‘More [Time] is better or less is more?’ Neoliberal influences on teaching and learning time

Abstract

This article examines the neoliberal influences on ‘Port City Schools’ (PCS) unique district-wide extended learning time (ELT) initiative. Despite the recent popularity of ELT in urban schools, there have been few qualitative studies that question how stakeholders make sense of ELT on the ground. This research fills that gap in the literature by exploring ELT programming across PCS’s choice and neighborhood K-8 schools. The interview and observation data reveal an inherent tension between ‘more time is better’ in the enrichment-filled choice schools and ‘less is more’ in the intervention-filled neighborhood schools. Findings illuminate the ways in which school choice, neighborhood segregation, and high stakes testing push the district to use ELT to boost test scores in the lower performing neighborhood schools, while the choice schools are given flexibility in ELT programming because they are meeting expectations for student success. Because neoliberalism fails to take into account the strong relationship between test scores and socio-economics and school choice and segregation, it leads to a cycle of inequality in which children in the choice schools receive a well-balanced curriculum and children in the neighborhood schools get test preparation during ELT. Fixing this system could fix inequalities in ELT programming across all schools.