Michigan Merit Curriculum Impacts How We View Time in the Classroom

As Michigan moves toward a standards-based system, one of the biggest and most necessary “mind shifts” will be around the concept of how credit is awarded.

Recently-adopted legislation defines a new foundation for “credit.” It requires that credit for the Michigan Merit Curriculum be awarded upon students’ demonstration that they have “met or exceeded the content expectations in the required credit area.” Students will gain credit, in part, by earning a qualifying score on assessments of the content expectations.

The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) will develop assessments in all the required content areas within three years. Districts have the option of using the MDE assessments, or they may use other assessments approved by their district.

These provisions challenge two long-held practices about high school education. First, credit will be based on “performance on a set of expectations” and not the Carnegie Unit, which was developed in 1906 as a measure of the amount of time a student has studied a subject. There may well be a formidable educational reform to tackle.

Christopher Cross and Milt Goldberg—authors of a 1994 report of the National Education Commission on Time and Learning titled Prisoners of Time—have written that nothing has changed in the way schools manage time.

A student also may gain the necessary credits without taking the class by demonstrating that she/he meets or exceeds the content expectations by earning a qualifying score on an assessment of those expectations—commonly referred to as “testing out.” Schools may want to review their current policies to expand opportunities for “testing out.” For example, a student may seek additional help on content expectations not yet met at the end of a semester, and then “test out” of those content expectations when ready, rather than take the entire class over. Such a system could help alleviate costly repeat class sections and credit recovery classes and also keep students on track toward graduation.

Second, credit for courses required by the Michigan Merit Curriculum is not tied to a particular context—the traditional classroom. These curriculum content expectations can be met in various learning settings, including career and technical education, work-based learning programs, and integrated course sequences such as humanities (e.g. combining English, social studies, and art—see box item below). In our knowledge-based and technology-based world, students will, in all likelihood, access many more learning settings beyond the traditional classroom to gain the instruction they need to successfully meet the new Michigan Merit Curriculum graduation requirements.

Cross and Goldberg also state that schools need to update their use of time to more closely mirror today’s society. “The length of the school day and the school year are virtually the same today as they were throughout the 20th Century,” Goldberg and Cross wrote in an updated version of the report. “The profound changes Americans have experienced in technology, demographics, and the economy have had minimal effect on the time students spend in school. This remains the case even as education leaders implement an education reform agenda focused on standards, assessments, and accountability —an agenda that obviously calls for new ways to use time to achieve powerful learning.”

Recommendations from the Cross and Goldberg report supporting the implementation of the Michigan Merit Curriculum include:

• Redesign how school days are organized by moving away from the assumption that learning can be parceled out into fixed time periods and school calendars. This is critical to ensure success for all students.
• Allot time for learning school subjects to match the complexity of the subject material. While both physics and physical/health education are required credits, they may not need to be allotted the same amount of time per day or week in the school schedule.
• Protect academic time. Reduce the host of non-academic activities that take place in the school schedule. The recommendation calls for at least four hours each day in core subjects (English, math, social studies, science, the arts, and world languages).
• Recognize that mastering world-class standards will require more time and better use of time for almost all students.
• Find ways to provide educators with time for professional learning and collaborative efforts.
• Embrace out-of-school learning and learning in various contexts outside the traditional classroom—tutoring, projects, homework, career and technical education, online learning, etc.

Breaking the stranglehold of the Carnegie Unit will perhaps be one of the most difficult challenges in implementing the Michigan Merit Curriculum and certainly won’t happen overnight, but the need to address the issue of using time as a resource for teaching and learning is crucial.

It is critical that the issues of time and its innovative uses are addressed as schools begin planning for the implementation of the Michigan Merit Curriculum.

For more information, contact: Diane McMillan, Associate Director, Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, (517) 327-5315, dianem@michiganprincipals.org.