Why 180 days of school

It's about how well teachers are able to help students learn information in any amount of time. What you put into it is what you get out of it.

Post has seen the calendar change over the past ten years. He thinks the required days is enough time to teach students what they need to know But if those days were shifted to start a bit later he'd like it better. But it's not easier to teach or learn later in the day. Post says two-hour delays make it harder to keep the day rolling smoothly.

Rolling smoothly is something necessary for teachers when their students are taking advanced placement classes for college credit and have to pass the AP test. Amy Howe teaches AP science classes and though time is precious, she says there is enough time for students to learn the curriculum. It's doable, but a lot is up to the teacher being organized. Howe prefers the block schedule to 45 minute classes. She says 45 minutes can be good for students to study what they learned that day and return to it the next, but breaking up the learning can also be bad.

Making it easier comes down to time management for the teacher and the student. See the video above to learn more about how AP classes and time management fit into the days. Skip to content. Maine days Students in grade 12 may have their year reduced to days. Kindergarten: hours Grades hours Grades hours Hours exclude lunch, recess, passing periods, homeroom, non-directed study periods, and time spent receiving school services or participating in optional school programs.

Michigan days 1, hours Minnesota Grades days Half-day Kindergarten: hours Full-day Kindergarten: hours Grades hours Grades 1, hours Mississippi days Missouri 5-day week: days 4-day week: days Kindergarten: hours Grades 1, hours Montana Half-day Kindergarten: hours Full-day K hours Grades 1, hours Graduating seniors: 1, hours Includes an additional 3 days for instructional and professional development.

Nebraska Kindergarten: hours Grades 1, hours Grades ; 1, hours Nevada days May includes up to 5 days for professional development with approval from the superintendent of public instruction. New Hampshire days Kindergarten: hours Elementary schools: hours Middle and high schools: hours Districts have the option to meet either minimum hours per year or days per year. High school seniors may have their year reduced by up to 5 days or 30 hours. New Jersey days New Mexico Half-day Kindergarten: hours Full-day K hours Grades 1, hours 33 hours of the full-day kindergarten program and 22 hours of grades may be used for home visits by the teacher or parent-teacher conferences.

New York days North Carolina days 1, hours Districts have the option to meet either minimum hours per year or days per year. North Dakota days In a day calendar, days are required for instruction, at least 2 must be used for professional development, and no more than 2 days may be used for parent-teacher conferences.

Any reconfigured school year must include at least Ohio District option for minimum days. Half-day Kindergarten: hours Full-day K hours Grades 1, hours Oklahoma days 1, hours Districts have the option to meet either the minimum hours per year or days per year.

Hours include up to 30 hours used for professional meetings and 6 hours per semester for parent-teacher conferences. Pennsylvania days Kindergarten: hours Grade hours Grade hours Districts have the option to meet either the minimum hours per year or days per year.

Rhode Island days 1, hours Districts have the option to meet either the minimum hours per year or days per year. South Carolina days 3 days must be used for professional development; no more than 2 days may be used for the preparation of opening schools; and 5 days must be used for teacher planning, academic plans, and parent conferences to total days. South Dakota Minimum days is district option. Kindergarten: After lunch, there are sports, clubs, and activities such as art and music that American schools consider to be either extra-curricular or specials; the latter have routinely been cut over the last decade to spend more time on core academics.

In Germany, older kids can choose between a more traditional academic track or a skilled trade track. By contrast, Finland, like the US, has about days of schooling each year. And, if the number of hours and days kids spend in school is not the driving factor in either well-being or academic performance, then it seems like a variable we ought to consider as a much lower priority to the overall transformation of education.

This much we know: the current education system was built on a set of erroneous assumptions about how and where learning could happen best and most efficiently.

Young people were seen as empty vessels that needed to be filled with the knowledge they needed for life. Adults had this knowledge. So, the system was designed to efficiently allow adults to transfer knowledge to young people. Whether or not this has actually been happening is questionable and increasingly irrelevant because we know that transferring knowledge can longer be the goal of our education system.

By some estimates, the amount of knowledge in the world doubles every 12 months. And, with advances in technology and artificial intelligence AI , that rate is expected to increase to doubling every 12 hours. Report after report—from the World Bank, McKinsey, and governments around the world—is concluding the same thing. To thrive in a technologically-advanced future, human beings need to develop a new set of skills and dispositions.

They need to know themselves and have a sense of how they want to engage in the world. None of these things are developed sitting in classrooms listening to teachers.

The growing shift in public education towards project-based and more active learning approaches shows that we know this. Young people are most likely to develop skills like problem-solving, collaboration, empathy, and adaptability when they are engaged with complex, real-world challenges.

They are most likely to develop a sense of community, belonging, and identity when they are immersed in their communities. And, they are most likely to develop a sense of who they are—their strengths, challenges, and aspirations—when they have a chance to experience the richness and possibilities that the world actually holds.