Block Scheduling

Block scheduling is a reform model of restructuring the traditional high school or middle school schedule of “class periods.” In the United States (U.S.) during the early to mid-1990s it became one of many models of school reform that arose in the decade following the 1983 report “A Nation at Risk,” which sought to improve student achievement. High school schedules for most of the twentieth century had remained the same, using the “Carnegie unit” as the cumulative amount of necessary points to attain for graduation. This can be viewed as a measurement of seat time spent during the 4-year high school period.

Traditions in education have long been entrenched in the U.S. simply because they were indeed that, a tradition. However, as early as 1959, J. Lloyd Trump questioned the “traditional method” of high school scheduling. He proposed changing it to a schedule of classes with varying lengths of time as dictated by the instructional needs of students. Under this proposal, a class could...