TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/090291/0902120.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.6 KB | 135 lines

                                                                                EDUCATION, Page 64

Why 180 Days Aren't Enough


The U.S. has one of the shortest school years in the
industrialized world: it's time for a change

By SAM ALLIS/NEW ORLEANS


    All across the U.S., kids are trooping back to school,
but for youngsters at the Robert Russa Moton and Johnson C.
Lockett elementary schools in New Orleans, summer ended on July
10. On that date, the 1,450 youngsters returned for the third
year of an experimental program that adds 40 extra days to the
usual 180-day school year. They were breaking a long-standing
American tradition of summer vacations -- dating back to a time
when family labor was vital to the late-summer harvest -- that
give the U.S. one of the shortest school years in the
industrialized world. There is surely a connection, a growing
number of reformers argue, between that distinction and the
dismal academic performances of American students, compared with
their peers elsewhere.

    Increasingly, many of those critics urge that what is good
for the kids at Moton and Lockett might be good for the entire
U.S.: an extended academic year for everybody. The case for that
radical change, says Ernest L. Boyer, president of the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, is "absolutely
compelling." It also seems perfectly in keeping with President
George Bush's highly touted goal of making U.S. students first
in the world in mathematics and science by the year 2000 -- even
though Bush did not mention lengthening the school year in the
education plan he unveiled last April.

    A growing number of ordinary Americans, however, support
the idea. The Gallup Organization, which has been polling on
the subject since 1958, found last week for the first time that a
majority (51%) of its sample favored a longer year. "If I spend
more time at the piano, I get better at it," argues Dwight
McKenna, the New Orleans school-board member who initiated the
Moton and Lockett experiment.

    The case for the longer school year is particularly acute
in the inner cities, where family ties are weak, at-home
support for education is often minimal and dropout rates are
high. Summertime spent on the hot ghetto streets is hardly as
culturally enriching as the time middle-class students devote
to camps, exotic vacations and highly organized sports. Moton
and Lockett, for example, are located near New Orleans'
notorious Florida and Desire housing projects, where children
sometimes skip rope within the sound of gunfire. "This has
nothing to do with competition with the Japanese and everything
to do with urban reality," says McKenna. "This is eight hours
when the drug addicts can't get at these kids."

    Teachers get them instead. Attired in trim khaki-and-white
uniforms, Moton youngsters between the ages of four and 11 work
through reading and mathematics exercises and then at recess
stampede out of the air-conditioned, cinder-block building to
become blurs in the steamy 100 degrees heat. They are candid
about their options. "If I was home, I'd just sit around," says
fifth-grader Alkima Thomas.

    So far, the educational results of the New Orleans
experiment are mixed. Teachers at Moton and Lockett find that
the extra-long year at a minimum gives them a head start on the
traditional weeks of review work at the beginning of the new
school term. "Come September, I'm ready to get into the meat of
reading," says Juanita Smith, a second-grade teacher at Lockett.
"Normally, I can't do that until the end of October." But
students at both schools test far below the state average in
reading, and their scores since the 220-day year began have
improved only marginally. "My kids can't read the way they ought
to," says Ellenese Brooks-Simms, the principal of Moton school.
Brooks-Simms and her counterpart at Lockett, Wilbert Dunn, are
trying to put even more emphasis on reading instruction by
cutting time spent on gym, music and other activities.

    The major obstacle to the extended year in New Orleans, as
it is across the country, is money. The Moton and Lockett
experiment cost about $870,000 last year. More than $500,000
came from the Federal Government, while the school board anted
up the remainder. But the future of the program after this year
is dim because the board claims it can no longer afford to
contribute its share. Thus far, there have been no appeals to
the private sector for funding to continue the project.
Financially hard-pressed state and local governments across the
U.S. would find it extremely tough to assume the burden of such
a program. In California, for example, a move to a 220-day
program from kindergarten through high school would cost $121
million a day, according to Charles Ballinger, executive
director of the National Association for Year-Round Education.

    But most parents at Moton and Lockett strongly support the
longer school session and worry about a return to the old
system. "My kids are learning more, and I know they're safe,"
says Dwan Greene, who has two children at Moton. Even the kids
appear enthusiastic about days spent near a teacher instead of
a television set. Teachers at the two schools also seem pleased,
despite the extra work. Among other things, they like the
additional money they earn, which is prorated into their regular
salaries.

    The glowing recommendations for a wider adoption of the
longer school year are based on the premise that the added time
would in all cases be put to good use. This assumes a lot. Many
inner-city schools labor under appalling conditions that produce
poor education and endless disciplinary problems. "More of the
same isn't any better if the same isn't good enough to begin
with," says Norman Morgan, whose Polk County, N.C., school board
in 1985 stopped an experimental program that had suddenly lifted
the school year from 180 days to 200. Lockett principal Dunn
agrees, "The simple fact of more time spent on tasks does not
change anything. It must be coupled with something extra."

    Even with that caveat, it is clear that the time for a
hard look at the longer school year has come. "It's a litmus
test on how serious we are about education," says the Carnegie
Foundation's Boyer. The state of Oregon evidently agrees: a
comprehensive education bill enacted in July will add 40 days
to the school year over the next two decades. Both President
Bush and corporate America would also do well to support the
change, at least on an experimental basis. The summertime
harvest that America needs to reap these days is not down on the
farm, but up in the mind.