The Shrinking School Week: Effects of a Four-Day Schedule on Student Achievement

How much face time do students and teachers need to keep pace with expectations for learning? It is an urgent question during a pandemic that has kept many students out of school buildings for more than a year. The importance of school attendance has divided communities across the country, as they weigh the potential risks of in-person instruction with those of prolonged separation from the school environment. Some answers can be found in the experiences of schools that have adopted four-day school weeks, typically as a cost-cutting move. The author studied the academic performance of nearly 700,000 students in Oregon, where more than 100 schools in school districts facing budget shortfalls and attendance problems opted to cut instructional time instead of raising taxes or laying off teachers. The study looks at student test scores in reading and math over a 15-year period to see what happens when schools switch to a four-day week. The author found clear negative consequences for student learning when schools adopt four-day schedules. Although many schools start class earlier or end later during the four days they are in session, overall weekly time in school decreases by three to four hours. The analysis finds that, as a result of those reductions, math scores decrease by 6 percent of a standard deviation and reading scores decrease by 4 percent of a standard deviation. These impacts are comparable to those associated with other cost-saving measures, such as increasing class sizes and cutting student-support programs. The author concludes that these results show that when students receive less than a full-time school schedule, learning slows.