July/August 2009

Putting the Brakes on “Summer Slide”
Modified school calendars build in time to enrich learning and sustain gains
by Brigid Schulte

This spring, officials in Fairfax County, Va., like those in localities across the country during these economic hard times, were in a fiscal bind and looking for any way to close a projected $650 million budget shortfall. School officials began looking seriously at slashing one line item: the nearly $3 million the county spends to fund a longer school year, called a modified school calendar, at seven elementary schools.

The vote, in some ways, would have been an easy one. The seven schools had high levels of poverty and high numbers of students who spoke little English. These were not the kind of parents who would organize and protest before the school board, demanding that their program be spared.

Then Diane Connolly showed up at a budget hearing. And in the course of one PowerPoint presentation, she changed everyone’s mind.

To purchase the current issue of the Harvard Education Letter, click here

Closing the Achievement Gap with Extended Learning Time
A voluntary program in Massachusetts takes root in city schools
by Colleen Gillard

Xavier Villalona, age 15, could once have been a poster child for a middle school’s failure to meet student needs. There just wasn’t much holding the charming but rebellious eighth grader to the crumbling and chaotic Edwards Middle School in Charlestown, Mass. Classes were a “bore”; some of the teachers “nasty.” He shrugs and says, “They weren’t too happy with me; I wasn’t too happy with them.” This is the “before” picture.

* * * * * *

Now the state of Massachusetts has come up with a way to better engage kids like Villalona through a state-funded initiative, the nation’s first, to support longer academic days along with high-quality afterschool enrichment. The Massachusetts Extended Learning Time (ELT) Initiative, launched in 2005 by the nonprofit group Massachusetts 2020 in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, now reaches 26 schools serving more than 13,500 students. At a cost of $17.5 million, the program allows schools to add 300 hours of programming per year.

To purchase the current issue of the Harvard Education Letter, click here

“Manga Is My Life”
Opportunities (and opportunities missed) for literacy development
by Michael Bitz

As the founder of the Comic Book Project—a literacy initiative for underserved youths—I am often asked if I read comic books as a child. Because the answer is no, I am consistently amazed by children who discover comic books as literature—and equally dismayed by educators who ban such books, chosen by children, from the classroom.

The idea behind the Comic Book Project is simple: children plan, write, design, and produce original comic books, then publish and distribute their work for other children to use as learning and motivational tools. Since its inception in 2001, the project has grown to encompass over 50,000 youths across the country, mostly in high-poverty urban schools and neighborhoods. More than just a fun and motivational project for children, the project is intended to model how creative thinking can bolster academic success. The thousands of comics created by youth participants in the Comic Book Project are a testament to the power of the medium for building conventional literacy skills, including spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, character development, narrative flow, editing, revising, presenting, and publishing—all of the skills that we aim to instill in young readers and writers.

I saw this firsthand in observing a group of students in the afterschool comic book club at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Manhattan over a period of several years. During school, many of these students—African American and Latino teenagers—struggled academically and socially. But after school, when the grade books were closed and the textbooks tossed back into lockers, these same students—so disengaged from the life of the classroom—became highly motivated readers and writers.

Click here to read this article in full-text. To purchase this issue of the Harvard Education Letter, click here.

To subscribe to Harvard Education Letter, click here.