Cheddar News' senior reporter Chloe Aiello breaks down what's behind the growing popularity of shortening the school week to four days, which echoes more widespread calls to shorten the work week.  

Cheddar News' senior reporter Chloe Aiello breaks down what's behind the growing popularity of shortening the school week to four days, which echoes more widespread calls to shorten the work week.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Need2Know Headlines

Need2Know: Calls for a Four-Day School Week Gain Popularity 

And we've been hearing a lot about the four day week. But what about for school? Well, this shorten the schedule appears to be spreading but experts are sounding the alarm bell here with more news. Senior reporter Chloe Alo, thanks for being here with us because I'm curious how widespread is this trend? Hey, Shannon. Well, unlike the four day work week, which tends to be about worker productivity and happiness. The four day school week has predominantly stemmed from teacher retention amid an ongoing shortage, cost savings and reducing student absences. Of course too. And this trend as you mentioned is spreading. So there are more teachers now than there were pre pandemic but there are still teacher shortages particularly in areas like special education, science and math. The shortage has been driven by a number of factors like low pay, decreasing esteem for teachers stagnating wages and higher education requirements as well. That's according to N pr add to that a shortage of uh add to that shortage of misalignment of teacher supply with teacher demand. And you have an even worse problem for schools, high poverty and high minority school districts, for example, are typically harder hit. Now a four day week can make a district more appealing teachers even if it pays less. According to the RAND corporation, teachers working shorter weeks, experience less burnout and in some cases are willing to work longer before retirement schools that pay less for teachers can spend more on other things like lunches, specialized employees or buses. But Rand Corporation researchers say the four day week is at best a band aid for systemic problems, plaguing schools as far as positives for some studies have shown a four day school week can lead to less student burnout, more family time and less bullying as well. But of course, there are some major concerns when it comes to educational shortfalls resulting from the model. According to Oregon State University, four day weeks are already at use in about 1600 schools nationwide across 850 school districts that's actually jumped from 650 districts in 2019. You mentioned impacts to students achievement. So what can you tell us about that? Exactly. Yeah. So studies show a reduction in student achievement when a day of school is removed. So a 12 state study found a drop in aptitude in math as well as English language in districts that tried this model out. One study found a gradual reduction in aptitude that over the course of about eight years added up to roughly the equivalent damage as the as we saw to the educational system and achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic, a researcher from the RAND Corporation told axios that a four day school week quote unambiguously hurts student achievement over time. Now, speaking of the pandemic research has shown sizable declines in test scores in math and English for students in 2021 compared with 2019. That's according to the Brown Center chalk board from the Brookings Institution. Now, disparities between low poverty schools and high poverty schools also increased during the pandemic. The gap in reading test scores, for example, grew 15% during the 2020 to 2021 school year and the math score gap group 20%. So what I'm saying here is that a four day school week, according to experts could exasperate the negative effects that we saw from the pandemic. That makes sense to me. But what about the impact on families? Does it seem like they'd be able to spend more time together? It's a great question, Shandon. Unfortunately, it doesn't have an easy answer. So according to researchers at Oregon State University, most of the research on a four day week has been focused on a cost savings for schools and student achievement. So far less of it has actually been focused on uh you know, the well being of a family, for example. Uh but we, we are seeing um you know, research showing that uh as I mentioned, the research isn't there when it comes to the impact on family, but uh the idea that we could see more quality family time is great. The reality for many caretakers, however, is that they don't necessarily have the luxury of caring for their Children one extra day per week. And with the exorbitant cost of child care in America, you can imagine some families really struggling to deal with this change. Shannon. Yeah, you make a good point. If the parents still have to go to work, then it makes it harder for them. Unless everybody is on a four day work week and school week. I say, send them to school year round. My kids. I hate that. But, hey, they don't learn as much over the summer. All right. Thank you so much, Chloe.