AM News: Adding Days In A Down Economy

To Increase Learning Time, Some Schools Add Days to Academic Year NYT: Increasing time in school is one of the best ways to narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor students, education advocates say. According to the NCTL, a nonprofit research group in Boston, about 170 schools — more than 140 of them charter schools — across the country have extended their calendars in recent years to 190 days or longer.

SOS Event Draws Small Crowd, Focuses on Organizing PoliticsK-12: Held this weekend in the regal Wardman Park Marriott in downtown Washington, the convention featured presentations on an array of topics including advocacy, social justice, and elevating student voice, and a keynote by author and activist Jonathan Kozol. Attendees also attended workshops during which they crafted official policy stances to eventually present to policymakers (though these sessions were closed to the media).

Target Launches 'Give With Target' Initiative To Help Raise $1 Billion For Education HuffPostEdu: Using a personal Facebook account, students can vote once per week for the K-12 school of their choice--schools will receive one $25 Target gift card for every 25 votes, with a maximum payout of $10,000 per school. Kids can literally become digital cheerleaders for their schools.

Pilot Program Targets Gifted Rural Students EdWeek: Rural advocates have long been concerned about what they see as limited attention and research given to academically adept students in America’s rural schools, compared with their gifted and talented peers in urban settings.

Texas- Struggling for Students’ Readiness TexasTribune: Fewer than one in two students met the state’s “college readiness” standards in math and verbal skills on ACT, SAT and TAKS scores in 2010. 

Comments

[Bruce]

Re the NYT story, using our currently available school days well would help a lot, and one good way to do that would be to start and finish later in the day, in addition to offering the broader curriculum that Chicago is pursuing. Also, most families could use their summer vacations better, and one way to do so is by setting up temporary homeschooling environments.

[Sarah]

Hopefully the extra days are indeed used in conjunction with improving instruction, and not just for padding...

[Sarah]

And I’m glad to see students in rural areas who are gifted getting some attention nationally. I think such demographics are indeed ignored all too often.