Considering how much ground U.S. students lost during the pandemic, it would seem self-evident that they should be spending more time in the classroom to catch up. Yet a growing number of school districts across the country are doing the opposite, by moving to a four-day school week. Advocates claim the change can help schools save money and attract and retain teachers. It’s also bound to leave students even further behind.
The vast majority of students are still required to attend school Monday through Friday, but four-day weeks are gaining in popularity. As of last year, at least 1,600 public schools in 25 states had adopted four-day weeks, a sixfold increase since 1999. Prior to the pandemic, the practice was largely limited to rural areas — more than half of Idaho’s school districts use four-day weeks — but has since spread to cities and suburbs, as schools have expanded remote learning and experimented with hybrid schedules. In Texas, more than 60 districts allow four-day weeks, including in suburbs outside Dallas and Houston.
Administrators in favor of the change cite several potential benefits. It could conceivably help districts save on transportation, food service and maintenance costs, thereby leaving more money for academics. It could also give students an added day to work, pursue internships or participate in nonschool extracurricular activities. At a time when districts across the U.S. report teacher shortages, a four-day week is seen as a way to make teaching more competitive with jobs that offer flexible work schedules.
The trouble is that there’s little evidence to support any of these hopes. Schools that take one day off typically compensate by having a longer school day, meaning teachers and staff keep roughly the same pay. As a result, the savings from a shorter week are minimal — between 0.4% and 2% of districts’ annual budgets, according to one estimate. Although a four-day week appears to boost teachers’ job satisfaction, a 2021 study found that its impact on recruiting and retention was “inconclusive.” As for how students actually use their time off, more than 80% of seventh through 12th graders say they just stay at home.
It’s not surprising that academic achievement suffers. Even with longer daily hours, students in four-day schools miss the equivalent of 12 extra school days in the classroom per year. Those losses compound over time, in part because students with regular three-day weekends are more likely to forget what they’ve learned the rest of the week. An analysis of more than 100 Oregon schools that have switched to four-day weeks found that declines in math and reading scores got worse the longer the policies were in place. Four-day weeks are also associated with higher levels of juvenile crime and lower maternal employment rates and earnings.
In short, the trend toward four-day weeks will only make it harder to recover the half-year in learning that students lost, on average, during the pandemic — leaving the country poorer, less competitive and more unequal. Districts that have recently switched to four-day weeks, or are planning to do so, should reconsider. In addition to increasing the minimum number of hours all students must be in school, as New Mexico has recently done, states should require that four-day schools demonstrate that their students’ test scores are keeping pace with those following a traditional schedule. In areas where four-day weeks offer some practical advantages — by reducing the amount of time students spend commuting, for instance — schools should use any money saved to expand virtual tutoring, work-based learning and summer-school programs.
America’s students suffered grievous academic damage during the pandemic. More time away from class is the last thing they need now.
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The Editors are members of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.
