.

Exit tests and final reports aren't necessary for high achievers, of course. "We stay motivated because that's the way we're brought up," says Brianna Wilkins, who is senior-class president, takes three advanced-placement classes, volunteers at a hospital, plays softball and works at a pizza parlor 35 hours a week. "You work hard because there's always somebody out there who wants your spot," adds John Francis, who should know -- he wants a spot at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Few kids are that focused, though. Oscar Molina, who leaves for the Marine Corps four days after graduation, says he regularly vows "to bring my grades up, and then the next day I see myself slacking again." As the year winds down, "our marginal students become more marginal," says Lonnie Lowery, head of attendance and discipline. Absences increase, discipline frays. "They act out of character," he says. Michael Graham, who wants to attend St. Paul's College in Lawrenceville, Va., and eventually open a kennel, smiles slyly at the mention of hooky -- "a senior obligation," he insists.

With their focus already straying, seniors then compound the problem by taking jobs. Tony Rugari, a senior-class adviser, tells the youngsters not to work while they're in school. "Most can't do it," he says. But so many try that Edison is giving academic credit to Trent Conklin for working 35 hours a week at a grocery store, and Christina Manning for working 40 hours a week at McDonald's -- something it calls cooperative learning.

Educators who try to explain why U.S. teenagers score so poorly on international math and science tests claim it's partly because they spend so much time at work instead of studying. The National Research Council says 53% of U.S. teenagers hold jobs, compared with 17% of Japanese teens and 7% in France. The National Restaurant Association says that 1.5 million of the country's 10.5 million restaurant workers are 18 or younger.

Christina Manning, who talks of working in an office after graduation, concedes that her McDonald's job allows little time for studying, even though she leaves school early to go to work, and that she has taken only as many courses as she absolutely must to graduate. She needs the money, she says -- she pays $50 a week to her family for room and board.

The notion of high-school seniors holding jobs to raise college tuition or help with the family bills is largely a false one, though. Suburban kids, presumably more affluent than others, work more often and longer hours than do city youngsters, the Department of Education says. It adds that 80% of seniors use "none or only a little" of their earnings to help with family expenses, and other studies find that only four in 10 save any of it for college.

After 10 months on the job, Trent Conklin admits he has saved only "a couple hundred" dollars toward his tuition at Northern Virginia Community College in Fairfax County. "I blew a lot in trying to have fun," he says. Adds Oscar Molina, the future Marine: "We throw our money away -- we're kids. But we're learning."

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School year may be extended

Friday December 15, 2000

By The Associated Press

The state Board of Education wants to extend the academic year for public schools.

Saying students don't get enough classroom days, the board on Thursday instructed state schools Superintendent David Stewart to develop a legislative proposal for board members to examine at their Jan. 11 meeting. The proposal would add instructional days to the state's annual 180-day school calendar.

"We need more time for teachers with students. The time has gotten shorter and shorter, with teachers having to spend days in Faculty Senate and on other things,'' said state board member Jim McKnight of Pleasants County.

"In the end, the school year gets to be like 160 days instead of 180 days. How do you learn that way?'' McKnight said.

Stewart agreed, saying research has shown that most states require more than 180 days.

"I think we need more time. Children need more instructional time than they're getting,'' he said.

However, Stewart said he's not sure how many additional days he'll propose.

Adding days to the school year would require legislative approval because the additional days would have to be funded.

Also, Stewart and board members said such a decision would likely need the consent of the West Virginia Education Association and the West Virginia Federation of Teachers, the state's two largest teachers unions.

"I never said [adding school days] would be a popular move, but I do believe it's the right one,'' said state board member Jim MacCallum of Boone County.

During Thursday's meeting, a report showed that 16 of the state's 55 county school systems are not fully approved by the state's Office of Education Performance Audits.

Full approval is given to a county school system which meets or exceeds "high quality standards for student, school and school system performance.''

Fourteen county systems received either temporary or conditional approval status, which means they are working on improvement plans that could lead to full approval. Those counties are Cabell, Fayette, Boone, Grant, Hardy, Lewis, Logan, McDowell, Nicholas, Pendleton, Raleigh, Wayne, Wirt and Wyoming.

Lincoln and Mingo counties are considered in "nonapproval'' status, which means the counties must address severe deficiencies.

The report was conducted through surprise visits to schools by state inspectors.

Forty counties' systems were fully approved in 1999, one more than in 2000. But state officials say standards were tougher in 2000 because officials increased their emphasis on evaluation.

The state took over the Mingo County school system in 1998 and the Lincoln County system last year.

Kenna Seal, director of the performance audits office, told board members that only 49 schools statewide failed to meet the minimum standards for the Stanford 9 standardized achievement test, down from 64 schools in 1999 and 98 in 1998.

Too many high school seniors major in wasting time, commission reports
Andrew Mollison - Cox Washington Bureau
Thursday, January 18, 2001

Washington --- High schools and parents let many seniors waste their last year of school, which helps explain why one-third to one-half aren't adequately prepared for college or the workplace, a report submitted Wednesday to Education Secretary Richard Riley concludes.

''Many students reported 'ditching' senior classes because the atmosphere encouraged them to consider the senior year a farewell tour of adolescence and school,'' said the report from Riley's National Commission on the High School Senior Year.

''I have heard too many college leaders describe the senior year of high school as a wasteland,'' Riley said. ''Many high school seniors literally check out, others spend more time working than going to school, and too many young people do not get the help they need (in choosing their courses) to make well-informed judgments about life after high school.''

The commission said many seniors apparently don't realize ''a high school diploma is no longer a guarantee of success in either postsecondary education or the world of work.''

About 30 percent of today's college-bound seniors have to take remedial courses in college, and many of those going directly into the work force find out they can't get jobs that would ever pay enough to support a family.

Unlike their counterparts in many other countries, American seniors are more likely to hold down a job than to take courses in science or math. ''When push comes to shove, low-skilled, part-time jobs that earn students spending money appear to be far more important than school,'' the report said.

Stephen Portch, chancellor of the University System of Georgia, has served on Riley's commission and has preached to Gov. Roy Barnes' Education Reform Study Commission about the problem for more than a year.

Echoing the report, Portch said there is a kind of collusion between many seniors and their parents: Parents don't mind their sons and daughters having light schedules during the last year because that lets them work to make money for college.

Top colleges add to the problem by accepting many students by October of their senior year, Portch said. "What does that say to students?"

The lack of focus on academics in the senior year may be one of the reasons more than half of Georgia's HOPE scholars are unable to maintain a B average in their freshman year of college and lose the scholarship, he said.

Portch has advocated that Georgia move to a single, more rigorous high school diploma requirement that would force students to continue taking tough classes into their senior year. Currently, students can earn college-prep or technical track diplomas. In both cases, students can finish most of their key classes before their senior year.

Many of the seniors or recent seniors interviewed by the commission said they were ''too bored'' to do much in school during their final year.

At one extreme, Riley said, are the poor-performing students who ''haven't learned to read well, to read critically, so they are really bored.''

At the other extreme are high-performing students who finish their required courses before or during their junior year and say they don't feel challenged anymore, said the commission's vice chairman, Jacquelyn Belcher, president of Georgia Perimeter College in Decatur.

Last semester, the community college tried to combat boredom among those students by accepting 900 high school students from the metropolitan Atlanta area in a dual-enrollment program. They take a mix of college-level and high school courses.

Amanda Seals, a spokeswoman for Georgia School Superintendent Linda Schrenko, said the state has taken steps to combat senior slacking. It added a year of math to the college prep curriculum, encouraged students to take more Advance Placement courses and pays for them to take the PSAT before they take the SAT.

The 33 officials, dignitaries and researchers named to the national commission last September by Riley include Houston schools superintendent Rod Paige, designated by President-elect George W. Bush to be Riley's successor as education secretary.

Staff writer James Salzer contributed to this report.

Top high school seniors slacking off out of boredom, report says

01/18/2001

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Even smart students are slacking off during their senior years in high school, the government said Wednesday in the last study released by outgoing Education Secretary Richard Riley.

"Our high schools haven't necessarily changed, but the world has changed," Mr. Riley said at a news conference to cap his eight years as head of the Education Department. "At this level, we should be more committed to our children, not less."

The report, by a panel appointed by Mr. Riley and including Education Secretary-designate Rod Paige, suggests that high schools are neglecting 12th-graders and that those students are neglecting classes.

The panel based its conclusions on existing research and student interviews and offered few solutions in the first of its two reports. It concluded that mass boredom afflicts students who have gained early college admission just as much as students who are on the brink of dropping out.

Researchers who interviewed seniors last fall said college-bound students often have too few classes to occupy them; others, not urged to take advanced classes once they've gained the minimum credits for diplomas, focus on outside work.

A student named Eunice said: "By senior year, I was done with math. I was done with history. ... I was just taking a bunch of classes I didn't need."

A student named Kyle complained that teachers, "would help the advanced people, or superior people. But below that, it was kind of like, 'Whatever.'"

But statistics showing fewer seniors in high school classes could be misleading, said Cynthia Rudrud, principal of Cactus High School in Glendale, Ariz.

"Students might have a reduced course load in the high school their senior year because they are enrolled in community college courses or doing internships," said Ms. Rudrud, who estimates that 40 percent of her school's 400 seniors take a full load of high school classes. "There is a point when seniors realize they are beyond high school. It's not that they shut down, but that they are ready to move on."

The trouble with students avoiding or skipping classes or even entire school days, the panel said, is that many are not taking the courses they need to get the best jobs or stay afloat in college.

For example, one-third of high school seniors take no math courses; two-thirds skip science. And 13 percent of students at private four-year colleges need remedial courses.

"No one ... can afford to squander one-quarter of a high school education," said Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton, panel chairman. "We have to get beyond the notion that high school is the end of learning."

Mr. Patton, who has formed a state task force to examine student learning from preschool to college, said he hears from employers who have to retrain high school graduates for today's demanding, technology-savvy jobs.

"At a time when mechanics use sophisticated computerized diagnostic programs to tell what's wrong with a car engine, when assembly lines are populated by robots, every student needs every day of high school to get ready for adult life," he said.

Even the movement toward higher standards and increased testing hasn't guaranteed complete success for high schoolers, panel members said. In most of the 19 states where students must pass tests for high-school diplomas, they are being tested only on lessons learned in ninth or 10th grade.

National and international tests show that older U.S. students score lower than children in earlier grades.

Mr. Riley proposed that high school campuses be smaller to monitor student activity, that teachers in advanced subjects such as math and science get more training, and that the intense reading instruction usually offered to elementary school pupils be extended to middle and high school students.

Panel members said that Mr. Paige had reviewed the report and said that he would support the group's continued research. He is expected to be confirmed by the Senate as early as next week.

Statewide High School Report Proposes Longer Year

The study was conducted by the Urban Education Network, a coalition of the state's eight largest school districts. Those districts, including Council Bluffs and Sioux City, enroll 25 percent of Iowa's students and 75 percent of the state's minority students.

"Major reports such as this often strike a nerve," Arlis Swartzendruber, superintendent of the Waterloo School District, said Thursday. "The study serves as a vision, not a road map or blueprint."

Politicians' education focus most often has been on younger children. It's widely accepted that early development is essential to making a student successful.

Swartzendruber said his group decided it was time to examine high schools, and it quickly became apparent that improvement is needed.

"It's high time to pay attention to the high school time," he said.

Major recommendations include:

Establishing a 12-month calendar for high schools. While not all students would go to class year-round, some who needed help would face longer school years and longer days for programs such as after-school tutoring.

Creating new "exit-level performance standards" for graduating seniors. That doesn't necessarily mean new testing requirements. "There are ways to measure performance beyond a pencil-and-paper test," Swartzendruber said.

Establishing a class structure in which teachers are responsible for no more than 90 students per term [down from the current 150].

Adding flexibility to school schedules.

Improving teacher evaluation efforts, linking teaching effectiveness with teacher contracts.

Moving to "review and align" high school graduation requirements, working with higher education officials. No details of those new requirements were offered.

[ Offering students up to five years to obtain a high school diploma without having to attend an alternative high school.

Abandoning the traditional method of awarding high school credit.]

Iowa City Schools Superintendent Lane Plugge, who is the head of the eight-district group, said the study report was intended to be simply a guide for all schools to contemplate as they do self-evaluation.

"During the past year, we developed this report, which is comprehensive and provides a solid framework for all school districts as they consider the effectiveness and ponder any changes to their high schools," Plugge said.

Jolene Franken, head of the state teachers union, said the study "has established a solid information base from which this effort can begin."

Coalition members are Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Davenport, Des Moines, Dubuque, Iowa City, Sioux City and Waterloo.  [The report is named, "Redefinition of High School: A Vision for Iowa."  Proposals in the 130-page report are nearly identical to ones made by the National Association of Secondary School Principals in its 1996 report.]

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