Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

in your day 
170 minutes—
is it 175 minutes?—of language arts. Math is 60 minutes, and this is daily, and
we’re getting all this pushed at us, and it’s [voice changes] OK, I’ll fit it in
here; I’ll fit it in here, and . . . . If it’s not done, then basically you get
slapped on the hand and told, well, you’ve just ruined everything.
This teacher later explained the frustration of being caught in the middle when
the school is promulgating one approach but the state requires that a certain
amount of time be spent on each subject:
You have to have these hours and so you have to put them in somehow and
you have these minutes, and you have to put them in somewhere. We’re try-
ing to go to whole language, but then we have all these structures that are
saying, well, you have to use this many minutes. Well, how can you get too
many minutes in a whole-language program?
Teachers at Parks Elementary had even less control over time. They had to ac-
count for every minute of their day by keeping lesson plans that listed the activity
planned for each subject area and the time allotted for it, and these had to be
turned in to—and approved by—the principal at the end of each week. Because
students are constantly pulled out of classes for second-language instruction or
pulled in as part of the ‘‘inclusion’’ program, teachers felt they must teach key
subjects when the greatest number of children are present.
Teachers in Rockefeller Elementary taught classes that were more homogeneous;
they had smaller classes and more assistance, experienced more control over the
curriculum, and expressed more enjoyment in practicing their craft than did
teachers in the low- or middle-income area schools.
Secondary schools. 
As mentioned above, secondary teachers also have their time
partitioned over the course of the day, but they specialize in a particular subject
or subjects and teach different groups of children as the day progresses. Second-
ary schools differ in the number—and length—of periods across the school day.

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For Case Study teachers these ranged from six to nine periods. All teachers had
a period for ‘‘planning’’ and a period for lunch.
Most science teachers have ‘‘double periods,’’ so that there will be time for lab-
oratory work. When I asked an earth science/geology teacher about the purpose
of the double period, he explained it in this way:
To allow you to do a decent lab. You could do labs in 42 minutes . . . . but
[a double period] gives you a chance to do some really in-depth labs, some
higher-level labs. If you figure a 42-minute period, by the time you’ve taken
attendance, got the kids on to what you’re talking about, let’s say that’s 5 min-
utes. Then you’ve got to go through introducing the lab and getting all the
materials out and set up. That’s at least another 10 minutes. Then they get
going on it. Well, you’ve already lost 15 minutes, so you’re down to, what,
30, less than 30 minutes, 25 minutes. Then you’ve got to have them conduct
the lab. Well, if you want to do something scientifically . . . . you want to
get as many trials as possible. And if you’re only allowing 20—well, you’ve got
10 minutes for clean up—you’re down to about 15 minutes. You can’t get any-
thing done.
With extra time, he explained, ‘‘you can have more of an introduction and more
follow-up afterwards.’’ Lab time was generally valued by the science teachers—
and structured into their day. The weekly schedule for this teacher appears in
table 3 below.