Saved by the (Later) Bell

As the principal of a school pioneering a dramatically longer learning day, Jose Salgado knew he was in for some unpleasant moments. Stretching the instruction until 4:30 p.m. at Umana/Barnes Middle School, a fortresslike structure housing some 650 students on the East Boston waterfront, upset a schedule nearly as ingrained as the four seasons. Yet, neither Salgado nor his dogged director of expanded learning time, Corbett Coutts, expected the kind of havoc they witnessed.

During the first few weeks of the 2006-2007 school year, the nurse’s office was overflowing with kids by midafternoon, most complaining of dizziness and headaches. They weren’t really sick, it turned out; they were just hungry. Accustomed in previous years to skipping the un-cool cafeteria lunch and eating after school let out at 1:30, many seventh- and eighth-graders were now trying to make it until 4:30 without eating.

There were problems at nearby Central Square in East Boston, where about 100 Umana/Barnes kids were loitering after dismissal because they couldn’t find seats on the packed 5 p.m. MBTA bus. With the earlier release time, the city buses could easily accommodate all the kids, but now the students were competing for space with rush-hour commuters.

Then, when November came, teachers and administrators going out the front door for bus duty noticed that it was kind of dark. The outdoor lighting was trained on a parking lot in the school’s courtyard, leaving the 10 school buses lined up out front in the shadows.

These mini-crises were almost routine in the first few months of the longer schedule, when the administration had trouble enough finding staff to cover afternoon classes Mondays through Thursdays. (Students get out at 11:40 a.m. on Fridays.) Because the state didn’t give the final go-ahead for the expanded schedule until July, there were only two months in which to recruit 60 additional staffers. “We were pretty much begging people to work for us,” Coutts says.

Even so, Salgado, a tall, vigorous man in his third year as principal, looks almost pained when asked whether the state’s ballyhooed, first-in-the-nation “Expanded Learning Time” initiative (ELT) – in which nine other elementary and middle schools in Massachusetts are participating – is worth all this hassle. “I don’t know of a single educator who wouldn’t say this is a good idea,” Salgado replies. “This is a monumental task. But we are going to help the other people that follow take five steps ahead.” The staff at Mario Umana/Joseph H. Barnes Middle School and the other expanded-day schools may be feeling their way through this first year of eight- and nine-hour school days, but the optimism and excitement behind their almost-universal exhaustion is palpable. Since the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law five years ago, school administrators have struggled to meet its federal performance mandates by tinkering with curriculum, textbooks, technology, and staffing, trying to figure out how to produce more learning from the same six-hour day. Now, using state-funded ELT grants, the 10 schools in Boston, Cambridge, Fall River, Malden, and Worcester are finally able to move beyond the usual time limitations.

School schedules that stretch into late afternoon are keeping kids off the street and away from the television, filling once-empty hours with extra teaching, homework help, sports, music lessons, and theater. Some students relish the structure, some still resent it. Either way, cops say it’s keeping kids out of trouble, and some parents say it’s boosting their children’s grades. Politicians like Governor Deval Patrick and US Senator Ted Kennedy are promoting the longer school day as the 21st-century norm in a global economy where American students’ competitors spend an average of 30 percent more time in school.

Most folks applaud expanded days for underperforming schools and students whose parents don’t have the resources to provide quality after-school activities. (Together, the 10 ELT schools have high rates of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals and low rates of proficiency on state exams.) But the politically charged question is whether a longer day is right for all schools. Many middle-class parents, after all, are already paying for Little League and tutors and piano lessons. Their children are already getting high marks on standardized tests and college acceptances. Why lengthen their school day if it means stealing hours from family time?

Advocates say all children deserve more enriching class time (and, in many cases, a restoration of the art and physical education classes that have been eliminated over the years). They hope that momentum for longer days will build on its own if kids at underperforming schools begin showing their stuff on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exams, the proficiency tests that reveal school performance and dictate whether high schoolers can graduate. Despite the disagreement, educators know there is nothing like the gift of time.

At the 10 schools participating in this reform experiment, the teachers’ obvious elation – in spite of their fatigue – is perhaps the most persuasive indicator that the program makes sense. “I’m absolutely exhausted, but this has been one of my most rewarding teaching years in all my life,” says Stephanie Baker, a family and consumer science teacher who has taught at Fall River’s Matthew J. Kuss Middle School, another ELT grant recipient, for the past 22 years. Baker says the longer day allows her more time to answer students’ questions and to connect with them on a more personal level, especially in her new afternoon cooking class. “I feel good about this year,” Baker says. “There’s something absolutely right about this.”

Education officials here and around the country are keeping close watch on the experiment. The ELT initiative is an outgrowth of the work of Massachusetts 2020, the nonprofit foundation started by venture capitalist and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Gabrieli. After initially leading the effort to strengthen Boston’s after-school programs, the foundation rolled that success into a drive to make those programs part of the normal school day. “It’s not that it’s more convenient to extend the day,” Gabrieli says. “It’s just that you can’t do it all in less time.” As it stands now, higher-income parents are unlikely to entrust the public schools with providing the same quality of afternoon enrichment they’re currently paying for elsewhere, he acknowledges. More middle-class districts, including Framingham and Methuen, are considering a longer day, however. As the concept gains traction, Gabrieli says, “we’re hoping that it will be hard to resist.”

Also watching the experiment closely is Boston Mayor Tom Menino, who supports extended days for students falling behind as well as four successful students, who would benefit from extra enrichment programs like art. “Our school day was created 70 years ago, when we had farms,” he says. “If we really want to get serious about education, we need longer school days.”

While school districts in other states are adding an hour here and there at underperforming schools, Massachusetts is the first state to sponsor competitive grants for expanding learning time and to open up the opportunity to the entire system (even schools meeting state testing goals). Every participating school must commit to extending its schedule by 25 to 30 percent. If Massachusetts 2020 is the chief architect of the expanded day, the principals and staff are the craftsmen, molding the concept into a workable form that looks slightly different at each school. One of their primary aims, and the measure by which they will be judged, is to move as many kids as possible to proficiency on the MCAS. Across the 10 schools, about 65 percent of students have not achieved proficiency in English/language arts and about 75 percent have fallen short in math. Most of the kids at the ELT institutions began to fall behind in elementary school, “so to help them catch up requires a very intense intervention,” says Michael Sabin, principal of Edwards Middle School in Charlestown, one of the ELT schools. “It’s not realistic to think it’s going to happen without more time.”

Simply tacking two or three hours onto the school day isn’t enough. Research has shown the strongest links between additional time and increased learning when those hours are used for more direct instruction and active learning. The formula is not precise, as more time is only as good as the quality of the instruction, the curriculum, and a host of other factors. For these reasons, in awarding ELT planning grants, the state Department of Education asked schools to redesign their entire schedules, taking into consideration everything from teacher planning time to transportation schedules.

Under the longer schedule, the first 10 schools have added to and enhanced instruction in core subjects, though their strategies vary. Umana/Barnes places students in extra afternoon math and English classes according to their individual needs. “For students performing well below grade level, it might look a lot like remediation,” explains Coutts. “For kids that are performing at grade level, in English, for example, it might look more like a Harry Potter book club, or a girls’ literacy circle.”

Edwards Middle School uses competitive math leagues to reinforce concepts learned in class. The additional practice time is already reflected in scores on the district’s midyear math exams, according to Sabin, who says “our performance relative to other schools is stronger this year than any other year.”

The expanded day also accommodates a full slate of enrichment activities – what Nancy Mullen, the principal at Kuss in Fall River, describes as “the things that are motivational for kids.” Some schools blended existing after-school programs into the daily schedule. Umana/Barnes kids, for example, take part in activities run by the East Boston YMCA, the Museum of Science, and Citizen Schools, a Boston-based network of real-world apprenticeship programs. Other schools restored electives they had sacrificed for the sake of academics. At Kuss, the once hit-or-miss drama program now regularly puts on major productions. Students must sign contracts of commitment and maintain good grades to participate. Aided by local business contributions, the troupe last fall staged a production of Macbeth, with the performers in professionally made costumes and “the beautiful language of the Bard echoing forth from their lips,” says Charles A. Jodoin, the English and language arts teacher who directs the program.

Officer Donald Stone of the Boston Police Department says he loves the longer day. As a juvenile-gang officer in East Boston, Stone says he’s noticed a reduction in “that latchkey effect. We don’t have as many fights after school, we don’t have as many house parties. The kids don’t have time to meet up and get a party going before the parents are home.” Parents have noticed the difference, too. Among 250 parents at three ELT schools surveyed last month for Massachusetts 2020, half reported that their child’s behavior is much or somewhat better since the school day was lengthened. Almost 80 percent said their child is performing better in school.

For parents like Dorcas Chavez, of Dorchester, the benefits of the new schedule more than justify the longer day. Her 12-year-old son, Kenan, who is autistic, boards the bus for Umana/Barnes at 6:10 a.m. and doesn’t return to their doorstep until 5:30 p.m. “But you should see how happy he is when he sees that bus coming,” Chavez says. To be sure, the longer day has made Chavez’s life easier. A single mother, she is finally able to work a regular shift instead of leaving midafternoon to be home with her son. Of even more consequence, however, are the changes in Kenan since he started receiving a full day’s attention in a class with five other autistic boys. At home, Kenan now sits at the table and feeds himself, something he couldn’t do before, Chavez says, and has made considerable progress in potty training. In fact, Kenan has so thrived in his first year at Umana/Barnes that Chavez has only one question for state policy makers. “I’m wondering,” she asks, “why aren’t they doing this extended day at more schools?”

That’s a reasonable question given that major education commissions have been calling on schools to add more hours for instruction since 1983, when a federal panel issued the landmark report “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.” The answer, in the broadest sense, is politics. Talk of increasing the amount of time children spend in school roils some constituencies. Parents, particularly those in districts that are performing well, fear that a longer day will cut into their children’s home lives or interfere with extracurricular activities. Teachers unions, though generally supportive, are wary of undercompensation and burnout. And there is the overriding issue of cost. “Yes, it will be very expensive – we’re not kidding about the money,” says outgoing state education commissioner David Driscoll, a vocal advocate for the ELT initiative.

The difference now has less to do with concerns about international competitiveness than pressure from No Child Left Behind. The perception that the United States is losing ground to foreign competitors because their students spend more time in school has been around for years, notes Elena Silva, a senior policy analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Education Sector, a nonprofit think tank. (It is also flawed, in that culture and curriculums vary so much from country to country that instructional time alone can’t account for higher or lower achievement. Sure, Japan, which prides itself on a lengthy school schedule, outperforms the United States on international tests, but Italy, which also logs more instructional hours annually, ranks below the United States internationally.) More urgent concerns are meeting “adequate yearly progress” goals on MCAS and the threat of state intervention for schools that repeatedly miss the bar. As urban schools in particular look for new ways to beat the odds, the longer day stands out as a common strategy among education innovators like the Knowledge Is Power Program, a San Francisco-based network of 52 schools, most of them charter, in 16 states and the District of Columbia (Massachusetts has one KIPP academy, in Lynn). KIPP runs a 9½-hour school day as part of a highly disciplined approach that has proved effective at raising achievement among low-income kids.

ELT advocates in Massachusetts carved a path around the resistance by starting small, making ELT voluntary, and limiting grants to districts that demonstrate solid support from school committees and teachers unions. Key to the nearly unanimous teacher support for ELT at the Fletcher-Maynard Academy and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School (both pre-kindergarten through Grade 8) in Cambridge was that “nobody was made to do it,” says Paul Toner, who negotiated the issue as president of the Cambridge Teachers Association. Working the longer day at those schools is voluntary, and teachers are paid for extra hours at the professional rate. Union agreements vary from school to school, but most offer teachers a degree of flexibility.

This year’s $6.5 million state allocation for ELT provided an additional $1,300 per student to each of the participating schools (most of which covers teacher and staff salaries), along with about $325,000 in planning grants awarded to 29 communities representing 84 schools. About 12 of those schools are expected to be selected to implement ELT this coming fall, adding roughly 5,000 students to the 4,700 already on board. If Patrick’s proposed $13 million funding for the program goes through, the per-student allotment for the 2007-2008 school year will rise to $1,350, and another $500,000 will be dedicated to planning grants.

Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and one of the authors of the No Child Left Behind Act, is trying to free up federal funding for longer school days. The senator’s approach would recruit recent college graduates as teaching fellows to work in after-school programs and schools with expanded schedules. The fellows would dedicate two years to the public schools; in return, they would receive a stipend and scholarships for graduate studies in education.

For now, “everyone is watching Massachusetts to see how it plays out,” says Silva of the Education Sector. “That’s good in that they get to be the leader. What’s less good is these schools are under tremendous pressure to show an impact.” Gabrieli isn’t promising instant miracles – a spike in MCAS scores in the first year “would be like those drug trials you have to stop because the results are so dramatic,” he says. State Representative Patricia Haddad, House chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Education, agrees that it will take at least three years to produce reliable outcomes. The experiment won’t be complete, she says, until the ELT schools include some that are already performing well. Then, results at these schools will help answer the question of whether ELT can bring good schools to great. Parental opposition in some cities and towns, including Rochester and Peabody, have forced districts to shelve plans for longer days. That opposition is unlikely to recede without solid proof that a longer day delivers better performance across the board.

As a former teacher, Haddad has no doubts that ELT is long overdue at struggling schools. The program is going so well, she even expects to see “a little something” good when MCAS scores come back this fall. During a recent visit to the Kuss school, which the state has labeled “chronically underperforming,” Haddad says her heart sank at first when one student told her, “ ‘We know that we’re lower than dirt.’ ” But this was hardly a show of self-pity. “ ‘We’re going to show you,’ the student went on, ‘because you know what? We’re going to pass the MCAS.’ ”

Nobody at these schools pretends that a longer day is nirvana, of course, especially during the first year. Everyone, staff and students alike, needs time to adjust to the more rigorous schedule, both physically and mentally. “It’s a philosophical change that everyone in the school has to buy into,” says Salgado, the Umana/Barnes principal. “You can’t think that what happens after 1:30 doesn’t matter.”

At the beginning of the year, eighth-graders at Umana/Barnes rebelled against the longer day, cutting afternoon classes and giving new teachers a hard time. There seemed to be more fistfights, observed one eighth-grader, Karina Maldonado, because “everybody gets mad – they have to be here all the time.” Some of the more seasoned teachers hung back, waiting to see whether the initiative would really take. Under Boston’s union agreement, only new teachers are required to work the extended day; veteran teachers have a choice. At the start, only about half the Umana/Barnes teachers with the option chose to work a portion of the longer day. Since then, more teachers have signed on, bringing participation closer to 75 percent. Among the early skeptics was Luca Amara, who teaches seventh-grade math and science. The opening weeks of ELT were chaotic, but then, Amara says, “I saw it settle down, getting better organized.” He now runs an afternoon journalism class, which has put out two editions of the Young Eastie. A science teacher has started a chess club. A theater arts teacher teamed with a colleague in English/language arts to create a double-period theater production class.

At Kuss, a battered 1920s edifice located on a downtown rise across the street from Fall River Trial Court, principal Nancy Mullen has had a doubly hard sell. Not only did she have to ease parents’ concerns about the extended schedule, she also had to shore up the school’s reputation. Two years ago, Kuss became the state’s first candidate for intervention because of its chronic underperformance. The Department of Education ordered a reorganization of the administrative team, making Mullen, who had recently retired from a state-intervention school in Rhode Island, the school’s seventh principal in nine years. The longer schedule announced last summer unnerved parents already leery about sending their children to Kuss. Mullen met with parents and persuaded them that perception was not reality. Under her administration, attendance at Kuss was up and violence was down. She didn’t lose a single student because of the longer day.

Jennifer Pinhiero, 15, was among the kids who “badly” wanted out when she heard that the new schedule stretched from 7:20 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. four days a week. (Students at Kuss leave at 2:20 some Wednesdays; teachers stay for planning and professional development.) “But then I heard the other schools had uniforms,” she says, “so I thought, What was worse?” The uniforms, apparently, because Pinhiero decided to give the new schedule a try; much to her surprise, she liked the way the day was restructured. Math class is more fun, she says, because the teacher “won’t give you ordinary math problems. It’s more hands-on stuff.” In English, the teacher “bought a bunch of games. It’s not as boring as it was usually.” Last year, Pinhiero earned D’s in both subjects and was often in trouble (once for bringing a knife to school). Now, she’s got a B in English and in math. She’s thinking about going into nursing.

“Everybody’s more involved with what they’re doing,” says Markus Watson, another eighth-grader who spent much of sixth and seventh grade going to and from the principal’s office. This year, he’s a model student, and the hook is the school’s drama program. Watson landed the lead in Macbeth; he’s now rehearsing his role as Linus in the upcoming production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Dawn Oliver has seen a similar transformation in her daughter, Brittany, who is in sixth grade at Kuss. Her daughter’s learning disabilities made elementary school a constant struggle; Oliver was sure that a longer day would only add to Brittany’s frustration. “I was the one most against it at the start,” she says. Today, Oliver is one of the program’s biggest boosters. The hands-on learning opportunities that are a key feature of the extended day are making math “click” for Brittany. “I used to sit with her and go problem by problem on her math homework,” Oliver says. “Not anymore – I ask her if she needs help, and she says, ‘No, no. I got it.’ ” In fact, Brittany has made the honor roll two terms running. Now, newly confident, she’s set her sights much higher – she wants to be a forensic anthropologist.