Going Beyond the Bell: An Extension of School Hours Improves Urban Student’s Overall Performance

Inner-city public schools continue to face strenuous challenges--students fail to meet state standards and dropout rates inextricably skyrocket, as demonstrated in the correlating graph. An antecedent of this unfavorable result owes to insufficient hours of schooling. While the average student in America spends approximately six hours in class per day, students in European and Asian countries “spend closer to seven or eight hours a day, plus half-day on Saturday.” Producing promising results in Europe and Asia, administrators in America have begun to adopt similar strategies in an effort to enhance their students’ academic achievements. Public entities such as Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) and Green Dot have attested to substantial results from extending school hours. The extended day reform has the capacity to transform the way students delight in learning and view their post secondary school endeavors, and for that reason, educational policy makers and administrators should give generous support public schools in order that they extend school hours beyond the normal 2 o’clock bell.

While additional hours can provide more thorough apprehension of subjects and elective classes that are customarily abandoned in compressed lessons, predicaments arise when teachers are not given higher salaries alongside their supplementary lessons, as former LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer noted: "The cost of extending learning time--including teacher salaries and facility costs--can be considerable." Morever, students express apathy towards this reform because extending school time conflicts with their involvement in sports and youth clubs. In short, if students are repelled during the after school lessons, then the initiative defeats its sole purpose. Subsequently, educational donors began researching new strategies to motivate both teachers and students in valuing the school day reform.

Independent organizations such as The National Center on Time & Learning (at the left) and The Los Angeles-based Broad Foundation have expressed concerns about reforming public school hours nationally and have worked to ameliorate the controversies that stem from teachers and their students. The National Center on Time & Learning’s mission extends beyond bringing young people up to par; more importantly, the goal is to prepare 21st century youth for today’s demanding workforce. The organization believes that in order to ensure students in disadvantaged areas a well rounded education, they must have more time at school in a day. With supplementary hours students have opportunities to master subject matters or attain new insights from nontraditional skills. The Broad Foundation mission reads: “To train a broad, deep bench of current and aspiring leaders in education, equip school systems and their leaders with modern tools for effective management, and provide tangible incentives for educators to advance academic performance.” Their endeavors have been deemed successful in investments nationally. For example, at KIPP Charter, where more than 80 percent of students are low-income and more than 90 percent are African American or Hispanic/Latino, nearly 80 percent of alumni have matriculated to college. Unlike most non-charter public institutions, KIPP School extends its school hours by three hours on weekdays. Just last summer The Broad Foundation donated “$2.45 Million to Fund New KIPP Public Charter Schools in New Orleans,” in order to facilitate expenses that teachers and/or students require in the extended school hours.

Furthermore, Green Dot Charter, which demonstrated high academic achievements for its students, received $ 10.4 million dollars from Broad. Green Dot also believes in the extended day reform and has made substantial progress from the new program. In 2006, the charter graduated 78 percent of its students, while the Los Angeles Unified School District graduated only 46 percent. Green Dot sets high expectations, including a college preparatory curriculum for all, by implementing additional hours for instruction. They also “allocate more funding to classrooms and significantly raise teacher pay,” in an effort to keep students learning with relatively new materials and reward teachers for their ample support.

With the extension of school hours, inner city students also remain protected from violence or crime that tends to be penetrated in the community. Two recent cases in urban Los Angeles suggest that additional school hours would produce better outcomes for inner city students. In 2005, a 15-year-old girl was killed by gunfire while walking home from Locke High School. Having ample leisure after school, a student decided to use his discretion in demoralizing a bus with gang inscriptions in early February, as displayed on the right. Without the extension of school hours, students have a greater chance of being crime suspects or victims, whereas additional school hours provide students with safe environments and keep them from getting involved in crime.

Inevitably, the extended school day reform does not operate idealistically; many of the concerns arise from both students and teachers and should not be overlooked. Foremost, policymakers must increase teachers' salaries in order that supplementary lessons are accounted for. Additionally, after school lessons, in particular, should be hands-on and interactive in order that students can apprehend subject matter in an enjoyable manner. At Wisdom Academy for Young Scientists-(an elementary charter school), students practice spelling words through HORSE basketball games and incorporate arts and crafts for social studies assignments. The results from implementing the after school program are substantial because they not only enhance students' overall learning capabilities and comprehensions, but in inner cities, they protect young people from getting involved in violence and crime. By extending the school day, students will be in a safe learning environment that will enable them to strengthen their overall performance in school learning.