Interestingly, this issue came up in the most recent issue of Esquire where former governor Jeb Bush, who is of a similar mind, said, "We should have 'seat time' eliminated . . . You show up for 180 days, you graduate. It should be based on what you learned. People learn differently. It's a simple fact that our education system ignores." While that is a bit of an exaggeration, I was intrigued to hear someone talking about it. Certainly, it's not just 180 hours and a diploma - there are core requirements in those 180 days and thirteen years. However, there have been enough horror stories of illiterate graduates to indict the system for extremely low expectations of how that "seat time" is used.
After a little research, I learned that the state of Indiana feels the same way and has done something about it:
In its first meeting under the direction of Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett, the State Board of Education approved a series of reforms aimed at facilitating student-centered learning and removing unnecessary regulations.
“Teachers and principals have repeatedly expressed to me their frustration with regulations that prevent them from delivering the best possible instruction to their students,” Bennett said. “The actions taken today by the State Board of Education are a first step toward eliminating unnecessary requirements that all too often get in the way of our primary focus which is the achievement of students.”
Among the actions taken by the state board today was the elimination of a requirement for 250 minutes of instruction per week to earn credit for high school courses. The removal of this requirement will give schools much needed flexibility in developing curriculum and creative scheduling options that best meet the needs of individual students.
“We need to measure success by what students are actually learning, not by how many minutes they’re sitting in a particular class each week,” Bennett said. “Principals, if they’re willing to be creative, now have a powerful new tool to help maximize educational opportunities for students.”
That sounds about right, and I am surprised there hasn't been more discussion of this type of change. It is an important part of the reform discussion, and one that I hope to see Colorado address this year as well. This scholarly paper notes:
The obsolete nature of current school structures is evident in the way large groups of students with the same birthdays move from subject expert to subject expert in incremental blocks of time, in the way success is measured by seat time and rote return of information, and in the way what is learned during the "school year" is lost during the summer, perpetuating the difference in learning levels for various socioeconomic groups. In this article, the author calls for a reinvention of how citizens are educated rather than continuously trying to improve the existing education "systems."
There is no doubt that students progress at different levels, and simply establishing thirteen years with a 1080 hours of teacher contact time a year as the standard model is nothing short of inefficient. As I've noted before, many of my AP students are certainly "ready" to start working on their bachelor degree - both in terms of knowledge/skill and maturity. Thus, there is little sense in restricting their ability to do that.
"Seat time" might need to become the next big discussion on the education reform stage.
