Circulated as a working paper on Monday, offers a statistical analysis of the effects of shifting to a shorter week alongside extensive reflections from educators themselves. Most of those teachers, principals, and superintendents spoke favorably about the change, saying they believed it had helped their schools attract and retain teachers in the midst of a tight job market. 

The numbers tell a different story, however: On average, the 178 Missouri districts that adopted a four-day week since 2010 did not improve at either recruiting new teachers or retaining their veterans. Andrew Camp, a scholar at Brown University鈥檚 and one of the paper鈥檚 authors, said district leaders鈥� enthusiasm for four-day weeks was likely grounded in the sincere belief that they could be the answer to persistent staffing challenges. 

鈥淭hese things spread through word of mouth, they grab hold of people鈥檚 imaginations, and we end up with this rapid adoption of four-day school weeks,鈥� Camp said. 鈥淏ut the fact that it was such a small effect 鈥� for a lot of these districts, it’s one teacher being retained every three years 鈥� was really striking.”

The almost negligible results, and officials鈥� apparent misapprehension about their true magnitude, are particularly salient given both the scale of the four-day phenomenon and the speed with which it has been embraced.

Mirroring national trends, the number of districts throughout Missouri operating on a shortened schedule has skyrocketed over the last decade and a half, accounting for one-third of the statewide total last year. Twelve percent of all students, and 13 percent of all teachers, now experience a four-day week (smaller figures proportionally, because they live almost exclusively in rural areas with smaller headcounts). 

The initial wave of transitions, beginning in the early 2010s, is to states鈥� need to contain education costs in the aftermath of the Great Recession. But in the study鈥檚 36 interviews with leaders of Missouri schools and districts, along with several teachers, respondents generally agreed the main effect of the scheduling change was to slow turnover and make schools more attractive places to work.

At least one superintendent credited the four-day week 鈥� which requires teachers to work longer days when school is in session, effectively holding instructional hours constant 鈥� with a surge in job applications and a sizable drop in workforce churn. Several others claimed that a longer weekend was a vital feature in drawing teachers to far-flung communities that cannot afford to offer top salaries. 

But after examining state administrative data between the 2008鈥�09 and 2023鈥�24 school years, including figures on teachers鈥� school and district assignments, education levels, and experience, Camp and his co-authors found that four-day districts won only meager advantages. Switching to a truncated schedule resulted in just 0.6 job exits per 100 teachers, an effect that falls below the bar for statistical significance. 

Camp said the findings were broadly in line with those of prior work on the four-day schedule. While the transition might prove appealing, especially to new teachers, it likely would not address about salary and working conditions.

“We don’t rule out the possibility that there is a short-term, very small bump in teacher retention and recruitment,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut what our results from Missouri show is that, over this lengthy period, there’s no lasting effect.鈥�

Echoes past findings

It remains to be seen what effect, if any, the new paper will have on the ongoing debate around the often controversial policy.

On one hand, it can only be said to be representative of one state鈥檚 approach. Around the country, different legislatures and districts have permitted distinct versions of the four-day week. Unlike in Missouri, some states do not specify that overall instructional hours stay the same even in a shortened schedule, resulting in less instruction being delivered to students over the course of the school year. 

In Oregon, where more than 150 districts adopted a four-day week in the years leading up to the pandemic, one found that students missed out on 3鈥�4 hours of teaching each week, even with the remaining days of instruction lengthened. Math and English scores fell in those classrooms (particularly among middle schoolers, whose sleep schedules could be disrupted by the earlier start times on days when classes were in session).

A echoed those results, revealing significant declines in standardized test scores in six states where large numbers of districts adopted a four-day week. Another paper, , found no detectable impact on student achievement 鈥� though it observed that school expenditures did fall slightly in four-day districts.

Notably, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education indicating that implementation of four-day weeks was associated with only minor drops in test performance during the 2019鈥�20 school year, though they disappeared in later years.

Negative findings do not appear to have dimmed the public鈥檚 enthusiasm for the idea. In 2023, from the education advocacy group EdChoice showed that 60 percent of parents supported the possibility of their children鈥檚 school moving to a four-day schedule; just 27 percent of respondents were opposed. 

Emily Morton, a researcher at the assessment group NWEA who has conducted several studies of the effects of the four-day week, said the Missouri paper was yet more evidence that the policy, whatever its attractiveness to parents and schools, did not offer much measurable upside. 

鈥淲hether or not the four-day week is a good thing, it doesn’t seem to meet this particular need,鈥� Morton said. 鈥淚t doesn’t save a lot of money, it doesn’t seem to do good things for students, and we don’t have evidence showing that it improves student attendance. My sense, after studying this for a few years, is that communities just really like it.鈥�

鈥楾his should make everyone very cautious鈥�

Still, with the continuing spread of shortened weeks, more and more states and districts will have to at least give careful thought to their possible impact.

Jon Turner is a former district superintendent in Missouri and a professor at Missouri State University. While not an avowed advocate of the four-day schedule, he has traveled to multiple states to advise school districts considering making a switch. Lately his peregrinations have brought him to Indiana and Pennsylvania, where 鈥� as in most states east of the Mississippi River 鈥� the practice is still comparatively rare.

Turner said that local K鈥�12 leaders he had met with took the question seriously, often weighing the evidence of achievement losses against their falling student enrollments and challenges in hiring new staff. Many feel the lifestyle flexibility offered by the change is one of the few perks they can offer to teachers who can easily move across district or state lines for better pay.

Particularly in regions where neighboring communities have already shifted from five- to four-day weeks, he added, holdout districts may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

鈥淣o school district makes this decision lightly, and no one sees the four-day week as a solution,鈥� Turner said. 鈥淚t’s a symptom of challenges that schools are facing.”

The rapid spread of the trend has nevertheless met some resistance 鈥� including in Missouri, where the state legislature recently requiring larger communities to gain the consent of voters before implementing a shorter school week. In neighboring Arkansas, lawmakers are considering legislation that would establish of 178 days of in-person instruction.

Camp said the results of his study offer forewarning to the education community. In light of the existing evidence around diminished instruction, he concluded, state and local authorities shouldn鈥檛 make cavalier decisions with their instructional time.

“This is something that’s a potentially risky gamble, and there don’t seem to be any benefits as far as teacher retention or recruitment. So I do think this should make everyone very cautious about adopting the four-day school week.”

With more Missouri school districts switching to four-day weeks 鈥� including some of the largest 鈥� education leaders and state legislators are raising concerns.

Four-day weeks have been an option for Missouri schools since 2011, and now over 30% of the state鈥檚 districts have adopted this shortened week 鈥� serving around 11% of the state鈥檚 students. Many of the districts are in rural parts of the state.

Some state lawmakers, concerned with the shortened schedule, are pushing bills to reign in the practice. And on Tuesday, the State Board of Education was originally scheduled to review a study on the four-day school week, though that has been delayed due to possible inclement weather.

The study concludes that, overall, the four-day schedule had 鈥渘o statistically significant effect on either academic achievement or building growth.鈥� Academic achievement looks at one year of scores whereas building growth compares students scores over time.

Schools that adopted a four-day school week both before and after the pandemic were included in the study. Data is limited on recent adopters like the Independence School District, , but the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is seeing trends.

Districts that switched before the pandemic were more likely to be rural, whereas districts embracing four-day weeks now are likely to be in towns, have multiracial populations and have more foster students, according to the report.

Jon Turner, an associate professor at Missouri State University who researches the four-day school week, was not surprised that the department found little to no effect on academic achievement.

鈥淚t is pretty consistent nationwide,鈥� he told The Independent. 鈥淎s you protect instructional hours, there is a minimal if any negative academic impact.鈥�

The research he has studied has shown that the four-day week does not diminish academics so long as the instructional hours remain constant. Currently, state law requires 1,044 hours in school.

Legislation

Three bills have already been filed this legislative session that focus on the length of school weeks, coming from both sides of the aisle.

Sen. Doug Beck, an Affton Democrat, got an amendment approved in the Senate last year that would have required a local vote to authorize a four-day school week. This year, Beck has a bill that would allow towns with fewer than 30,000 residents to adopt a four-day school week by a vote of the school board, as is law now, but larger cities would have to seek voter approval.

鈥淚鈥檝e talked to my colleagues, and they said in the rural area, they didn鈥檛 want to have the five-day part,鈥� Beck told The Independent. 鈥淭his would still allow them to do that. But if you鈥檙e in (larger areas), you still could go four days. You just have to get the vote of the people.鈥�

Republican Rep. Aaron McMullen and Democratic Rep. Robert Sauls 鈥� both from Independence, where the school district 鈥� filed similar bills.

McMullen is worried for the families in his city coordinating daycare and other services with an extra day off.

鈥淢y main concern is the economic impact that it has on the city,鈥� he told The Independent. 鈥淓ssentially, we鈥檙e giving less services but still charging the same amount of tax.鈥�

Turner said that while there is not a negative academic outcome, the effect on families varies situationally. Schools providing special education are required to keep the hours of intervention specified in students鈥� individualized learning plan, which is a document that outlines accommodations and goals. But some students receiving these services may miss the fifth day.

鈥淚 do believe that we should get involved,鈥� McMullen said. 鈥淏ut we should be able to give the ability for people to actually have the final say on it. We鈥檙e trying to empower the people that live in the school district to have the final say on whether or not they should go to four days.鈥�

McMullen鈥檚 bill mirrors Beck鈥檚 by only requiring a public vote in larger localities.

But Beck鈥檚 and Sauls鈥� bills would provide incentives for districts that choose a five-day week. Districts with at least 175 school days can choose their school year鈥檚 start date, an option not available since the 2020-21 school year.

Their legislation also calls for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to pay districts with at least 169 school days a two percent bonus, calculated by the previous year鈥檚 state aid, to go toward boosting teacher salaries.

Beck said this provision gets to the heart of the issue: Recruiting and retaining teachers.

鈥淭he main reason why we have school districts going four days is not because of children learning better or any study that they鈥檝e done,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he original thing was they couldn鈥檛 keep teachers, and this was to bring teachers in.鈥�

When the Independence School District announced its switch, Superintendent Dale Herl said in an introductory video that the four-day week was to maintain a workforce.

The cause

Turner, who also serves on the board of the Missouri Association of Rural Education, told The Independent the four-day week is born from the educator hiring struggles Missouri districts are facing, particularly in rural areas.

鈥淣ever when I met any of those superintendents when I said, 鈥榃hy did you do this?鈥� Not one said we wanted to do this. This was a part of a bigger vision,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his is a symptom of what schools are having to do to keep educators in classrooms teaching.鈥�

In December, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education told the state board that are the teacher of record for their classroom 鈥� meaning the class doesn鈥檛 have a certified teacher overseeing that student.

Turner said salaries for experienced teachers can vary greatly within a 30-mile radius, incentivizing educators to drive out of their rural town of residence and teach where they are better compensated.

To compete, the rural districts can utilize a four-day school week as an incentive for their workforce to stay.

鈥淵ou鈥檝e got wealthier, typically suburban, larger school districts that are able to out-compete in the job marketplace for your applicants, so you have this constant turnover in the small rural schools,鈥� Turner said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what this four-day week is showing is that it is really the only arrow that rural school districts have in their quiver to fight the higher paying salaries.鈥�

School districts on Missouri鈥檚 border face competition across state lines, Turner said. Arkansas increased its minimum teacher salary to $50,000 beginning last July.

Missouri lawmakers have proposed hikes to teacher wages , though last year.

McMullen, though he didn鈥檛 include the teacher-wage incentive in his bill, said he is in favor of increasing teacher pay.

鈥溾�嬧�媁e need to allocate more money to public schools but have that actually go to teacher salaries and not to administration,鈥� he said.

Beck hopes the legislature will discuss issues like teacher wages, like a bill that would increase the base teacher salary. He thinks there is enough interest to get the legislation through, though it may have to be an amendment to a larger bill.

鈥淚 truly have some really good bipartisan support on this bill, maybe more on the Republican side,鈥� he said.

McMullen feels similarly, saying it is difficult to pass a standalone bill through the Senate.

鈥淲e have a very, very good chance of getting this bill and some aspects passed this year.鈥�

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on and .

Until eighth grade, Carter Bremer went to school on a standard five-day schedule. After moving to Harrisburg, he stopped going to class on Mondays.

Now a senior at Harrisburg High School, Carter has spent just four days a week in school for the past five years, giving him more time to spend on sports, a job and college-level classes.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on and .

K-12 schools that cut instructional time by switching to a four-day week see meaningful reductions in student learning, according to recently published research. The effects are similar to those resulting from other common approaches to cost reduction, such as increasing class sizes, and the negative academic effects may intensify with the passage of time, the author finds.

The trend toward closing schools for one day each week 鈥� or at least replacing academic programming during a fifth day with enrichment, field trips, or professional development for teachers 鈥� was spreading quickly before the arrival of COVID-19. But the pandemic鈥檚 effects, including significant drops in test scores, also point to the damage wrought by lost hours in the classroom.

The , originally published in January and featured today in the journal Education Next, looks at the academic outcomes of nearly 700,000 Oregon students between the 2004-05 and 2018-19 school years. The total number of schools in the state using a four-day week fluctuated from a low of 108 to a high of 156 during that period, with a large surge in adoption during the budget crunch that followed the Great Recession.

Study author Paul Thompson, an economist at Oregon State University, said that most of the schools making the switch were highly rural, enrolling as few as 20 students. The change was implemented differently across districts, he added.

鈥淭hese are unique situations, and after surveying these schools and talking about why they adopted this four-day week, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach in terms of why they adopted it or how they structure them or what they do on the off day,鈥� Thompson said. 鈥淭hat makes it difficult to think about one blanket type of policy for these schools.鈥�

One consequence that doesn鈥檛 vary much, however, is lost learning time. Even though schools tend to expand the remaining school days by roughly 50 minutes to compensate for the missed day, that still leads to students losing out on three to four hours of learning each week.

By studying districts that switched to a four-day week during the period under study and comparing them with other districts that did not, Thompson found that the reduction in teaching resulted in lower test performance for both math and reading. The decline was particularly pronounced for students in the seventh and eighth grades; those larger impacts may result from the earlier start times necessitated by lengthening the other four school days, which could adolescent sleep schedules.

But the average loss in learning may mask even greater detrimental effects. Some schools in the study shortened their week for a year or two as a result of financial necessity, then quickly returned to a standard schedule when their circumstances permitted it. Those schools still experienced a drop in student achievement, but it faded over time as things reverted to the status quo. For those that stuck with the four-day week, learning loss grew considerably as the years passed.

鈥淭he important piece here is that if you’re losing instructional time year-over-year, that learning loss is growing over time,鈥� Thompson said. 鈥淔or schools that continually have reduced instructional time year over year…relative to what they would have had if they’d gone back to the five-day schedule, they see this compounding negative effect.鈥�

The movement toward reducing instructional time is by no means exclusive to Oregon. According to analysis from the Center for Reinventing Public Education, half of all states are home to at least one school running on a four-day week; in five states, all in the West, over 20 percent of all schools have followed that course. Examining the policy鈥檚 nationwide spread, Thompson found that the number of such schools grew from 257 in 199 to over 1,600 in 2019. While some provide office hours or other supplemental learning options on their fifth day, others are fully closed to staff and students.

Pre-COVID, the trend had already grown so quickly that researchers at CRPE called it a 鈥溾��; in one state they studied, , 42 out 115 districts had changed to a shorter schedule. And while the arrangement is often popular with both teachers and families, who can struggle to commute long distances to reach schools in rural areas, the hoped-for cost savings don鈥檛 necessarily arrive as advertised. In on six four-day districts, Learning Policy Institute analyst Michael Griffith found they saved between .4 percent and 2.5 percent of their total budgets by instituting the change 鈥� largely because they continued to keep schools open for a fifth day to allow for teacher training and student extracurricular activities.

The negative impacts measured by Thompson may also hold ominous implications for students who spent months out of school during the pandemic. Even those who were long ago allowed to return on a hybrid schedule experienced disruptions to the traditional rhythms of school that far exceed those imposed by a shorter week. According to RAND鈥檚 ongoing surveys of American teachers, just said that they had covered all of the curriculum that they would have if their schools had stayed open. A California analysis found that as many as 20 percent of low-income students received no live instruction during the course of a given week.

To address the huge needs faced by families and schools looking to get back to normal, Democrats in Congress passed the mammoth American Rescue Plan, including over $120 billion in new funding for K-12 schools. The money can largely be used at the discretion of states, and may ultimately be spent providing summer programs and intensive tutoring that effectively lengthen the school year.

Robin Lake, director of CRPE, compared the 鈥渉eavy burden鈥� borne by families struggling to adjust to four-day school schedules 鈥� and often left without child care coverage for part of the week 鈥� with the challenges posed by the year of COVID. Contemplating what it would take for kids to recover from being separated from teachers and classmates, she argued that the solution 鈥渃an鈥檛 be less of anything. It has to be more of everything.鈥�

“I look out at the next couple of years, and I see an almost impossible problem to solve,鈥� she said. 鈥淎 very concerning lost instructional time, especially in math and especially for certain kids. Extraordinary challenges for kids when it comes to mental health and social-emotional learning. Lost therapeutic services and other supports for students with complex needs. It’s just an extraordinary challenge, and how do we solve that without maximizing the time that kids have in school with teachers?鈥�

Thompson said he was optimistic about the evidence from schools that only temporarily used a four-day week, which ultimately saw 鈥渕inimal鈥� learning losses as a result. But the long-term consequences for the students involved, including on important benchmarks like persistence in school and high school graduation, still need to be closely studied, he cautioned.

鈥淭hat’s good news to think about, and it’s what we’re hoping will happen if schools are able to open full-time and kids can get back to instructional time consistent with what we saw pre-pandemic. Hopefully some of these knowledge losses can be caught up. But there are questions about some of the long-run ramifications on outcomes besides achievement.鈥�