Block Scheduling

Bringing All the Data Together for Continuous School Improvement

Michael D. Rettig, Robert Lynn Canady

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781883001148
• eBook ISBN: 9781317921820
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

This bestseller shows you how block schedules can enhance learning and instruction, increase opportunities for students, and improve teachers' performance. It provides practical tools for planning and implementation.

1
RE-EXAMINING THE AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL SCHEDULE

Learning in America is a prisoner of time. For the past 150 years, American public schools have held time constant and let learning vary. The rule, only rarely voiced, is simple: learn what you can in the time we make available. It should surprise no one that some bright, hard-working students do reasonably well. Everyone else—from the typical student to the dropout—runs into trouble. Time is learning's warden.

[National Education Commission on Time and Learning, 1994, p. 7]

A NATIONAL CRITIQUE

Nowhere is the observation that “time is learning's warden” more true than in the assembly line we call the American high school with its six-, seven-, or eight-period daily schedule. Members of the National Education Commission on Time and Learning, which was established in 1991 by Congress to conduct a comprehensive study of the relationship between learning and scheduled time in America's schools, reported that “the degree to which today's American school is controlled by the dynamics of clock and calendar is surprising, even to people who understand school operations” [1994, p. 7]. In addition, the Commission made the following observations regarding the rigidity of time schedules in public schools:

♦ With few exceptions, schools open and close their doors at fixed times in the morning and early afternoon—a school in one district might open at 7:30 a.m. and close at 2:15 p.m.; in another, the school day might run from 8:00 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon.

♦ With few exceptions, the school year lasts nine months, beginning in late summer and ending in late spring.

♦ According to the National Center for Education Statistics, schools typically offer a six-period day, with about 5.6 hours of classroom time a day.

♦ No matter how complex or simple the school subject— literature, shop, physics, gym, or algebra—the schedule assigns each an impartial national average of 51 minutes per class period, no matter how well or poorly students comprehend the material.

♦ The norm for required school attendance, according to the Council of Chief State School Officers, is 180 days. Eleven states permit school terms of 175 days or less; only one state requires more than 180.

♦ Secondary school graduation requirements are universally based on seat time—“Carnegie units,” a standard of measurement representing one credit for completion of a one-year course meeting daily.

♦ Despite the obsession with time, little attention is paid to how it is used: in 42 states examined by the Commission, only 41 percent of secondary school time must be spent on core academic subjects [p. 7].

“The results are predictable,” according to the Commission, “The school clock governs how families organize their lives, how administrators oversee their schools, and how teachers work their way through the curriculum. Above all, it governs how material is presented to students and the opportunity they have to comprehend and master it” [p. 8].

During the early 1980s and again during the early 1990s, school personnel were bombarded with reports on the inefficient and ineffective use of school time. One of the most important concerns expressed in the 1984 report, A Nation At Risk, was related to how time was used in America's schools. The following questions were posed: How do we use time? How do we allocate time? How do we account for time [National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1984]? In response to concerns arising from the report, many state legislators argued that schools should increase both the length of the school day and the school year. Many educators, however, were resistant to such suggestions, contending that a mere extension of school time was not necessarily a solution and would be very costly. In fact, one administrator reported that the extension of the school day would translate to a need for additional duplicating paper so teachers could prepare more busy work!

The argument that educators should become more efficient in their use of currently allocated time was supported by research of the early '80s. For example, Rossmiller [1983] reported that observations by a number of researchers suggest that only about 60 percent of the school day is actually available for instruction. Gilman and Knoll [1983] calculated that “a fair estimate of the average time devoted to instruction during a school day is probably less than 30 percent” [p. 44]. Justiz [1984] reported that 16 percent, or approximately one hour, of instructional time each school day was lost on the average “in the process of organizing the class and by distractions resulting from student conduct, interruptions, and administrative processes” [p. 483]. Karweit [1985] has reported research findings that suggest students engage in productive academic activities only 38 percent of the school day. One teacher described the problem as follows: “Time is the currency of teaching. We barter with time. Every day we make small concessions, small tradeoffs, but, in the end, we know it's going to defeat us” [Boyer, 1983a, p. 30].

The most recent addition to the school time controversy came in the report issued by the National Education Commission on Time and Learning [1994]. One of the Commission's recommendations which made headlines was that the “ACADEMIC DAY SHOUULD BE NEARLY DOUBLED” [Sommerfeld, 1994, p. 12]. Other specific recommendations of that commission having implications for school scheduling practices include the following:

♦ Schools should be reinvented around learning, not time.

♦ State and local school boards should work with schools to redesign education so that time becomes a factor supporting learning, not a boundary marking its limits.

♦ Schools should provide additional academic time by reclaiming the school day for academic instruction.

♦ Teachers should be provided with the professional time and opportunities they need to do their jobs well [Sommerfield, 1994].

PROBLEMS WITH HIGH SCHOOL SCHEDULES

Increasingly, there is no typical high school schedule in the United States. Prior to the current “block scheduling” reform movement, however, schedules did have many commonalities. In general, schools operated with six, seven, eight, or sometimes even nine daily periods. Six-period schools operated classes somewhere between 50 and 60 minutes in length; seven-period schools had classes of 45 to 52 minutes; eight-period schools ran sessions of 40 to 48 minutes; and the few schools operating nine-period schedules generally had classes of 42 minutes or less. In six- and many seven period schools, lunch was a separate, shorter session built around instructional periods. In nine-period, many eight-period, and some seven-period schools, lunch consumed one of the periods. In general, schools provide three to five minutes of passing time between classes.

Since the demise of the earlier “flexible modular” scheduling reform attempt of the '60s and '70s, it has repeatedly been reported in the literature that the traditional schedule did not support many of the changes that needed to be made in high schools across the country; in fact, it was often lamented that “the schedule was the problem!”

A variety of specific criticisms have been leveled against single period models of high school scheduling in America. This next section will discuss these problems at length.

SINGLE-PERIOD SCHEDULES CONTRIBUTE TO THE IMPERSONAL NATURE OF HIGH SCHOOLS

It is doubtful that most adults could survive the impersonal, hectic pace expected of students in a typical single-period high school schedule. Imagine adults going to work each day and having to work for seven or more supervisors, often in eight or more workplaces, in seven or more areas of expertise. Carroll [1990] stated that “at no other time, whether at school or at work, is anyone placed in such an impersonalized, unproductive, frenetic environment” than in the typical high school [p. 365]. He also commented that we must question “whether the American high school is responding to the alleged innate, hyperactive characteristics of teenagers or exacerbating those characteristics” [p. 365].

Joining the attack on traditional high school schedules and their depersonalizing characteristics are teachers who contend that they cannot prepare adequately for and interact with the large number of students being assigned to them on a daily basis. Most teachers prepare for five or six different groups of students daily. If we assume class sizes of between 20 and 30, each high school teacher must instruct between 100 and 180 students daily. We ask the question: “Who among us can begin to understand and address the intellectual and emotional needs of 100 to 180 students every day?” Is it any wonder that high school teachers get a reputation for being “subject-centered?” Who, but Mother Teresa, could be “child-centered” under such circumstances? High school teachers are under tremendous stress simply trying to deal with the large number of students passing through their classrooms each day. As a result, many teachers report they are unable to teach using more effective, active learning methods; in the interest of survival, instructional compromises are made. As Ted Sizer [1984] argued, though “Horace Smith should not have to compromise; he should be responsible for only 80 students at a time, not 120 or 150 or 175 as i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Available from Eye On Education
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• 1 Re-Examining the American High School Schedule
• 2 Alternate Day Block Schedules
• 3 The 4/4 Semester Plan
• 4 More Intensive Scheduling: Quarter-On/Quarter-Off, Trimester, and Single-Course Plans
• 5 Instructional Terms Within The 180-Day School Year
• 6 Blending Scheduling Models
• 7 Schedules That Extend Teacher Planning and Professional Development Opportunities
• 8 Teaching In The Block
• References
• Appendix A: Evaluation Matrix
• Appendix B: Planning Checklist For Alternative Scheduling For High Schools
• Appendix C: Indicators of Achievement For High School Restructuring Efforts