Schools that switched to a four-day week saw learning reductions. What does that mean for the pandemic’s lost instructional time?

Schools that adopted a four-day week saw lower math and reading test scores – and those losses grew year over year – according to a study of students’ academic outcomes in Oregon by Paul Thompson, an economist at Oregon State University. Thompson’s research found the number of schools nationwide adopting a four-day schedule grew to more than 1,600 in 2019.