When students return to Secaucus High School next September, they will find their whole educational world changed. Gone will be many of the tried-and-true educational methods that have been a part of the high school regimen for nearly a century. In place of the standard 42-minute class, students will be greeted with 85-minute classes instead – the result of a change to block scheduling approved by the Board of Education in January. The board adopted the plan unanimously. “This is a whole new way of thinking about education,” Board of Education member William Donnelly said last week. Intensive Block Scheduling (IBS) breaks the school day into larger chunks of time, developing a variety of teaching methods within each block, hoping to create sufficient time to immerse students into the learning experience while allowing teachers more time to plan out lessons. Although it has become the education fad of the 1990s, IBS is not a new idea, forming the foundation of secondary education in Canada since the late 1960s. A block schedule, according to the national Council of Teachers of Mathematics, has students staying in class roughly twice as long as usual. Instead of six or seven classes a day, students may take only four or five. Secaucus has adopted what is called a Four By Four form of IBS in which students will have four 85-minute classes per day – two in the morning and two in the afternoon. They will study four subjects from September to January and four different subjects from February to June instead of taking a subject for 42 minutes a day from September to June. Donnelly claims IBS is a better way to manage time, and will result in increased teaching and learning performance. According to the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), an Oregon-based pro-IBS organization, the traditional schedule poses “a grueling pace for teachers and provides inadequate time for probing ideas in-depth and tends to discourage using a variety of learning activities.” Proponents on a national level claim that students can pursue subjects more deeply with longer class periods. Blocks allow teachers more time for hands-on activities. Students tend to see fewer teachers for longer periods of time, allowing interpersonal relationship to develop. According to a 1993 study as well as other studies since, dropout rates at IBS schools declined, as did cases for suspension – although a North Carolina study showed that improvements in attendance and suspensions numbers were often due to changes in school policy. Curing the MTV trend One of the most significant criticisms of IBS is the apparently shrinking attention span that has often been associated with MTV. Critics claim that students struggle to maintain interest with 42-minute classes and that by expanding these, administrators will only make things worse. Donnelly agrees that students can have an attention span of as little as 20 minutes, but that by creatively shifting emphasis within these 85-minute blocks, teachers can keep students engaged in a subject. Under IBS, the burden of maintaining student interest will fall heavily on the shoulders of teachers, who must seek more creative ways to present the material. This will require retraining of teachers who are scheduled to take workshops from now until September and will also be required to rewrite existing course plans. “There is no question that teachers are going to have to be more innovative and responsive,” said board member Doug MacCormack. Critics have claimed, in various published sources, that many of the positive benefits of block scheduling tend to fade over time as enthusiasm for the program begins to wear off. These critics claim the real benefit of block scheduling is not the student, but the school administration that gets teachers to work longer, and could result in a reduction of teaching staff over time. Many critics claim IBS is an effort to get around the 1990 “Prisoner of Time Report” issued by the federal government, which called for longer school days and a longer school year. Clash of opinions In published reports over the last decade, proponents and opponents of IBS have debated the benefits. While pro-block educators claim the change will increase teachers’ planning time, opponents claim the increased class length requires even more planning than before. Critics claim students tend to learn less under block scheduling, despite the fact they can sometimes take more classes over the course of high school. Studies done in Canada have shown a 20 to 40 percent loss in educational content. Teachers in some school districts in Pennsylvania using block scheduling, several studies show, simply didn’t get through all the material required by the state. Studies have also shown students tend to do less homework and tend to cover less material overall per course. Some schools complain that teachers fill the time by having students do homework in class. One big issue is what happens when students are out sick. Instead of missing one class’s worth of work, they miss two. This is compounded when teachers are out as well, since substitutes often cannot keep up with schoolwork even under the traditional system. Students transferring into the school district also can have problems, as well as special education students. The most often cited objection to block scheduling is the gap between semesters. If a student takes a subject in the fall, such as Italian, and not again until the following fall, will that student lose track? Donnelly cited a 1993 study that showed students retain 85 percent of what they learned after 11 months. But according to a report by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, more anecdotal information exists than actual student-performance data, and that much more study is needed. “Some schools report benefits to the school atmosphere and grades in general, but the effect on mathematics education is mixed,” the 1996 report said. “In general, students of block-scheduled schools show some improvements over traditional schools.” Canadian schools, where block scheduling has been in place since 1970, show a tendency for lower mathematics achievement in students – although proponents of block scheduling correctly point out that Canadian schools lecture for the whole double period. A 1994 study done of North Carolina schools for block and unblocked schools showed scores for most subjects in block schools equaled or surpassed those in traditional schools, except in mathematics. Studies in some schools in Pennsylvania show that advance placement (AP) students tend to do poorly in most subject areas under block scheduling – except, for some reason, in English. According to this research, block scheduling tends to help “slow learners” who benefit from the additional drill and repetition typical in some of the longer classes. Oddly enough, block scheduling seems to be pushed by schools in more affluent districts where AP courses are also emphasized. Canadian studies done from 1986 to 1996 showed that students taking traditional classes all year long outperformed those in block scheduling, especially in areas that requires reinforcement such as mathematics and foreign languages. In fact, some studies show those who benefit most from block scheduling are non-college-bound students. A 1997 study done in North Carolina showed “few statistically significant differences between block and non-blocked schools.”
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