Wisconsin plan seeks end of in-class minimum

If Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has his way, the state will become the first to stop requiring students in public schools to spend a minimum number of hours in class.

A proposal in Walker’s new budget plan calls for ending the state’s current minimum requirements — 437 hours for kindergarten, 1,050 hours for elementary schools and 1,137 hours for secondary schools — and allowing school districts to do what they want in terms of seat hours for students.

Districts and schools would then be judged on their state report cards, which are produced annually by the Department of Public Instruction, based largely on standardized test scores. During a recent visit to a school in Waukesha to talk up his budget proposal, he said: “To me, the report card is the ultimate measure. It’s not how many hours you are sitting in a chair.”

A spokesman for the state Department of Public Instruction said the agency “has no official position on the governor’s plan” but that “overall, students need more access to learning, not less,” WISN-TV reported.

Most states require 180 days of student instruction, and most specify the minimum amount of time that constitutes an instructional day, according to the Education Commission of the States. The minimum hours in instructional days vary significantly by state; in Delaware, for example, the state only requires 3.5 hours with a district option to increase it, while other states mandate 6½-hour or seven-hour instructional days.

Wisconsin and Ohio in recent years moved to using the hour as a unit of measure rather than days.