Four-Day School Weeks Cost Students Learning, Education Commissioner Tells Senate Panel

Texas students lose ground when their districts move to four-day school weeks, Education Commissioner Mike Morath told the Senate Education Committee on Oct. 6. By the end of the hearing’s longest charge, the chair said she sees no benefit in the schedule and another senator wanted five days required.

Morath, testifying for the Texas Education Agency before the Senate Education Committee, said the share of campuses offering fewer than 165 days of instruction has grown sharply. A matched-cohort study of Texas campuses, he said, points to real losses. “We can see this being responsible for a 6 to 8% drag on grade level proficiency in both reading and mathematics,” he said. He told members the schedule has not delivered the staffing benefit districts expect: “there is in fact no long term benefit in teacher retention.” A fifth day with nobody working, he said, “seems to be a recipe for less learning, for all involved.”

The research witnesses were less certain. Emily Morton, director of research consulting at NWEA, said two recent Texas studies find a four-day week improves teacher retention by about three percentage points. That is “very roughly about one extra teacher staying at each four day school each year,” she said, and the new hires are not more experienced. Four-day districts, she said, lengthen their days to meet the state’s 75,600-minute requirement. Results in rural districts “seem less concerning,” she said, but “there’s some suggestive evidence that we should also consider that the effects may grow more negative over time.”

The sharpest testimony came from the superintendent of Natalia ISD, a district of about 1,300 students south of San Antonio that has gone back to five days. “When Natalia moved to a four day instructional calendar, we did so with good intentions,” the superintendent said. “We wanted it to work, but as we evaluated the experience over time, our data and our day to day experience told us something different.”

Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, took the superintendent through the district’s ratings. The superintendent said Natalia had earned a B or C in 2022 and fell to an F in 2025. The four-day week, the superintendent said, “was a big factor.” Of the district’s four campuses, three now carry F ratings and one a D. Bettencourt said the committee still lacked the numbers to judge. “We really need to see that data because what gets measured gets fixed,” he said. He pressed Morton to isolate the schedule’s effect from other factors, noting that “we’ve got all this Texas data and, since it’s been restored, we need to use it to make sure we understand what’s happening here.”

Sen. Brent Hagenbuch, R-Denton, asked the panel to draw the policy conclusion. “It sounds like you see no reason to recommend to a school to go from 5 to 4,” he said. A researcher on the panel answered: “Based on the research that we’ve done.”

Chair Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, said she had heard enough. “I cannot find a benefit for four day school week,” she said. The recruiting and retention case, she said, “didn’t work.” She added: “It’s got to be about the students.”

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, went further and raised a mandate. Comparing school-year lengths in Asian countries and pointing to the state’s test results, he said that “students do better when they’re in school and taking classes, having more hours in those in those classrooms than otherwise.” That, he said, is “something that we need to seriously look at with our House members and go back to five days as a requirement.”

Not every witness endorsed a mandate. The superintendent of Italy ISD said he liked Morton’s idea of “guardrails,” given “so many different student needs” across Texas. He asked senators to decide “off of the data.”

No vote was taken, and no bill was before the committee. The findings will feed bills for the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027. West’s remark about working with the House shows where the fight may land. The Texas Dispatch previewed this hearing.