> It also runs contrary to the push in many parts of the country to provide more time for learning — and daily reinforcement — as a key way to improve achieveme

> It also runs contrary to the push in many parts of the country to provide more time for learning — and daily reinforcement — as a key way to improve achievement, especially among poor children. Isn't this a mythical outcome though? > But funding for classrooms has been shrinking for years in this deep-red state as lawmakers have cut taxes, slicing away hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue in what some Oklahomans consider a cautionary tale about the real-life consequences of the small-government approach favored by Republican majorities in Washington and statehouses nationwide. And yet they managed to keep the schools open on a budget a small fraction of the size in the past. Suddenly it has become so expensive to run the schools as they're currently structured that they can't even operate them. I don't think that reflects as poorly on the budget as it does on the school boards and administrators. > The four-day week is a “contagion,” said Paul Hill, a research professor at the University of Washington Bothell who has studied the phenomenon in Idaho and who worries that the consequences of the shift — particularly for poor kids — are unknown. Somebody who has studied the effects of moving to a four-day school week says that his worst worries are that the outcome is "unknown". If he had observed negative consequences elsewhere, you might expect him to say that the consequences could be negative. > Democrats helped pass bipartisan income tax cuts from 2004 to 2008. Republicans — who have controlled the legislature since 2009 and governorship since 2011 — have cut income taxes further and also significantly lowered taxes on oil and gas production. Wonderful, I wish somebody were doing that job where I live. And for what it's worth, I don't see how a four-day school week would lead to cost savings. The biggest recurring expense, to my knowledge, would be teacher, administrative, and custodial salaries; none of which would be reduced by a four-day week. Utility costs would probably only decrease slightly, if at all. I don't see the budgets they pass around at these schools, but I can't see it generating a considerable cost savings.