Apparently, Senator Vince Illuzzi thinks he can extend the amount of time in a day. Or at least restructure the space-time consortium. In a ridiculous cost-cutting measure, he has suggested that all state offices and schools cut down to 4 day weeks, with 10 hour days. He cites the always-popular reasons of saving money on heat and gas. Screw learning, it’s all about the cash. In fact, screw the laws of time: if it will save taxpayers cash, then it has to be a good thing, right?
Absolutely not. Nobody is bringing up the fact that this would eliminate every vestige of free time a student has. First, let’s tackle the fact that this would essentially eliminate summer vacation. Since schools are required to have at least 175 days a year, this would mean summer vacation would be dipped into by many weeks. Depending upon implementation, a best-case scenario would be 2 to 3 weeks for summer vacation. This is certainly not enough time for students to do enough of the best kind of learning which comes with summer: volunteering, getting a job, or taking summer courses. Fortunately, the legislator could always wave a magic wand and eliminate the 175 day requirement. Unfortunately, I expect the eventual “solution” would involve less summer vacation.
Assuming the summer issue could be settled, it is worth considering that there simply is not enough time in a day for 10 hours of school. The typical high school student has approximately 3 hours of homework per night (this is being conservative). In my school, bus transportation takes 45 minutes in the afternoon and 1 hour, 45 minutes in the morning. Let’s also assume 1 hour for showering, eating breakfast, eating dinner, and doing chores (combined). Finally, the American Sleep Disorders Association recommends 9.5 hours of sleep per night for a teen. Adding this up, we get an impossible sum: 10+3+2.5+1+9.5=26. In order to do all homework and get a healthy amount of sleep, even without any free time, there would need to be 26 hours in a day for the 10-hour school day to work. Contrary to what Senator Illuzzi may think, there are only 24 hours in a day. So, even if a student never gamed, played sports, had fun or did anything normal, they would only be able to get 7.5 hours of sleep. (See Figure 2)
Obviously, that doesn’t seem too unreasonable. 7.5 hours of sleep is less than recommended, but is still reasonable—until you remember the average student does far more than sleeping, homework, and learning. In a more typical situation, a student might spend 1 hour doing any number of clubs or after-school commitments in a day (volunteering, etc.): the sort of stuff young people are encouraged to do. In addition, they are on the varsity soccer team and have 1 hour of practice every day. In order to do everything, they would only have 5.5 hours of sleep per night. (10+3+2.5+1+1+1+5.5=24) That is going into the realm of stressful and unhealthy. This student still has no free time and isn’t able to do much outside of school (certainly no part-time job), yet only gets 5.5 hours of sleep per night. (See figure 4)
As you can plainly see, this proposed plan would wreak havoc upon already stressed teens. It would eliminate summer vacations and would force the average teen to only get 5.5 hours of sleep per night (or less). In the scramble to cut costs, there should be other places to look besides taxpayers’ right-less students’ time. I have another idea for you, Senator Illuzzi: try carpooling. Or, if you really hate schools this much, eliminate required schooling.
good argument!!
I really like the chart you put together to show the 26 hour day. Every time I hear about a four day week, my mind is distraught…Will I like it or will I hate it? I must say, there are money/business decisions that need to be made for schools to keep their doors open. Unfortunately, we don’t have an infinite supply of dollars to support our schools. I’m not against making decisions for the sake of cash. Put it this way: If we cut down to a four day week and could hire an extra teacher for each school…would you support that decision? Budgeting is a touchy subject, but has to be done.
@Carly: While there are legitimate budget concerns, this is not the only way to save money. There are many, many more options–which don’t sacrifice learning and families for the mighty dollar.
To start with, schools could certainly stand to turn the thermostat down in Winter: at least where I live, it is much higher than it needs to be.
I would absolutely not support a four day week just to hire an additional teacher: that would only decrease class sizes by a minuscule amount, yet would force students to get less than 6 hours of sleep per night.
Finally, it is worth pointing out that this really isn’t “cost savings” – it is just a cost shift. The school district is shifting the costs over to families. In the end, taxpayers will be paying a lot more for daycare (for younger students), driving, and heating homes for an extra day. It is far more efficient to operate buses and heat a couple buildings than to force every family to pay for daycare and home heating an extra day a week.
I am in complete support of saving money in other ways. You’re right, we spend way way way too much on keeping the rooms at 79 degrees in the winter and 64 degrees in the summer. What a total waste of taxpayer’s money and natural resources. Lots of teachers and administrators spend money like the rich girl who spends her daddy’s money…no idea of where it comes from, we just know there’s an endless supply. I think that is one disadvantage of the ubiquitous bank account set aside by tax payers. Just like daddy’s money, there’s no accountability. Let’s stop wasting 500 copies a day, let’s be reasonable with our energy spending…the list goes on and on. And remember, a four day week could cut the outrageous gas/energy bill down 20%…not to mention, save some of the ozone layer. I’m not advocating for the 4 day week. But heck, there are some good arguments out there for it. Not just money savings…environment savings too.
@Carly: Actually, the energy/gas bill wouldn’t really go down by 20%, because every day would be 2 hours longer. (Assuming an 8 hour original school day).
So if you cut back a single day that is 8-10 hours less time which the building has to be heated. But then you add 8 hours of time spread through the week, so the total savings aren’t as significant as one would originally assume.
How about instead of mandating 4-day school weeks, the government mandates thermostats in all government in school buildings be kept below 70 degrees. Additionally, investments could be made in more efficient systems and use of space. In the end, more money would be saved by doing this than by shifting costs over to families for 1 day a week.
We should be looking for smart solutions which will save money in the long term and be good for the environment, instead of quick and easy short-term fixes which sacrifice the integrity of the education.
Just found your blog via @carlyalbee’s tweet. Some good stuff here. But yeah, we run into trouble when politicians make decisions without regard to the welfare of kids. This can happen on either side of the fence, btw, conservative or liberal. Here in Oregon, we’re still reeling from the school reform fiasco of the early 1990’s, brought about by some very liberal politicians who didn’t have the power or the moxy to fund all of the changes they brought about.
The hell you say? Three hours of homework every night? Even with classes like chemistry and trigonometry, I never had nearly that much. Plus, with longer school days, class periods would be longer, so you could get more work done at school. Finally, there is plenty of time for “fun” on Friday, Saturday and Sunday
When I spoke of 20% energy cut…I guess I was just looking at the bus gas bill. You’re right, the Monday-Thursday energy bill would still be there. So okay, 20% cut on gas. That’s still pretty big.
BTW, I get scared anytime politicians start mandating ANYTHING about school: 4-day weeks, thermostat “unfreedom.” I prefer when teachers take control and start the grassroots movement. Teachers should start budgeting thermostats and turning off computers. When we stop acting like its daddy’s money, and spend it like its our own wallet…then you might see some positive changes.
Good thinkin’ @arthus!
@Rick: Yes, I’m sure we always run into problems when state or (gasp!) federal politicians try to legislate schools without really understanding the situation.
@Randy: Well than you haven’t been to my school…
The recommended amount of homework is 1 hour per class, which quickly adds up. Also, more school time would not mean less homework. Teachers generally just tack on extra homework, regardless of how long each lesson is. As for saving all fun for weekends, boo! I want to fix Habari! 
@Carly: Okay, 20% cut on gas. That still doesn’t get around the fact that this plan is logically impossible due to the number of hours in a day…
I agree that politicians shouldn’t mandate anything about what should happen in schools. Teachers should be in control and enact the changes. Politicians should make sure we have good teachers.
Arthus, you are missing a point in the 4 day model. It would not continue the 175 days of required attendance. By adding the 2 hours to the four days, you are essentially converting the time. You would only have 140 days of 10 hour attendance to equal 175 days of 8 hour attendance.
You also forget that building heating and cooling systems are turned off at night. Typically, AC and heat drop to uninhabited levels around 6pm or so. At least that is true in my school. The systems do not run during the weekend, so you can assume they would not run on Friday either. That gives you 40 fewer days or so of running either system for 10-12 hours. I don’t know if you would need to extend it on the school attendance days since they typically run until 6:00 as I said. To me it sounds like an idea that might be worth investigating from the educational pedagogy side. The business/financial side makes enough sense to warrant a discussion about what is in the best educational practices for kids.
@Jason: As has been said above, that is simply shifting costs over to families.
If school goes to 6, then the heating/AC would not be turned off at 6. There would be all sorts of after-school activities which would still need to be accommodated, along with service crews. Therefore, the heating and AC would have to stay on till 9pm at least (going by the current 6pm).
Regardless, you completely disregard the main point of the article: it is not possible to sustain current education on a 4-day school week. No matter how much financial sense it makes, it if means students will have to stay up past midnight just to complete a normal nights homework it can not be considered a viable alternative.
You get what you pay for: if schools get paid for less, then less learning will occur.
On another note, I notice you don’t stand behind your words since you don’t leave either a URL or a full name.
Arthus, I did not leave a URl because I don’t have a blog. I had one, but c’est la vie. It’s unclear to me why not having a blog means I don’t stand behind my words.
The heating/cooling will not necessarily need to run as late as you mention. At least in my school we have variable zones for heating and cooling so, for example, the gym could remain heated for a basketball game without running the facilities on full. The building does not lose its heat/cool just because the systems shut down. My custodians work second shift until 11pm and the systems shut down at 6pm and resume at 6am.
I don’t agree with your thought that inevitably this leads to students being forced to stay up well past midnight to complete assignments. It suggests to me that instruction would need to change. Teachers would need to re-think their traditional teaching methods to adjust to the new model. Just as other societal changes have influenced pedagogy, I would hope that the building leadership would help teachers adjust to this change while also saving money for the school district. I think that has at least enough positive potential to look into more details of the plan.
@Jason: Obviously, you do stand behind your words since you have now left a last name. The only reason I pointed that out, is I often get trolls and spammers who don’t leave a URL or last name. (Just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be accidentally flagged as a spammer.)
I guess our schools work differently: I could only speak on personal experience. In my school, full facilities stay powered for a significant amount of time after the end of the school day. The situation may be different in your school, and I cannot speak to that.
It is true that teachers could change methods to correlate with this, but that takes a significantly longer time than it takes for a bill to go into affect. A law is enacted suddenly, with the proposal being for this fall, but teachers take much longer to adapt. Thus, students caught in the interim while teachers caught up (which would take at least 4 years) would struggle to maintain their balance.
While all plans are worth exploring, I want to again underline that this should not happen through state law. Local districts should be thinking about this 1 at a time and talk it over with teachers, students, and parents. That is the only way the solution will work for everything. The fact is that politicians do not understand the day-to-day workings of the classroom, and should not be legislating the classroom on a minute-by-minute basis.
From a UK education perspective, I can say that little attention has been given to control of building heating and cooling systems until recently. New buildings are (supposedly) built with that in mind and there is a move towards centralised electronic management of those systems, but it probably represents a fraction of 1% of the current stock.
I have recently been looking at ways to reduce energy usage in our school and I reckon we have a fair bit of slack to take up. I remain unconvinced, however, that a change to a 10 hour day would improve our overall efficiency significantly, particularly as UK schools spend more on heating than cooling. With a 10 hour day, the building would need heating into a colder part of the day so the savings would be reduced or lost altogether. I’m not familiar with your local climate so your situation may be different.
I have other problems with the proposed schedule. In particular:
+ It requires your administrative staff to work to the new schedule . Although staff and students may get readjusted breaks to keep their concentration levels up, the same is unlikely to be true for non-teaching staff (aka “support staff” in the UK) who would get the same 1/2hr or 1hr for lunch.
+ I’m not sure that it sends the right message to pupils that a 10 hour day is now the norm. Both our countries have too many people working too many hours. The UK is supposedly one of the worst countries in Europe for work-life balance. If there was a cultural shift towards 10*4, would we end up with people spending their threekends comatose, recovering from their working week?
On the plus side it might allow more parents to work 9-5 if their kids were in school 8-6 (say).
While I don’t think it would be a good idea overall, I do think it’s worthwhile airing these ideas and seeing what democracy does with them.
@Sahmeepee: I imagine your climate is very similar to ours in Vermont. For the majority of the school year, it starts getting much colder in the afternoon. Thus, the overall savings would definitely be decreased. I agree with you that more savings might be accomplished through smarter building and usage efficiency.
As you point out, this would be a major burden for all kinds of people in schools–particularly support staff.
While that may be true, it would also mean childcare would need to be found for Fridays. This certainly would make some things much more difficult for parents.