In Chicago, over a quarter of students fail at least one semester of algebra in their ninth grade year, and only 13% of students who fail both semesters of Algebra I in ninth grade graduate in 4 years. Offering credit recovery options is one strategy to deal with high failure rates. The primary goal of credit recovery programs is to give students…

Because of its continued commitment to and investment in high-quality early & elementary learning, West Virginia has established itself as a national leader in the area of early learning. This accolade is not uncommon for West Virginia's early learning system, as West Virginia has a history of leading the nation in early learning and with…

Evidence on the effect of extending the school day is decidedly mixed because of the stark differences in how schools use additional time. In this paper, I focus narrowly on the effect of additional time used for individualized tutorials. In 2005, MATCH Charter Public High School integrated two hours of tutorials throughout an extended day. The…

For many years, the Kauffman Foundation has focused efforts on improving educa­tion for children in Kansas City. Prior to opening the Kauffman School, the Kauffman Foundation operated several programs that addressed the challenges faced in urban education, such as Project Early (an early childhood program), Project Choice (a high school dropout…

West Virginia's longstanding commitment to early learning efforts is evident across early learning programs. The state is one of a very small handful of states in the nation with free, full-day, five-day kindergarten for all children AND voluntary universal pre-k to all four year old children (and three year old children with special needs). West…

This Special Report is a summary of the author's original paper, "It's About Time: Extending Learning to Narrow the Achievement Gap." The family income of students is a consistent predictor of academic achievement across the United States, where an achievement gap between the most and least affluent students has long persisted and shows…

This report analyzes case studies of "more and better learning time" efforts around the country. With support from the Ford Foundation, America's Promise Alliance looked in Grand Rapids, MI; Louisville, KY; Memphis, TN; and Rochester, NY to see how time spent out of the classroom improved outcomes for students in low-income neighborhoods…

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) has supported a multi-year study of the Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative to learn about the process and impact of ELT. Abt Associates Inc. is conducting this research. The study has two components: 1) a planning and implementation component that explores the…

As federal and state policymakers and many education researchers and experts suggest, expanding the learning day for students makes sense. Given the demographic trends--women increasingly entering the workforce and low-income families working multiple jobs--children and youth need supervision and opportunities to learn in the hours between 3:00…

Since the 2012/13 school year Florida law has required the 100 lowest performing elementary schools in reading to extend the school day by one hour to provide supplemental reading instruction. In 2014 the law was broadened to include the 300 elementary schools with the lowest reading performance. A previous study of the state's first two cohorts…

Despite No Child Left Behind mandates, the math achievement gap is still prevalent in schools in the United States, and efforts to address this problem have demonstrated little documented progress. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an intervention strategy used to address the math achievement gap. In this study, social capital theory,…

If less time in the classroom is a cause of poor student performance, can adding more time be the cure? This strategy underlies a major effort to fix the nation's worst public schools. Billions of federal stimulus dollars are being spent to expand learning time on behalf of disadvantaged children. And extended learning time (ELT) is being proposed…

Policy Studies Associates (PSA) is conducting a five-year evaluation of the implementation and impact of the national demonstration of a model for expanded learning time developed by "The After-School Corporation" (TASC). This model, called "ExpandED Schools," aims to transform the educational experiences of students in ways…

The Full-time Schools Program in Mexico ("Programa Escuelas de Tiempo Completo," PETC), began in the 2007-2008 school year with the aim of improving the learning opportunities of basic education students by extending the school day to eight hours a day, in order to offer an innovative and flexible pedagogical proposal that includes six…

Over a decade of research has demonstrated the positive effects of extended school day programs on various elementary and middle school student outcomes, both in the short and long term. The efficacy of extended school day programs in promoting academic outcomes among high school students is less well understood. This study contributes to the…