There are ton of issues that affect Teacher time on task

-Announcements
-Crappy playgrounds that leave kids to just beat on each other (You laugh but this was a problem at Thomson)
-Same issue but kids don't know how to play and teachers have to deal with all the conflicts
-Kids whose parents have spent the morning berating them and they are a mess- we have all seen it.
-Parents wanting just a few minutes with the teacher, yes even I have done it and don't you dare ask me to leave
-Chronically late kids (see the thread with the 4th grader that can't make it class before 9:00 am
-Poorly designed classrooms that make getting on task more difficult (see those lovely open school buildings)
-teachers who just don't know how to do it, harder than most of us realize.

Like many things on task makes sense but wow it is amazing how hard it can be to implement.

Anonymous wrote:This is a serious piece that deserves consideration. However, it is amusing to see it on the "Greater Greater Washington" website, which seems largely to cater to self-described "urbanist hipsters" who rank schools well down the list of DC priorities behind dog parks and a "vibrant" bar scene. In their vision of Washington, no one needs a car, single family home neighborhoods are obsolete and Manhattan is the ideal model for every planning question and social ill.

Huh...

Isn't Dave Alpert (or someone else who contributes regularly) a parent who posts about family-friendliness around town? I wouldn't say the readership is all childless. Urbanist, yes, but necessarily hipster, no.

Oh... and single family home neighborhoods are totally obsolete.

This is a serious piece that deserves consideration. However, it is amusing to see it on the "Greater Greater Washington" website, which seems largely to cater to self-described "urbanist hipsters" who rank schools well down the list of DC priorities behind dog parks and a "vibrant" bar scene. In their vision of Washington, no one needs a car, single family home neighborhoods are obsolete and Manhattan is the ideal model for every planning question and social ill.

Anonymous wrote:KIPP DC Executive Director Susan Schaeffler says "extra time is meaningful only if it is accompanied by good teaching."

Sure, DCPS starts at 8:15, but ask any high-FARMS school teacher at what time the kids actually start learning. Is breakfast delivered to classrooms by 8:15 or are kids in the cafeteria eating breakfast at this time? And then when does instruction begin? And how much is taken up with trivia? And the dawdlers? An 8:15 official start doesn't mean teaching and learning begins at 8:15.

The official DCPS start is 8:45, official stop is 3:15

Charter school my other child attends 8:10 stop 3:30

All things could probably happen - reduce inefficiencies, increase the length of the school day, give more teachers time to plan. It will probably help get more teachers on board if they don't feel like even more of their time will be wasted and that they will have time to actually do the things it takes to be an effective teacher (plan lessons that meet all their students' needs). If it is proposed as just another way to get teachers to do more for less, I don't even think increasing teacher pay will help with that - DCPS teachers learned that lesson with the last contract.

What WTU President Nathan Saunders says is that, he agrees with successful charter schools that more actual instructional time (what DC Prep and Saunders each called "time on task") leads to better outcomes. Saunders says that increasing instructional time can happen by eliminating distractions during the existing school day (data entry, disciplinary distractions), more a lot less money than extending the school day. Saunders is arguing that extending the school day masks the underlying inefficiencies in the existing school day.

archerovi wrote:After looking at the recent Charter School rankings and talking with Mary Cheh's staff and WTU President Saunders, I've become convinced that increasing teacher's time on task, whether through extended school days and/or removing distractions from teachers' school day, must become a top priority of DCPS. Unfortunately, what I found is that no one is really seriously looking into this.

I posted this GGW article on extended school days in DCPS this morning with the disheartening interviews that make this clear.

What do you mean by "increasing a teacher's time on task" -- what about increasing the STUDENTS' learning time, and giving the teachers more time to plan?

KIPP DC Executive Director Susan Schaeffler says "extra time is meaningful only if it is accompanied by good teaching."

Sure, DCPS starts at 8:15, but ask any high-FARMS school teacher at what time the kids actually start learning. Is breakfast delivered to classrooms by 8:15 or are kids in the cafeteria eating breakfast at this time? And then when does instruction begin? And how much is taken up with trivia? And the dawdlers? An 8:15 official start doesn't mean teaching and learning begins at 8:15.

After looking at the recent Charter School rankings and talking with Mary Cheh's staff and WTU President Saunders, I've become convinced that increasing teacher's time on task, whether through extended school days and/or removing distractions from teachers' school day, must become a top priority of DCPS. Unfortunately, what I found is that no one is really seriously looking into this.

I posted this GGW article on extended school days in DCPS this morning with the disheartening interviews that make this clear.