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Bay Ridge’s I.S. 30 Mary White Ovington [415 Ovington Ave] will be among 20 city schools to tag an additional 2.5 hours onto the school day this September, according to Brooklyn Eagle‘s Mary Frost.
The $6 million experimental program is an expansion of the Middle School Quality Initiative [MSQI], a public-private partnership sponsored by the New York City Council, Robin Hood, The After School Corporation, and Harvard Ed Labs.
The plan’s stated goal is to “help at-risk middle school students stay on the track of success,” as well as “reach the new Common Core literacy standards.”
Participating schools were chosen randomly from a list of 130 institutions that requested to be part of the pilot program, announced by Chancellor Walcott in April. The extra time will reportedly allow students to work on their literacy skills.
If the initiative is seen as a success, organizers say they hope to introduce extended days to more schools.
While advocates of longer school days point to the high number of classroom hours logged by students in highly competitive Asian nations like South Korea, Japan, and China, critics of the plan argue that Finland – the country with most consistently high-performing schools in the world, has a shorter school day than the U.S. with virtually no standardized testing.