White Paper: Expanding Learning Time

How the Edwards Middle School in Boston partnered with Citizen Schools to transform the learning day

Citizen Schools has released a white paper on the impact of a promising expanded learning program at Clarence R. Edwards Middle School in Charlestown, MA.  Edwards, which partnered with Citizen Schools and other outside providers to pilot an Expanded Learning Time program, saw significant improvement in student performance on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exams.

Download the white paper: Expanding Learning Time by Kate Carpenter Bernier (28 pages, PDF)

Executive Summary (2 pages, PDF)

The white paper describes Citizen Schools' experience in partnering with a middle school in Boston to extend the school day for all students and to provide a combination of academics, enrichment, and project-based learning. This bold experiment in redefining the "learning day" has attracted significant interest among educators and policymakers, primarily because it delivered such dramatic results. Citizen Schools worked with all of the school's 6th graders and focused on math skills. In the first year, 6th grade math proficiency rates increased from 15% to 32% and passage rates increased from 48% to 70%. 

The state-funded Expanded Learning Time Initiative in Massachusetts, launched by education nonprofit Massachusetts 2020, allowed the Edwards to extend its school day by more than 30 percent. Citizen Schools partnered with Edwards to serve all the 6th grade students with a program that includes its signature element, volunteer-led "apprenticeships."  Edwards posted the greatest gains on the MCAS exam when compared to the other six middle schools in the pilot program.

Expanded Learning Time holds great promise to advance achievement and expand opportunity. This report is an effort to capture the learning from this experiment in Boston, and to accelerate and support ELT efforts across the country. 

The report was developed by Citizen Schools with generous support from The Atlantic Philanthropies and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.