{"id":620828,"date":"2026-02-27T22:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/620828\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T22:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:01:11","slug":"why-nyc-students-clock-about-130-fewer-hours-in-class-than-national-peers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/620828\/","title":{"rendered":"Why NYC students clock about 130 fewer hours in class than national peers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Though New York City public schools spend well above average per student each year<\/a>, kids in the five boroughs are on track this year to spend significantly less time in class than the national average \u2014 and that has potential consequences for learning. <\/p>\n

Students are in school about a week less this year than the state\u2019s required minimum of 180 days of instruction. That\u2019s because of this week\u2019s snow day<\/a> (for which the city got a waiver from the state), four professional days<\/a> where teachers are working while students are off, and as usual, two half days for spring and fall parent-teacher conferences. <\/p>\n

While those days add up, the main driver in the disparity is the length of the city\u2019s school day, lasting 6 hours and 20 minutes. Nationally, students are in school on average about 7 hours a day 179 days per year, according to a 2025 study <\/a>that looked at federal school time data and analyzed more than 74 studies about the importance of total school time. <\/p>\n

Making sure kids are in school is a top priority for the city\u2019s new chancellor, Kamar Samuels, who pledged to focus on addressing chronic absenteeism<\/a>. About 1 in 3 New York City children were chronically absent last year<\/a>, which is defined as missing 10% or more of the school year. The chronic absenteeism rate is seen as a major predictor of performance since missing class means missing instruction. <\/p>\n

\u201cFolks need to understand that if we\u2019re not in school your child is going to miss work,\u201d Samuels previously told Chalkbeat.<\/p>\n

New York City K-12 students with perfect attendance are on track this year to be in school for 1,102 hours. That\u2019s about 20 fewer days than the national average, per the study, of about 1,231 hours in school each year. <\/p>\n

And this doesn\u2019t take into account all of the other times New York City students miss out on instruction due to testing and test prep for the math and reading assessments students take three times a year, the state tests for grades 3-8, and Regents exam days in the winter and spring when many high school students don\u2019t attend school. <\/p>\n

The quality and quantity of time spent in school both matter, said Matthew Kraft,<\/a> one of the study\u2019s authors and a professor of education and economics at Brown University. <\/p>\n

\u201cOverall the evidence strongly points to additional instructional time increasing student success in school,\u201d Kraft said. \u201cOf course, how much time you add, when you add it, and how it\u2019s used also matter tremendously. But it is one of those necessary but not sufficient inputs into supporting a successful education.\u201d <\/p>\n

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There\u2019s wide variation in terms of the school day length between states and even within states, Kraft said, urging leaders to examine those disparities. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s a really underappreciated element of inequity in our learning system that we don\u2019t talk enough about,\u201d he said. \u201cOf course there are collective bargaining constraints and budgetary constraints, no doubt, and we can\u2019t trivialize those, but it\u2019s at least worth having a conversation about what we think would be best for kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state laws that set minimum learning time thresholds, he said, are just that: minimums. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not what we should be targeting or aspiring to,\u201d he suggested. \u201cThey set a floor that we should be moving beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Education Department officials reiterated that this year\u2019s calendar met the state\u2019s guidelines for calculating instructional time, which includes allowances for professional development, parent-teacher conferences, and Regents days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also know that instructional time only matters if students are present,\u201d Chyann Tull, an Education Department spokesperson, said in a statement. \u201cThat\u2019s why NYC Public Schools continues to provide targeted support to schools and families and helping remove barriers to regular attendance.\u201d <\/p>\n

David Bloomfield, an education professor at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Grad Center, emphasized the importance of thinking about \u201cthe problems of continuity and opacity\u201d in the school calendar, where interruptions are frequent.<\/a> Out of 45 school weeks, he said, less than half \u2014 about 20 \u2014 have complete five-day weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat seems like 180 days isn\u2019t really,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cA child\u2019s individual calendar may differ from grade to grade, program to program because of testing and other non-instructional obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bloomfield staunchly advocated for snow days, but he also believes the city should consider rethinking the calendar to add days at the start of the school year, before Labor Day. <\/p>\n

Students return to school the Thursday after Labor Day. Given this year\u2019s late holiday, schools aren\u2019t expected to start until Sept. 10 for 2026-27. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince summer camps have already closed, most families would not be unnecessarily inconvenienced by the change,\u201d Bloomfield recently wrote in an op-ed.<\/a> \u201cThe main impediment would be union agreement, a difficult but not impossible challenge for the new administration to overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither the union nor the Education Department responded to questions about next year\u2019s calendar. <\/p>\n

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":620829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,10911,3070,26251,18102,3068,5249,265750,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,11645,6214,22598,265751,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-620828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-class","tag-classroom","tag-high-school","tag-laptop","tag-learning","tag-manhattan","tag-new-design-high-school","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-school","tag-students","tag-teachers","tag-thalia-juarez-for-chalkbeat","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}