Those wild and crazy N&O editors are at it again! They like Obama’s idea to extend the school day and year, because they believe that more time = more knowledge.
In my 2007 Spotlight, “Better Instruction, Not More Time: A longer school day and year will be North Carolina?s next education fad,” I pointed out that there is little empirical evidence that more time in school leads to better student performance. Let’s worry about the quality of curriculum and instruction before we subject kids to more hours of mediocre class time. Put simply, are we fully utilizing the 180 days (for most kids probably 160-170 days) kids spend in the classroom?
I estimated that it would cost taxpayers as much as an additional $656,500 per year to implement a longer school day at a typical North Carolina elementary school. This estimate does not include the increased energy costs required to cool otherwise vacant school buildings during the summer or the increased maintenance costs required to keep the building operational for additional weeks or months.
