The Shrinking School Week

School attendance has a major influence on multiple dimensions of child development and family life. The student-level data also includes characteristics such as sex, race, free-and reduced-price lunch eligibility status, English as a second language program participation, and special education or gifted status. White students make up 79 percent of enrollment at four-day schools and 65 percent of enrollment in five-day schools. Because they are predominately rural, four-day schools also have much smaller average student enrollments, at 578 students compared to 3,817 students at five-day schools. Overall, average math scores decrease by 5.9 percent of a standard deviation in math as a result of the switch to the four-day school week, while reading scores decrease by 4.2 percent of a standard deviation.