Would a longer or a different school day help with the “achievement gap?
” The achievement gap is a term used to describe the sad fact that everywhere in our country, on virtually every test and measure, student outcomes are highly correlated with their socioeconomic and racial status. By far the single most predictive factor for any student, class, school or district is this “accident of birth.” The differences are large and pernicious and we have made very little progress on narrowing them. The most frequent adopters of the new school day are schools that have predominantly high-risk, low income students and they have shown that with more time to learn, students can narrow and even eliminate the traditional achievement gap. I think the reasons for this are clear: whereas middle- and upper-income families supplement school with informal (parent help) and formal (tutors and test prep and music lessons and town sports and lots more) programs, most poorer children receive very little support beyond the school day itself. Adding to the school day allowsÂ
