By Elena Rocha

Elena Rocha is Senior Education Analyst at the Center for American Progress.
 

Comprehensive reform, however, can modernize schools and turn them into vehicles for life-long success, particularly for students in low-performing and high-poverty schools. One such approach is expanded learning time, or ELT. Adding more time to the school day, week and/or year allows schools to do what is being asked of them—provide more in-depth learning opportunities for students in core subjects, integrate or maintain enrichment activities into the learning experience, and meet the academic and enrichment needs of students.

The Expanded Learning Time Demonstration Act will provide federal incentives to states and schools to develop and implement initiatives of expanded learning time. Doing so will provide schools with additional resources to redesign their educational program to better support students and teachers while contributing to the growing body of evidence that more and better use of learning time is a successful strategy to boost student performance and close achievement gaps.

Restructuring the school calendar will serve to bring our public education system out of an agrarian age and into the 21st century. But this strategy alone will not meet its promise if other adjustments to affect what happens during the school day are not made. The expansion of learning time will also require the implementation of new policies and procedures that affect teaching and learning.

Outdated Procedures

Research has well-documented the direct effect of high quality teachers on student learning. In fact, we know that teachers are the single most important factor influencing a child’s academic achievement, yet no issue is more important or more challenging than getting high quality teachers into every classroom, particularly those in high-poverty and low-performing schools.

Teachers frequently cycle through the system, moving from one school to another as they gain experience or leave the teaching field all together. About one-third of new teachers leave the profession within three years of teaching and half leave by the fifth year. Studies tell us that high teacher turnover is attributed to several factors including challenging work environments, lack of decision-making ability, lack of preparation for the challenges found in the classroom, insufficient professional development opportunities, and low salaries.

Unfortunately, teacher preparation; recruitment, distribution, and retention practices; training and skill development efforts; and compensation systems have changed little over the decades. Maintaining the status quo of these and other teacher-related procedures has had an impact on learning and school reform. But steps in the right direction may soon be taken.

Numerous provisions from the Teacher Excellence for All Children (TEACH) Act have received backing and warrant praise. These provisions seek to redesign teacher and principal compensation systems to incorporate rewards for success in teaching and learning and to provide skilled teachers with opportunities to mentor novice teachers, further develop their craft, and climb the teaching career ladder. They also make necessary improvements in federal requirements for hiring, retaining, and equitably placing effective teachers into every classroom. The provisions do so by providing incentives to teachers to teach in hard-to-staff subjects like the sciences, mathematics, special education and bilingual education, and to teach in hard-to-staff schools, namely high-poverty and low-performing schools in segregated communities.

If we are to truly provide a world-class education to all of our students, then we must update the procedures in place governing the hiring, training, distribution, retention, and compensation of our nation’s teachers. Comprehensive school reform cannot be achieved merely by restructuring the mechanics of the school system alone. Careful attention must be paid to the most critical resource in education—teachers.

Goals of a Bygone Era

Modernizing the education system also causes us to reassess the purpose and desired outcomes of public education. Since the mid-19th century, the system aimed to provide children with the basics. Over time, the end-goal evolved from completion of the 6th grade to the creation and promotion of high schools. And while universities have long existed, they were originally intended to serve a select, elite group of students. Today, a high school diploma is just the beginning as a majority of jobs now require at least some post-secondary training or education. Despite the expectations of employers and the demands of our global society, attainment of a high school diploma is still viewed as sufficient.

For students who do not graduate high school, it has become all too easy for the American public to turn a blind eye. Nationally, only seven out of 10 high school students, and just half of Latino and black students, receive a diploma within four years. But there are strategies that can have a significant impact on high school completion rates and the pursuit of learning opportunities after high school. Through research and practice, we now know how to identify students at risk of dropping out and how to support them so that they stay on a path to long-term success.

The Graduation Promise Act will establish a federal commitment to cultivate and replicate effective proven strategies and school designs to keep high-school-aged students in school and performing at grade level. These efforts will pay particular attention to the nation’s 2,000 lowest performing high schools, known as our “dropout factories,” and provide schools with the supports to help a growing number of students graduate with a diploma.

Although high school graduation is a predictor of life-long success, we as a nation have not paid enough attention to high school reform or the needs of high school students. At the same time, we are on the verge of a massive shift in human resources due to the retirement of 77 million baby boomers. To maintain the nation’s status as an intellectual leader and democratic power, our education system must do a better job for all students from kindergarten through post-secondary.  

Transformation in Progress

These and other important proposals are under serious consideration by Congress for inclusion in the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. While not a complete package of the necessary reforms to thrust our education system to the top, they can result in significant change. Developed in collaboration with a network of stakeholders, the proposals presented here have wide support. While not all agree on each specific provision within these proposals or their exact language, the vast majority of organizations and individuals seeking education reform agree that reauthorization must move forward this year. There is great bipartisan support for the principles of this critical law and now is the time for action. The nation’s 50 million public schools students, 19 million of whom are economically disadvantaged, cannot and should not wait any longer. Their learning, their schools, and their communities deserve our national attention and support for better teaching and learning.

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