How else is student time expended?
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | TIME
ers tend to have more direct control over the daily and weekly class schedule. For example, Caldwell, Huitt, and Graeber (1982) found that:
Time actually allocated for fifth-grade math ranged from 18 minutes to 80 minutes; allocated fifth-grade reading time ranged from 51 minutes to 195 minutes. Allocated time may also vary enormously within a class; for example, in one study (Dishaw, 1977) one fifth-grade student spent 39 minutes each day on math while another student spent 75 minutes. These differences in actual allocated time suggest that some students may have two to four times as much opportunity to learn specific academic content as other students. (p. 474)
Is it fair that because of a particular teacher’s talents and inclinations, his or her class gets a great reading and writing program but practically nothing else? At the schoolwide level, it is imperative that we examine how time is apportioned throughout the day, the week, and the school year and ask questions like these:
p What percentage of time in school is allocated and protected for in- struction?
p How else is student time expended?
p Do the percentages match our priorities?
p How might we decrease the amount of allocated time not devoted to instruction?
p Over the years, what amount of a student’s time is spent learning what subjects?
p Is there some consistency and rationale to this expenditure of time? If not, then we are not really in control of the education we are delivering.