Professor: Snow Days Had 'No Impact' On Children's Education
DETROIT (WWJ) -- Now that school is out, is the verdict in on all those snow days the students had off?
Harvard University public policy professor Joshua Goodman did a study and said that he found they have no effect at all, because teachers are well able to handle juggling their lesson plans to cope with the occasional days off.
"We found that snow days had no impact -- positive or negative -- on kids," Goodman said.
What did have an impact, said Goodman, were days with lesser snow when the schools weren't closed but some kids called in sick or couldn't make it to school and that it was harder for those students to catch up. Goodman concluded that schools need to better plan how to help those students.
"So the student comes back from being absent and maybe there's a folder with some work waiting for them or maybe there's a computer program that can help them catch up," Goodman said.
Goodman admitted his study didn't cover as many snow days as Michigan had this past winter.