Every classroom has a clockgettyOver the years, folks concerned about education have discussed the importance of policy changes and the resources needed to implement them. But a new research brief argues that the critical resource is rarely discussed-- time.Time is always a resource in demand for teachers; time for grading papers, planning lessons, and dealing with meetings and conferences can eat up that resource on a daily basis. Add the imposition of new policies and instructional procedures, and a teacher can find that resource tapped at unsustainable levels. Policy and education leaders frequently pile more items on teachers’ plates without removing other items or giving teachers a larger plate.A new paper from the Albert Shanker Institute, “On The Clock: The Centrality of Time in Teacher Work,” proposes a framework for considering the importance of time in teachers’ work. If schools are to improve, argues the paper, they must find ways “to make teaching more successful, more rewarding, and more sustainable.”Only by attending explicitly to time… can education reform become as feasible and as humane as it needs to be in order to work. The researchers note that, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, U.S. teachers work more hours per year than teachers in any other country except Chile, and that many of those hours are outside of regular school time. The large majority of school day hours are assigned to classroom instruction (especially in districts where leaders subscribe to the belief that a teacher is only “working” and giving the district its money’s worth when the teacher is in front of students). The teacher day is also relentless in a way that most white collar jobs are not; there is no taking a free minute to amble across the office to check in and consult with a colleague. Policy leaders hope to drive change in schools by implementing education policy. Yet from No Child Left Behind through the push for the Common Core into today’s zeal for science of reading, policy leaders are frustrated that the version of policy that occurs in the classroom does not match their vision. Incentives and accountability might encourage teachers to donate more of their own time, but in many cases the policy launch doesn’t include the time teachers need to grasp the policy or implement the changes in their own classroom. Too many teachers are all too familiar with the process in which administration provides a one hour overview, then tosses a policy packet and teachers and says, “There’s the new policy. Go implement it somehow (while still doing your regular work).”MORE FOR YOUSays the study authors, “[T]eachers’ professional and personal circumstances strongly influence how they spend their time.” And how teachers allocate their time influences teacher outcomes. Measuring teacher effectiveness is its own challenge (lead researcher Jack Schneider has co-written an entire book on the subject). But the paper argues that teacher effectiveness is tied to using the time to plan and prepare lessons. That leads to success in the classroom, which leads to teacher confidence, which leads to better and more effective use of time going forward.Portions of this brief (20 page) paper can lapse into slightly dense academic language, but this statement from the conclusion is crystal clear:U.S. schools structure teacher time in ways that undercut school improvement efforts and threaten the viability of the teaching profession. The conditions of teaching are increasingly unattractive to individuals who may have historically considered a teaching career. And just as important, the way we have structured teacher time directly undermines the ability of today’s educators to plan and implement high-quality instruction.For many teachers, the structure of the day depends partly on the luck of the draw. The teacher may have 45 minutes to prepare four or five classes. That planning time may correspond with the planning team of teachers with similar workloads, allowing for collaboration, support or even mentorship, or that time may be time during which a teacher has no access to colleagues with whom they can work. An English teacher might share preparation time with several members of her department, or none at all. A school may treat teacher prep time as sacrosanct, not to be disturbed for any non-emergency, or the school may treat it as “free” time for scheduling conferences, meetings, or even, in these times of substitute shortages, coverage for other classes. And so that teacher’s preparation, planning, assessing and recording time all come out of her personal hours, which she may be balancing with family and other commitments of her own.Drop into this situation a new program that requires the teacher to put in additional time to prepare and plan new lessons and materials, and it is no surprise that one of the first teacher responses will be to ask whether this new idea is here to stay or likely to be shoved aside by another shiny new idea in two years. That question is not born of laziness or cynicism; it’s a matter of self-preservation. The typical teacher’s hours are structured in such a way that she cannot afford to throw them away on a program that will be gone. Part of managing teacher time is calculating opportunity cost; if I spend hours on this, what am I not going to get done?There is always something new in education; currently policy leaders are busy pushing various “science of reading” programs and policies. This paper should remind policy leaders that any program that hopes to succeed has to factor in not just the “what” and “how” of teacher implementation, but the “when.”