How does the amount of time American children spend learning compare to that of children in other countries?
There is a good deal of misinformation about the length of the school day and year in other countries. To clarify some of the conflicting reports, the following is a table with some of the key information on school year, school day and total learning time, as reported in aggregate by students and teachers. No set of aggregate data will capture all the nuances of the educational landscape, but at least the table allows for an apples-to-apples comparison. The table shows that the U.S. falls near the bottom in total number of instructional hours and somewhere in the middle of the pack in time spent on homework. Data are drawn from the highly respected Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a non-governmental organization which includes 46 member countries. (More data can be found at www.oecd.org/edu/eag2005.) Countries listed are those to which American students are often compared and are arranged alphabetically. Country Instructional Hours/Week Hrs. of Remedial + Enrichme
