One Pennsylvania school district turned to "block scheduling" in the 1990's in an attempt to boost test scores. They've concluded that this method wasn't helpful:
Now, with the nation's public schools facing intense pressure to improve math and reading test scores under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, administrators in the district near Philadelphia have concluded that providing four nearly 90-minute periods of "block scheduling" hasn't helped.
In February, the school board approved a return to a schedule of seven periods of approximately 40 minutes. The change will take effect in September...
Block scheduling was among a variety of alternative schedules endorsed by the National Education Commission on Time and Learning in 1994. The commission urged schools to rethink traditional schedules so students could spend more time on core subjects such as English, math, science and history...
...no broad national studies have been conducted to determine whether block scheduling improves standardized test scores...
Some teachers liked the block scheduling and thought that it was useful for classes like art and music, but thought that math and science were best conveyed in multiple short classes that required students to concentrate and gave them time for concepts to sink in.
Posted by kswygert at April 5, 2004 10:16 AM