Columnist Dan Newburn: Block scheduling questioned

Dan Newburn

Saturday, Sept. 28, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

IS block scheduling a good or bad idea?

Who knows?

In an effort to improve student learning in our high schools, Clark County School District educrats are trying a sleight-of-hand called "block scheduling."

Block scheduling is changing the school day into classes much longer than the traditional 50-minute period. Often, students have four long class periods per day instead of seven or eight. When this is done, a course that normally covered the entire school year can then be compressed into an intense half-year course.

These fewer, longer classes are said to allow new styles of teaching rather than old-fashioned direct instruction. The claim is that education is supposed to become less stressful, more relaxed and more enjoyable.

It is also said that it will improve student learning for these reasons: fewer failing grades, less time lost in the halls between classes, more time for student-teacher interaction, less stress on students, more time for labs and advanced topics with motivated students, more time for teacher planning, more time for off-site work experiences for school-to-work programs and reduced dropout rates.

Sounds great, right?

Wrong.

Unfortunately, there is not one major scientific study on block scheduling that supports these wishful outcomes. There, are however, several studies seriously questioning this unproven attempt at improving student learning.

Block scheduling often fails to take into account the short attention span of today's teenager. Just making a class twice as long does not enable twice as much material to be covered. Add to this problem students with learning disabilities, and one can quickly see the problem.

To solve these problems, teachers are frequently forced to water down course content and replace it with fluff activities (watching movies, game playing, etc.) to keep the students focused for a longer period of time.

Nearly all students have difficulty maintaining interest over a 50-minute class and doubling class length is not going to increase interest, it is only going to reduce effective learning.

An even more serious problem with block scheduling is poor retention on the part of students. Block-scheduled students usually take a full year of a class in just one semester. Therefore, months may pass before they take the next course in the sequence or before they take important tests like the ACT. This results in more time to forget what was learned.

Research data confirms that this is a major problem. Dr. David J. Bateson of the University of British Columbia studied 30,000 10th-grade students in British Columbia and found students in year-long science courses significantly outperformed those using block scheduling.

What is often missed by those pushing block scheduling is that less total time is spent on core classes simply because one 90-minute class has 10 percent less time than two 50-minute classes. While this may open up the possibility of a student taking extra electives during the school year, it clearly means they will be spending less time on English, math and other core courses.

Few proponents of block scheduling want to talk about the added pressure this approach puts on teachers. It simply means teachers are going to have to work even harder to hold the interest of their students or resort to "fun-time" activities and busy work.

It also means students who unfortunately are assigned to a C or D teacher are going to have to have them for a longer period of time. Of course if they get an A or B teacher, they are in luck.

Clearly, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of block scheduling. Len Paul, Clark County assistant superintendent for secondary education, says the district is closely watching the few high schools using block scheduling.

He says the high schools trying block scheduling are being closely monitored and will be evaluated by teachers, principals, parents and district staff as to the effectiveness of this approach.

It is encouraging to see the school district tyring to address the need for improvement in student learning. However, it appears block scheduling may not be the best method. At best, the case for block scheduling is weak and, in some cases, is contradicted by scientific studies.

Until there is clear evidence in favor of changing our current high school class-time structure, CCSD should not rush to hop on this dubious runaway wagon. It doesn't seem to be headed toward the right direction.