Considering the Four-Day School Week? Pilot It and Evaluate It
I am often engaged in policy discussions. Every now and then, someone I am speaking with says something that makes me wonder, “Why didn’t I think of that?” This happened during a recent panel discussion in Jefferson City. I was joined on the panel by the Show-Me Institute’s Avery Frank and Eric Wearne, an associate professor at Kennesaw State University. During the question-and-answer session, someone asked what advice we might give to a superintendent who is thinking about moving to a four-day school week. Eric offered some advice that was incredibly insightful and incredibly obvious, so much so that I was dumbfounded as to why it hadn’t crossed my mind.
Eric basically said, “Why do it all at once? Why not experiment at one school?” This suggestion may not make sense in a small, rural school district with one elementary school, but it makes perfect sense for a larger school district. Take the Independence School District, for example. The district has over 14,000 students and 20 elementary schools. The district decided to move to a four-day school week.
Think about what district leadership could have done if they had approached this like a researcher.
The Independence School District could have selected two elementary schools to pilot a four-day school week. If it is as appealing as the district says it is, then many teachers and students would likely want to move to that school. The district could have held a lottery to randomly accept teachers and students into the school.
Then we could have had a random assignment evaluation of the school district that moved to the four-day school week. We would have had a group of students in a five-day school and a group in a four-day school and the only difference between the two groups would have been random chance. This is the gold standard of social science research.
I understand the impulse of superintendents and school boards to consider the four-day school week, but they do not have to make the move all or nothing. Pilot it. Evaluate it rigorously. A move this significant deserves that kind of consideration.
