So far, I’ve discussed a few different governance changes that would be wise for the Home Rule Commission to consider implementing in a new charter. But Home Rule allows Dallas ISD to do two things: change its governance structure and exempt itself from (some) state education rules. Let’s then look at some of the rules from which we could seek exemptions.
There has been a lot of confusing coverage of Home Rule — why can’t parents vote (they can and must), is this a takeover of our school system (it’s actually a painfully democratic restructuring, one that must meet multiple threshholds), etc. But one idea that has gotten a bit of informed publicity (YOU’RE FREAKING WELCOME!) is that of changing the school start date. State law prohibits school districts in Texas from starting before the fourth week of August.
Given that DISD generally schedules winter break in the last two weeks of December, and since no one wants to carry the fall semester over, it means we end up with a really weird balance to the school year. The fall semester includes 75ish days, and a spring semester includes 100ish days. This can play havoc with teacher lesson plans, as they must try to cram in all the material they’re supposed to teach split into six-week increments, but clearly the fall semester’s three six-week segments are very different than the spring semester’s three six-week segments. (I spent time in a teacher’s classroom last week, and the level to which smart teachers adapt is astounding. I’ll talk about that in a post this week. But let’s all agree that they shouldn’t have to adapt if there is a better solution for everyone.)
The imbalance is a concern. A MUCH bigger problem, however, is the state testing schedule. STAAR tests hit our schools as early as March. Now, nobody wants our classrooms to be test factories, and with proper leadership on a campus, the STAAR test should be downplayed as nothing more than a mile marker in the educational process. But the state has made it even more difficult by creating something that is clearly intended to assess an entire year’s worth of the learning but that is administered a full TWO MONTHS before summer break begins. Because of this, these snapshots of student knowledge, flawed as they are in the best of circumstances, provide an even more skewed picture of a child’s development. It also means that a teacher being evaluated in part (albeit by a very small percentage) by those test scores gets frustrated that the work he or she does the last two months of the school year is ignored on those evaluations.
How does one solve this problem? Well, if we started school three or four weeks earlier, we could end school that much earlier, and our school calendar would make a lot more sense. The semesters would be far more balanced – so each of my six weeks in the fall would be an actual six weeks, allowing for sensibly paced teacher lesson planning. Bonus: It could help campuses focus their lessons in the final month of school, much more so than the free-for-all that happens currently.
Our Home Rule Commission can fix this relatively non-controversial problem with a few light keystrokes on its working document, as long as the voters subsequently approve. (I like to imagine said document is saved in GoogleDocs under the name DISDdraft_Charter_HOMERULZ.doc.) They simply include a line in the charter saying the Home Rule Dallas Independent School District is formally exempt from the provision of the Texas Education Code governing the school start date. In case you’re curious to know what this might look like, Mark Melton and other concerned citizens actually drafted a sample charter that contains just this kind of language. (Read it here.) If the HRC does this, you should note that this doesn’t change the school start date. This just means that the board of trustees, moving forward, has the ability to consider a start date prior to the fourth week of August, a consideration they are currently barred from making.
School Start Date vs. Year Round Calendar vs. More Instructional Days
The earlier school start option is pretty simple. But there are a few related topics that should be explored.
First, there is a difference between starting school in, say, the third week of August, and abandoning the traditional fall/spring semester calendar by adopting a year round school calendar (also called a “balanced calendar”). State law currently bars the former but allows the latter, subject to approval by TEA. Year round schedules are in use in a variety of places around the country and in Texas. Generally speaking, kids will go to school for a month or so, and then be off for a week or so (called “intersessions”) throughout the calendar year. The purpose of this alternative calendar isn’t to add instructional time. It serves two purposes:
No. 1: It helps school districts that want to expand the number of kids they serve without constructing new buildings – which can save the insane amount of money districts need to do so and that they usually must raise in bond elections. To make this work, districts set up multiple scheduling tracks, so their buildings are always in use, but kids cycle in and out of them on alternating schedules. If it’s done right, the year round calendar can increase physical capacity by up to of 15 percent across a district. That’s tremendous savings.
No. 2: It has been attempted — with mixed success — as a way to address the summer slide. Research has shown it to be generally effective, but Dallas ISD tried it and found it not to be meaningful. Many think the key is what happens during the intersessions. If instruction is offered during that time to struggling students, then you will see improvement. But then again, that’s not just spreading the calendar out, that’s adding more days. (As with most reforms, only “quality” programs move the needle. For example, average pre-K programs don’t help kids much at all, but quality pre-K programs always show dramatic results.)
Either way, it is very difficult to work out the logistics for just about everybody involved – parents, teachers, administrators, even businesses that employ high school students. So it tends to be rarely implemented, certainly not in huge urban areas.
Traditional school districts in Texas, whether they adopt that year round calendar or they use the traditional one, generally offer 180 days or less of instruction. I haven’t found any traditional school districts in Texas that offer more than 185 days of instruction. (If you know of one, please lemme know in the comments.) There are a number of public charter schools, though, that offer many more than 180 days of instruction. They generally do so on a slightly smaller budget than traditional school districts, which causes much disagreement and argument in education circles. They also do it with teachers who are employed on an at-will basis, which is also not an option for traditional schools districts. It seems they basically pull this off by asking their teachers to do more for less. Whether that is possible in the traditional school system is a HUGE question – because charter schools only cover about 3.5 percent of the public school system in Texas, and the ones that offer more instructional days are only a fraction of those charters. Spoiler alert: I think the clear answer is, no, you can’t — nor should you — make the public school system work by asking our teachers to do more for less.
Why increase the number of instructional days, then? Because it works. More time for instruction really, really does work, perhaps more than any other reform. So we must find a way to do it without asking teachers to do more for less money. So funding is an issue. That’s a given. We’ll look at that later.
I would argue that, yes, we need more instructional days. If you’re going to increase said instructional days, we’ve already established that days at the beginning of the school calendar make more sense, since state testing can’t be moved. This could be done on an optional basis, targeted at certain students in certain grades, or in any other number of ways. (Think of something like a “fish camp” for incoming high school freshman.)
Without the flexibility to experiment with the calendar a bit before the fourth week of August, the school district’s hands are tied. This seems like the one obvious addition to a DISD Home Rule Commission charter: something that includes flexibility in setting the school calendar. But we need to realize that there are many more issues at play in order to add instructional time, so the initial benefits from becoming a Home Rule district – i.e., balancing the semesters – will translate into larger benefits over time as the district uses its newfound freedom to add instructional days.
