New Brunswick school year short-changes students 5 days

We are now one month into the 2016-17 school year in New Brunswick and find ourselves in the midst of a five-day break from classes for students.

This is the second of two professional learning days for teachers in New Brunswick this week, so there is no school school again for students. Coupled withMonday'sThanksgiving Day holiday, it makes for a five-day break for students after 22 weekdays in school without a break.

This prompted us to take a closer look at the 2016-17 school calendar, which revealed, among other things:

• There are 44 weeks for students in the 2016-17 school year.
• In three of those weeks, there are no classes.
• 13 of those weeks are four-day weeks for students.
• One week (this one) is a three-day week for students.
• There are seven four-day weeks for students in April and May, including a stretch of five consecutive weeks.

To those who have had to arrange for child care on prolonged stretches of four-day school weeks, those numbers likely don't come as a surprise.

But a careful review of the 2016-17 school calendar does reveal a significant surprise.

On Sept. 6, we posted a "by-the-numbers" article for the start of the school year, with information provided by the Department of Education.

The department told us students attend school on 185 days of the schoolyear.

• Back to school: New Brunswick's education system by the numbers

However, multiple detailed reviews of the 2016-17 school calendar for Anglophone East School District show students are only required to attend school for 180 days this year, not 185 as stated by the education department.

• 2016-17 school calendar: Anglophone East School District

It takes one back 25 years to New Brunswick's Excellence in Education Commission, which consisted of then-University of New Brunswick president James Downey and Aldea Landry, who was deputy premier to Frank McKenna from 1987-91.

One of the issues Downey and Landry laid out in their 1991 discussion paper about "Schools for a New Century" was whether New Brunswick students were spending enough time on task.

"Could it be that some of the problem is insufficient time-on-task?" they stated. "If so, what is the best way to remedy that: Lengthen the school day? Lengthen the school year? Take time away from other subjects?"

Even now, 25 years later, I recall Downey stating there had been "an erosion" in time-on-task for students and it needed to be addressed.

Could it be that some of the problem is insufficient time-on-task?- James Downey, Aldea Landry inSchools for a New Century, 1991

Back then, students had "roughly 182 teaching days," according to Downey and Landry's report.

Now, it's 180 days (and routinely dwindling below that due to storm closures or other cancellations).

The erosion, it seems, continues.

"New Brunswick's school year is shorter than those of most other developed nations and considerably shorter that those of Japan (243), Germany (226-240) and South Korea (220)," stated Downey and Landry in their report.

In the New Brunswick schools they envisioned for the new century that began 16 years ago, students would have 200 teaching days in classrooms to "bring New Brunswick into line with the international average and add the equivalent of more that one full year of instruction time" to a student over the course of 12 years of education.

"This would allow for better coverage and mastery of the curriculum, and would shorten the summer break,which both research and common experience suggest is pedagogically counterproductive, constituting as it does, too great an interruption in the continuum of learning."

But 25 years on, the school year in New Brunswick for students is shorter, not longer.

And New Brunswick remains near or at the bottom in international student achievement tests.

On the eve of the new school year, the Gallant government unveiled its 10-year plan to improve the education system.

• Gallant government reveals 10-year education plans

It contains no mention of increasing time on task for students in New Brunswick's schools.