Dive Brief:
- While the teachers union in Montgomery County, MD, disagrees with the National Council on Teacher Quality’s methodology, the district's schools got the top spot in an analysis of teacher planning time across 147 urban districts.
- The Washington Post reports the Montgomery County teachers contract sets aside seven hours per week for planning, though union leaders say that includes mandated meetings and trainings, leaving elementary teachers with just 45 minutes per day of planning, the most common amount in the schools studied.
- At the secondary level, 45 to 55 minutes of planning time, or one period, is most common, and according to the NCTQ analysis, the average minimum teacher workday is seven-and-a-half hours, though teachers in Henrico County, VA, and Sioux Falls, SD, had the longest days at more than eight hours.
Dive Insight:
Teacher planning time is considered a crucial opportunity to develop innovative lessons, collaborate with other teachers, and grade assignments that would otherwise have to get done outside of paid hours. Seven hours of planning time per week breaks down to an average of 84 minutes per day. The Montgomery County schools are seen as high-achieving for many students, but the gaps are striking when it comes to graduation rates and standardized test scores between white and Asian students on the high-performing side and black and Latino students at the other end.
Some districts give teachers more time for planning and preparation as a way to improve their effectiveness and, ultimately, increase student performance. Key to carving out this time, however, is making sure everyone is on the same page about how it should be used. One administrator in Oregon thought his teachers had weekly collaboration time through late-start Wednesdays, but more than half of teachers didn’t perceive it that way, saying they had no time for collaboration at all. In that case, the collaboration resource already existed and fully utilizing it simply required better communication.