The Study
This article presents a study conducted by Associate Professor BetsAnn Smith with colleagues Melissa Roderick and Sophie Degener. It shares a study on the relative effects of student accountability policies and extended learning time on the achievement gains of elementary and middle grade students. The study sought to respond to growing uncertainties among school leaders about how best to employ and target incentives, sanctions, and/or supplemental supports to promote student achievement. It also spoke to debates on the effects of high-stakes testing and retention policies on student learning and achievement.

Findings
The study investigated achievement patterns among elementary and middle grades students in the Chicago Public Schools. The district had implemented a high stakes testing and retention policy in 1996. Analysis of achievement patterns in the district suggested that those policies had no significant affects on the annual learning gains of primary grade students, but seemed to gain increasing positive influence as students entered grades five, six, seven, and eight. But, these analyses did not consider if and how growing participation in an extended learning time program contributed to those gains. Through a series of analyses, the researchers sought to identify the particular effects of added learning times and high stakes testing policies on student achievement. The researchers found that in the third grade, in both mathematics and reading, there was strong correlation between students’ achievement gains and their propensity to be in the extended learning time program. That program provided from 60-100 added hours of teacher-taught literacy and mathematics instruction to at-risk students annually. It also found that large programs that enrolled a majority of students in a school had the largest effect. Results among sixth-grade students were mixed, and in the eighth grade, the analyses failed to show a positive effect from extended learning time. The authors note, however, that the quality and intensity of the extended time programs also seemed to decline as students aged. In summary, the authors write, “our analyses propose that extended learning time and student accountability measures have distinct and differential effects on elementary and middle school students. Specifically, they suggest that extend learning time, and not student accountability dynamics, has positive effects on the achievement gains of elementary students. These effects decline, however, as students enter middle school grades and adolescence. In contrast, accountability dynamics, and not extended learning time, appear to influence achievement gains among middle school students….” The study also details important findings from principal surveys and school case studies on the specific operations and qualities of the extended time program, and the affect of the program on a range of school organizational norms.

What It Means to You
The demands of the NCLB Act, coupled with shrinking school budgets, require educational leaders to think strategically about how best to target time and resources. How have you and colleagues approached the use of extended learning time? Do your programs share some of the qualities found to be key to program success?

For More Information
Smith, B., Roderick, M. & Degener, S.C. (2005). Extended learning time and student accountability: Assessing outcomes and options for elementary and middle grades. Educational Administration Quarterly, 41(2), 195–236.

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