Three years after launching an expensive education experiment, the District is eliminating extended school years at 13 campuses after city leaders said there was scant evidence of improved academic achievement, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced Thursday.
The program — which costs about $7.5 million a year — adds 20 school days to the calendar of low-performing schools, giving more than 4,000 students shorter and more frequent breaks during an academic year that runs 200 days.
The strategy was touted by Arne Duncan, the education secretary under President Barack Obama, as a way to combat “summer brain drain.” Bowser and former D.C. Public Schools chancellor Kaya Henderson hailed the investment in 2016, saying the additional instruction time would give students an extra year of learning by the time they reached eighth grade.
