The MIT Press is proud to present From the Archive Friday (FTAF). Each Friday, we select an article from the depths of our online Journals archive and make it freely available for one week. Check back here each Friday for a new current events-related gem from our journals.
As the debate over teacher pay continues in the United States, we turn to this popular article from Education Finance and Policy about shortened school weeks for this week’s selection.
Does Shortening the School Week Impact Student Performance? Evidence from the Four-Day School Week
Education Finance and Policy
Volume 10 | Issue 3 | Summer 2015
Authors: D. Mark Anderson and Mary Beth Walker
“A surprising number of schools have changed from the traditional Monday through Friday school week to a four-day-week schedule. This policy has been in place for many years in rural school districts in western states such as Colorado and Wyoming and it appears to be spreading, with school districts from Oregon to Missouri to Florida currently considering it. Generally, the four school days are lengthened in order to meet state-mandated minimum instructional hour requirements.”
Abstract
School districts use a variety of policies to close budget gaps and stave off teacher layoffs and furloughs. More schools are implementing four-day school weeks to reduce overhead and transportation costs. The four-day week requires substantial schedule changes as schools must increase the length of their school day to meet minimum instructional hour requirements. Although some schools have indicated this policy eases financial pressures, it is unknown whether there is an impact on student outcomes. We use school-level data from Colorado to investigate the relationship between the four-day week and academic performance among elementary school students. Our results generally indicate a positive relationship between the four-day week and performance in reading and mathematics. These findings suggest there is little evidence that moving to a four-day week compromises student academic achievement. This research has policy relevance to the current U.S. education system, where many school districts must cut costs.
“There’s no way a switch like that wouldn’t negatively affect teaching and learning.”— Tim Callahan, spokesman for the Professional Association of Georgia Educators (Herring 2010)
“We took our budget savings and plowed it right back into instructional content.”— Riley Ramsey, Webster County, Kentucky school district director of personnel and technology (Kingsbury 2008)
Excerpt
“The motivation for the schedule change is most often stated as financial, with savings related to transportation and overhead costs. For example, Kentucky’s Webster County school district reported substantial savings on transportation, utility, and insurance costs after adopting a Tuesday through Friday schedule (Kingsbury 2008). The shortened week has helped the Peach County, Georgia, school district decrease spending on custodial and cafeteria workers in addition to transportation expenditures and utilities (Herring 2010). This policy change yields a number of implications that should be evaluated to understand the cost/benefit impact of the four-day week. For example, how much does a four-day week actually affect school expenditures? If school buildings and gymnasiums are opened on Fridays to accommodate extra activities (e.g., athletic events), cost savings could be modest. How do teachers react to a four-day schedule? Is there less turnover or increased teacher satisfaction?
Spillover effects on communities could also be present; teens out of school on Friday might engage more in crime or other risky behaviors. Finally, and perhaps more critical than the aforementioned issues, is the question of the effect on student achievement. How do students fare under the altered schedule? Anecdotally, results and opinions are mixed. Some educators and parent groups complain that the shorter week harms students academically (Herring 2010), although others have reported higher grade-point averages and test scores after switching to the shortened week (Toppo 2002; Turner 2010). Some accounts indicate that savings on transportation and utilities costs have been redirected to instructional uses (Kingsbury 2008). Interestingly, the articles on the four-day week generally support the notion that student achievement is not adversely affected by the alternative schedule. This work is entirely descriptive in nature, however, and often consists of case studies focusing on only one or a few school districts. Up to this point, no research has used econometric techniques and panel data analyses to estimate the relationship between the four-day school week and academic performance. As a result, prior studies may be plagued by bias because of confounding factors that are simultaneously correlated with student performance and a district’s decision to switch schedules. We estimate the impact of the four-day school week on student achievement using fourth-grade reading and fifth-grade mathematics test scores from the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP). Over one third of the school districts in Colorado have adopted the four-day schedule. Our primary empirical strategy is a difference-in-differences estimation that exploits the temporal and spatial variation in the adoption of four-day-week schedules. Our results generally indicate a positive relationship between the four-day school week and academic achievement. These positive effects, combined with robustness checks designed to address selection bias, suggest there is little evidence that switching to a four-day week harms student performance. Although our data do not support a full analysis of the mechanisms that generate improved academic outcomes, some preliminary investigations suggest better attendance results from the schedule change and thus could contribute to improved performance.” (315–316)
“Does Shortening the School Week Impact Student Performance? Evidence from the Four-Day School Week” will be freely available from May 4th to May 10th on the MIT Press website.
