To better educate students to the levels necessary for success in the 21^st century, we must reconsider basic assumptions about schooling.  One of these is about “when” learning happens.  We must move beyond the time constrictions of current education systems.

We know that learning does not stop in the early afternoon, during the summer, or during school vacations. We also know that the type of learning that occurs during out-of-school time can help promote student success and can improve student test scores. 

Questions we aim to investigate through our Time for Learning initiative include:

• How do current time constrictions inhibit learning?
• What are the institutional and political barriers to expanding when students learn?
• What is the relationship between time available for learning, various educational engagement strategies, and different levels of achievement?
• How can advances in how we think about “when” learning happens lead us towards innovation concerning “who” does the teaching and where “schooling” happens?

Investments made through the Foundation’s Time for Learning initiative presently focus on investigating how time impacts learning,  and the implications of education policy on the use of time in learning.

Certain programs - previously funded under the Foundation’s Out-of-School Time Matters! initiative - are now funded under the Time for Learning initiative.

The Foundation also supports strategies that aim to enhance public understanding of the need for an expanded notion of when students are educated.