Are 4-day school weeks good for Missouri students? We just don’t know enough yet | Opinion

Let’s get the disclaimer out of the way: As a kid? I would have loved a four-day school week.

A three-day weekend every week! Probably less homework! Were it possible, 10-year-old Patrick probably would have registered as a lobbyist to support the cause.

Luckily, we don’t let kids make policy decisions for the same reason we don’t let them skip their homework or pick dinner every night: Sometimes, you have to do the work and eat your real or metaphorical vegetables.

But for 30% of Missouri school districts that have moved to four-day school weeks, that doesn’t seem to be what happened. Districts across the state, including some in the Kansas City metropolitan area, have moved into four-day school weeks without much (or in some cases, any) research on the impacts.

Locally, the Independence School District moved to a four-day school week beginning with the 2023-24 school year. The stated reason: attracting and retaining staff. This was not a cost-saving measure for Independence, though some other districts have used finances among their reasons.

Now, a pair of Missouri researchers have looked into the trend.

Avery Frank and James Shuls of the Show-Me Institute — a nonprofit where I am a senior fellow — reviewed research on how four-day school weeks affected school districts’ finances, student achievement, parental satisfaction and teacher recruitment and retention. What they found: There isn’t much positive impact on any of these areas. Additionally, research is sparse, with only 12 studies nationwide addressing these concerns.

Two of those studies found a small decrease in district expenditures, but also a reduction of district revenue. And seven of eight studies looking at academic performance found a negative effect on English language arts and math. As for teacher recruitment and retention — the reason why many school districts claim to be moving to a shorter school week — the results were not impressive. Here the authors conclude:

“We found no studies that assessed the impact on teacher recruitment and only three studies that focused on retention. One study found that the (four-day school week) reduced the likelihood that a teacher would leave, while one study found a significant negative effect on teacher retention rates. The third study did not produce a statistically significant finding.”

That doesn’t mean parents aren’t on board. Almost three-fifths indicated they would choose a four-day school week if they could, and among parents whose children already attend a four-day school, 64% would not want to return to a five-day week. The Show-Me Institute subsequently conducted a survey of Missouri parents on a four-day school week, where 64% of parents indicated they preferred a five-day school week, and 30% worried about providing child care if their district moved to four-day schedule. A separate study of 1,700 parents sponsored by the St. Joseph School District found fewer than half (48%) supported moving to a four-day school week. Unsurprisingly, 75% of students and 66% of staff favored the idea.

Surveys aren’t the same as rigorous examination. None of this means four-day school weeks are altogether bad — only that the policy needs a great deal more study before adoption.

Frank and Shuls argue that four-day school week programs should trigger open enrollment so students who want or need more quality in-person instruction are not harmed by a district’s effort to save money or attract teachers. Shuls further recommends that if school districts are interested in adopting a four-day week, they should designate one school to have a four-day week, and then hold a lottery to randomly accept teachers and students into that program. Then the effort could be evaluated using what Shuls calls a “gold standard of social science research.”

Too often, policymakers want to be judged by their intentions rather than their results. This is dangerous. Too often, we are saddled with the bad ideas of people who meant well. Any policy worth considering is worth studying, and right now we just don’t know enough about four-day school weeks to draw meaningful conclusions. Parents — and districts — should be cautious.

Patrick Tuohey is co-founder of Better Cities Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on municipal policy solutions, and a senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to Missouri state policy work.