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This review synthesizes studies of the effects of modifying the academic calendar in Grades K-12 to do away with the long summer break while not increasing the length of the school year. The synthesis indicated that the quality of evidence on modified calendars is poor. Within this weak inferential framework, the average effect size for 39 school districts was quite small, d = .06, favoring modified calendars. Studies that used statistical or matching controls revealed an effect size of d = .11. Modified calendars were associated with higher achievement for economically disadvanteged students. Students, parents, and staffs who participated in modified calendar programs were positive about their experience. Policymakers can improve acceptance for modified calendars by involving communities in the planning and by providing quality intersession activities. (DIPF/ Orig.).

A school's schedule can be as important to education outcomes as its budget or strategic plan. The secret to making the schedule a tool for school improvement is to approach schedule design not as a technical task, centered on making everything fit like Tetris blocks, but as a strategic one. In this book, informed by research and their work with hundreds of schools, scheduling experts Nathan Levenson and David James explore how strategic scheduling can turn a \"good enough\" schedule into one that supercharges learning and engagement without additional costs or more FTEs. If you are ready to: (1) Figure out which schedule type is best for your students and staff; (2) Disrupt harmful tracking and ensure every student has access to highly skilled teachers and rigorous curriculum; (3) Deliver optimum hours of core instruction while expanding electives and providing opportunities for student voice and choice; (4) Precisely match staffing to course enrollment to free up personnel and funds for other purposes; (5) Find time for critical intervention and enrichment blocks; and (6) Communicate scheduling decisions more effectively to parents, families, and district leaders … then \"it's time for strategic scheduling.\" Offering targeted advice for best-practice scheduling at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, this book will help school and district leaders--and the teachers and students they serve--make the most of every school day and every school year.

Within the past three decades, a number of schools and districts, particularly those in rural areas, have moved toward a four-day school week. Recent articles and reprots indicate that there are now schools with four-day weeks in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Louisiana, New Mexico, Idaho, and Nebraska. The reasons for this shift include saving money int he face of declining enrollments and avoiding interruptions and abscences due to sports and activities. Districts contemplating the four-day week need current information about this alternative schedule and how it is working in schools around the country. This report is intended to summarize recent research and other articles on the four-day week and make recommendations to district personnel on whether and how it should be implemented.

The four-day school week is a concept that has been utilized in rural schools for decades to respond to budgetary shortfalls. There has been little peer-reviewed research on the four-day school week that has focused on the perception of parents who live in school districts that have recently switched to the four-day model. This study collects data from 584 parents in three rural Missouri school districts that have transitioned to the four-day school week within the last year. Quantitative statistical analysis identifies significant differences in the perceptions of parents classified by the age of children, special education identification, and free and reduced lunch status. Strong parental support for the four-day school week was identified in all demographic areas investigated; however, families with only elementary aged children and families with students receiving special education services were less supportive than other groups.

Efforts to improve education outcomes often involve lengthening the school day or the school year in hopes that spending more time in school will boost student learning. Yet, as Frederick Hess explains, U.S. students spend as much or more total time in school as their peers in other industrialized nations. What matters more than the amount of time is how that time is used. Although research into time usage at school is limited, existing studies have shown that much time spent in school time does not involve actual learning time, either because of interruptions or other non-learning activities or because students are not engaged. Hess suggests that, before adding time to the school day or year, it’s important to understand what schools are doing with their time, rethink their routines, and seek to ensure that they are using time wisely and well.

Supplemental Digital Content is Available in the Text. Students may lose knowledge and skills achieved in the school year during the summer break, with losses greatest for students from low-income families. Community Guide systematic review methods were used to summarize evaluations (published 1965-2015) of the effectiveness of year-round school calendars (YRSCs) on academic achievement, a determinant of long-term health. In single-track YRSCs, all students participate in the same school calendar; summer breaks are replaced by short \"intersessions\" distributed evenly throughout the year. In multi-track YRSCs, cohorts of students follow separate calendar tracks, with breaks at different times throughout the year. An earlier systematic review reported modest gains with single-track calendars and no gains with multi-track calendars. Three studies reported positive and negative effects for single-track programs and potential harm with multi-track programs when low-income students were assigned poorly resourced tracks. Lack of clarity about the role of intersessions as simple school breaks or as additional schooling opportunities in YRSCs leaves the evidence on single-track programs insufficient. Evidence on multi-track YRSCs is also insufficient.

Are school-based management reforms improving education? This book analyzes the theory and evidence behind decentralized decision-making in schools worldwide. Decentralized Decision-Making in Schools explores the impact of school-based management (SBM) reforms across diverse countries. It examines how empowering principals and teachers, and strengthening parental involvement, affects educational outcomes. The authors review over 20 country experiences, providing insights into the effectiveness of SBM in various contexts. * Discover the key factors for successful SBM implementation. * Understand the impact of SBM on student achievement and attendance. * Learn how to design effective education projects with decentralized authority. This insightful analysis is for education officials, policymakers, and researchers seeking evidence-based strategies for improving school governance and student outcomes.

Este artículo trata de profundizar en el conocimiento de las líneas orientadoras y los contenidos de las reformas relacionadas con el tiempo escolar llevadas a cabo recientemente en los sistemas educativos de nuestro entorno. En primer lugar, se plantea la contribución que la Educación Comparada puede realizar al estudio de los tiempos escolares, así como las limitaciones que están presentes en esta perspectiva. A continuación, tras una breve presentación de la situación actual de los calendarios y horarios escolares en Europa y Estados Unidos, se describen las reformas más destacables puestas en práctica en diferentes sistemas educativos. El artículo concluye planteando las motivaciones que subyacen a dichas reformas y las posibles tendencias de futuro que pueden perfilarse a la luz de las mismas.This article tries to deep in the knowledge about the main lines and contents ofthe school time reforms implemented in the occidental education systems. Firstly, it deals with the contribution of Comparative Education to the study ofschool times and with the limitations of this approach. Next, after a short description of the current situation of school calendars and timetables in Europe and United States, it describes the most remarkable reforms carried-on in different education systems. The article concludes summarizing the motivations underlying such reforms and some possible future trends that can be outlined in light of them

Ethiopia has made major strides in improving its human development indicators in the past 15 years, achieving significant increases in the coverage of basic education and health services in a short period of time. Imrovements took place during a period of massive decentralization of fiscal resources, to the regions in 1994 and to woredas in 2002-03. The devolutionof power and resources from the federal and regional governments to woredas appears to have improved the delivery of basic services. Surveys of beneficiaries reveal that they perceive that service coverage and quality have improved. Beneficiary satisfaction has increased markedly in education, and less conspicuously in water and health services. In the south, the decentralization to woredas 2002-03 tended to narrow differences in per capita expenditures on education and health across woredas. Decentralization disproportionately favored woredas that are remote (more than 50 kilometers from a zonal capital), food-insecure, and pastoral, suggesting that decentralization has been ppro-poor. Decentralization also narrowed the gap in educational outcomes between disadvantaged and better-off woredas, especially in the south. Pastoral, food-insecure, and remote woredas gained in terms of the educational outcomes examined (gross enrollment rates, grade 8 examination pass rates, repetition rates, pupil-teacher ratios, and teacher-section ratios).

Using American and Canadian sources, stories are created to illustrate four themes about time and school effectiveness. The first three stories utilize access, attendance and testing as criteria associated with these eras of schooling. How will the story read in the fourth era, the digital age, which forces us to a reconsideration of time and its influence on education?.