Hartford Schools Block Education

Are you able to sit through an entire showing of Avatar without getting up for popcorn?  Can you watch the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl without getting up every quarter for a beer?  Twitter is popular because we only need to sit through 280 characters, which amounts to about 70 words.  Of the few people who attend, most leave a Board of Education meeting well before it is finished.  The only time adults don’t mind sitting and waiting is if we’re in the drive-through at MacDonalds.  Yet Hartford Public Schools insists it’s a great idea for your 8-year old to sit in a math class for more than an hour.

Americans are an impatient bunch, and our lack of attention span is evident by the worn buttons on our remote controls.  Psychology Today reports that “classic attention span” research finds that most folks fall between the 10 minute and 42-minute mark, depending on age and what it is you’re sitting through.  After that we become stressed-out, and information overloaded.

The neuropsychological and psychological testing, educational advocacy and planning folks at CNLD, a Michigan group that has been helping adults and kids make sense of learning, emotions, and life for more than 30 years, provide us with a guide on the attention span of various age groups.  Kids under 10-years old hit their anxiety peak  at 6-24 minutes, 9-12-year olds start misbehaving at 35 minutes.  High school kids start doodling on their notebooks after 50 minutes.

In 2009, the National Association of Elementary School Principals stated that “the attention span of the average middle school student is 10-12 minutes, and there is little evidence that their brains can be trained to develop a longer span.”

These data-driven claims seem common sensical to me, and probably to most parents of school-age kids.  Yet, HPS remains in the minority by sticking with the notion that block scheduling is the only way to cover their “rigorous” educational rhetoric.

The idea of block scheduling, otherwise known as boring the hell out of a 10-year old for 90 minutes, and whether it is a good idea or a bad idea, is not settled science.  Anybody who tells you differently is somebody who got tired of researching the subject, and grabbed the best study which spoke to their opinion.  The science on block scheduling will differ with circumstances and situations.  It’s not gravity were talking about.  The stalwart school leaders who claim they base their educational programs on data-driven science, like those at HPS, are basing that dubious mantra on the dubious data-driven science that Educational Resource Strategies (ERS) and other paid consultants present to them.

Forget the science, let’s look at what’s popular and let that guide our decision on whether block scheduling is, or has been, a great educational strategy.  Block scheduling gained traction in the 80s (but so did crack), and the most often referenced studies were done in the 90s (when crack was whack).  In the early 2000s, we can finally see how many people were still using crack…I mean, block scheduling. 

A National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) study in 2004 shows that by the early 2000s, we just weren’t into the 80s anymore, as only 39% of U.S. schools were using block scheduling.  In 2009, the NCES said that only 40% of high schools were using block scheduling.  A 2020 study on the effects of block scheduling on African American males stated that less than 50% of schools were using that scheduling strategy, while also finding that there was no significant effect on the educational achievement of their cohort who suffered through such a thing.  The historical popularity of block scheduling shows that it has never been popular, and a vast majority of schools never bought a ticket for that movie.

Let’s look closer to home and find out how effective HPS’ theory that students are forever in a constant state of motivation has worked out for everyone involved.  Well, that’s not correct, we want to look at how effective it has been for the students, others involved often have different motives and goals for implementing such things.

Before COVID, Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez, and Apple Watches, HPS was committed to a strong principal form of administration.  In 2011, principals in Hartford had autonomy in budget decisions, staffing decisions, and, to our point, scheduling decisions. Some, like Hartford Public High’s Principal Chambers, chose to implement block scheduling in HPHS’ Nursing Academy, the principals of the other two academies in the building did not follow suit.  Nursing Academy teachers and students didn’t care for the schedule, and Mr. Chambers, thinking he may one day be under the care of one of his Nursing Academy students, dropped the ridiculous experiment. 

Then came Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez.  Mr. Chambers went to New Britain, principal autonomy in HPS dropped to “throw ‘em a bone” levels, and block scheduling became a district- wide, heavy-handed mandate.  To meet federal and state standards in educational achievement, block scheduling enthusiasts and practitioners have felt it necessary to lock your kids into math, English Language Arts, and science classes for up to 2 hours at a time.  In the last six years, HPS, under their block scheduling mandate, has not surpassed the 18.6% mark of kids meeting or exceeding Smarter Balanced Achievement expectations in math, or the 25.8% mark in English Language Arts, or the 25.1% mark in science (EdSight). Sure, there are more variables involved than a scheduling strategy, however, block scheduling partisans claimed this scheduling strategy would overcome many other variables that play on students’ achievement.

In the 2017-18 school year, the Simpson-Waverly school had a “2 ½ hour uninterrupted” language arts block.  On the Smarter Balance assessments, only 16.9% of Simpson-Waverly students met or exceeded expectations in ELA.  Only 6.1% of Simpson-Waverly students met or exceeded expectations on the Smarter Balance math assessment, despite a 75 minute “learning” block.

What college professor worth their tenure will tell a student that “cramming” for an exam is an excellent idea?  None.  Yet, that is what HPS is telling kids 10-15 years younger than college students.  What they are also telling them is that it is ok to miss time in other subjects because 75% of your day is needed to help you succeed in the three core subjects.  They are telling students that it is ok if you cannot find any place beyond West Hartford on the map, that you cannot say, “hello, how are you” in another language in a city where more that 25% of your neighbors speak another language, or that you think Connecticut was the birthplace of the Enlightenment…you’re not alone.

How do the students feel about block scheduling?  We should find out.  A hint may come from the district’s Fall 2022 Culture & Climate Survey presented at a Board of Education meeting on December 6.  The survey “apparently” found that just 56% of Hartford students like coming to school.  Yes, they survey 3rd graders as well, and offer “incentives” for them to take the survey.  It’s only a suggestive hint, but it’s what we have to go on since the district’s other in-depth, hard-hitting points of research in this survey consisted of asking students to respond to the following: “I  have friends at my school,” or, “My school is clean.”   I’d wager that students would say, “all these blocks...I don’t know what to make of it.”