Passage 1
Passage 2
PASSAGE 1: Four Days or Five?
By Phillip Jones
State legislators often view the four-day school week as a technique for continuing to support education despite a strained budget. The basic concept is clear: by offering instruction four days a week, schools save money. Theoretically, savings can be derived from a reduction in transportation costs, the cost of heating or cooling buildings, food costs, and the cost of personnel salaries. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 21 states have school districts that operate on a four-day week.
Writing for the Times Free Press website during 2012, Tim Omarzu reported the financial success of a four-day school schedule experiment. With the principal objective of saving money, students in the experimental district would attend school about 160 days annually, rather than 180 days. In exchange, the students have longer school days. In one county, the shorter school week saved about $333,762 on salaries, $221,000 for transportation, $154,000 on power, and $88,000 for substitute teacher pay.
“Best thing in the world” was how Superintendent Jimmy Lenderman characterized the four-day week. “There’s a lot of positives that have come out of it we weren’t expecting,” Lenderman told Omarzu. The unexpected bonuses included improved test scores, reduced absenteeism from both teachers and students, and fewer student disciplinary problems.
Jazmine Anderson wrote about her experience with a four-day school week in her March 2016 article for the Odyssey website. Anderson went to school four days a week (Monday through Thursday) from first grade through 12th grade. One benefit of the schedule, she said, is that students do not have to miss class for sports and other extracurricular activities, which are characteristically scheduled for Fridays.
Anderson’s school day typically ran from 8:15 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., a schedule that she said was not very challenging. “In the four-day model, core classes (AKA the ones that require actual thinking) are set in the morning while students’ brains are still fresh,” she said. “Electives (the ones that don’t demand as much focus) are usually after lunch.”
However, the four-day schedule failed to prepare Anderson for the five-day schedule of college. “Only getting two days in during the weekend killed me,” she said, “and now, a semester and a half into my freshman year of college, I still haven’t completely adjusted.”
Proponents of the traditional five-day school week argue that the four-day schedule does not train students for college or the workforce. In addition, the shorter school week creates a dilemma for families with two working parents: leave the child unattended for a day or pay for supervision. Some people also argue that a three-day weekend gives a student more time to forget class lessons and fall behind.
What about the improved test scores with a four-day week? The results are unclear. Three studies of Colorado schools yielded different conclusions: one study showed some academic gains with the four-day week, one showed no difference between four-and five-day weeks, and one showed a possible gain for the five-day schedule.
1. Read this paragraph from Passage 1.
Proponents of the traditional five-day school week argue that the four-day schedule does not train students for college or the workforce. In addition, the shorter school week creates a dilemma for families with two working parents: Leave the child unattended for a day or pay for supervision. Some people also argue that a three-day weekend gives a student more time to forget class lessons and fall behind.
Why did the author include this paragraph?
Ato describe the improved test scores that are often found in a four-day school week
Bto infer that a four-day school week is a better schedule to use
Cto explain which schedule has more studies that support the best school schedule
Dto support the claim that a four-day school week may not be beneficial for everyone