NGA Center for Best Practices

What's New
The NGA Center for Best Practices, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and the National Council of State Legislatures have awarded five $50,000 grants to Maine, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Wisconsin to support the integration of expanded learning opportunities (ELOs) into state education systems through the joint Supporting Student Success initiative. To learn more, see Supporting Student Success: The Promise of Expanded Learning Opportunities.

Overview
The current structure of state elementary and secondary education systems is fundamentally mismatched with the demands of the 21^st century; the traditional 6 hour school day and 180 day school year is ill-equipped to prepare the vast majority of U.S. students for success in college, work, and life.

More specifically, states face three primary challenges related to time and learning. First, the existing time allocated for learning is not well-spent. Second, the total amount of time spent learning during the elementary and secondary school years is inadequate for the vast majority of students to meet rigorous standards. Finally, the rigidity of the current structure of the learning day and year stifles personalization and innovation.

The global economy of the 21st century demands that state education systems no longer depend on the old-fashioned Carnegie unit—which links credit attainment to seat time—as an adequate measure of student learning. Governors, as chief executives of their states, have the ability to change the status quo, moving communities beyond the traditional school day and year to boost student achievement, close achievement gaps, and increase educational attainment.

For additional information on the NGA Center's work on time and learning efforts, contact Laura Harris.

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Focus of NGA Center Activities
The goal of the NGA Center's work on time and learning is to help governors and their education policy advisors:

Increase the time children spend learning through expanded learning opportunities (ELOs), such as afterschool, summer learning, and extended day and year initiatives;
Boost flexibility in the education system by awarding credit based on demonstrated knowledge and skills instead of seat time and by developing student support systems; and
Make more efficient use of learning time by, for example, using research-based instruction and technology to accelerate student learning in and out of the classroom.

To address these goals, the NGA Center is engaged in the following activities:

Supplying in-depth assistance and funding to states seeking to ensure that ELOs are both an integral and an effective part of state educational systems via the Supporting Student Success Initiative.
Supporting 38 statewide afterschool networks as a partner in the Afterschool Technical Assistance Collaborative.
Providing targeted technical assistance to governors' offices on ELOs upon request.
Publishing issue briefs on how ELOs can support state initiatives and how governors can improve ELOs.

The NGA Center's work is made possible through the generous support of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the Wallace Foundation.

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Resources from the NGA Center
The NGA Center for Best Practices has developed a series of Time and Learning resources for Governors and their key staff, including:

The Quality Imperative: A State Guide to Achieveing the Promise of Expanded Learning Opportunities. This report from the NGA Center and the Council of Chief State School Officers highlights the positive impact high-quality Expanded Learning Opportunities (ELOs) have on student success and offers state leaders a blueprint to ensure ELO effectiveness.
A Governor's Guide to ELOs. This guide provides governors with information on ELOs and a series of strategies they can use to increase the quantity and improve the quality of ELOs in their states.
A State Leader's Video Guide to Afterschool. In this video, available online and via DVD, Governors, their senior policy advisors, and other state leaders discuss strategies to expand access to and improve the quality of afterschool programs.
Summaries of Governors' Summits on ELOs. With support from the NGA Center, nearly half of the nation's states have held governors' summits on ELOs to advance state ELO agendas.

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Time and Learning News to Know
Catch up on recent state activities and key reports on Time and Learning reform with these articles from Front & Center, the NGA Center's weekly report to state policymakers:

New Study Reports Cost of Out-of-School Time Programs (02/05/2009)
Arkansas Governor's Task Force Sets State Vision for Afterschool (09/03/2008)
Quality Afterschool Programs Lead to Student Gains, Study Finds (12/6/2007)
Massachusetts Test Scores Increase in Extended Day Schools (12/6/2007)
Missouri Expands Afterschool Programs in Math, Science and Health (10/11/2007)
Tennessee to Offer Intensive Summer Schools for Math and Science (9/27/2007)
Report Backs Extended Learning When Carefully Defined and Implemented (9/6/2007)
Majority of School Districts Spend More Time on Reading and Math (8/9/2007)
Iowa to Develop Afterschool and Summer Program in Science, Math (8/9/07)
Supplemental Education Services Improve Achievement, Report Finds (7/20/07)
New Mexico Pilots Longer School Year for Early Grades (3/30/07)

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Related Links
The following organizations also provide information, research, and best practices on Time and Learning reform:

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