Most students in grades K-12 attend school for 6 to 7 hours a day, 180 days per year. Some
schools offer extended learning by adding extra time to the school day or increasing the length of the school year. Some states are moving to this type of schedule in an attempt to increase student achievement. Is it worthwhile？ Longer days allow for more instruction in core classes, individualized attention and additional tutoring time for struggling students. Schools that switched to longer days reported significant gains in language arts, math and science. The most notable change was a gain of about 20 percent more proficiency in math from 2006 to 2010. However, the additional time must be accompanied by quality instruction to have an impact. Longer school days also have positive implications for teachers, allowing for more collaboration with colleagues, planning time and opportunities for on-campus professional development. Some districts that use extended time have raised salaries and increased benefits to compensate teachers for the extra hours. Longer days can also help close the achievement gap between socioeconomic groups. Families who can afford it often supplement their childrens education with additional classes and tutoring. With longer days, children from less-wealthy families would have these same opportunities. Students in schools with extended days average seven hours of instruction in art, music and physical education, which is double the national average. Advocates of longer days argue that American students spend less time in school than their counterparts in other nations and are consequently lagging behind. In fact, American students attend school for 900 to 1,000 hours per year. Finland, which consistently performs well on standardized tests, averages 608 hours of instruction at the elementary level per year. By middle school, many American students have received many more instructional hours than students in Japan, Korea and Finland, yet these three countries continue to post high scores. Additional time in school means more energy costs, higher salaries and more resources. While adding time appears to have positive effects, it comes at a cost that some schools cannot afford. Adding time to the school day increases school budgets an additional 6 to 20 percent more per year. Cash-strapped schools may not be able to cover this additional cost without revising their budgets. The question that schools must answer is whether the additional instruction and enrichment time is worth the additional costs.
Some schools in the U.S. add extra time to the school day or school year to______.
A．demand larger school budgets
B．make more money out of the students
C．help take care of young students
D．improve students academically
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