Does More PD-Time for Teachers and Less Seat-Time for Students Equal Higher Educational Value?

A look at time, professional learning, and student performance

Abstract:

In this article, Dr. Travis examines whether schools can achieve greater educational value by shifting their focus from simply increasing student “seat-time” to investing more intentionally in teacher professional learning and collaboration. Drawing on OECD and international performance data, the article argues that higher-performing school systems are not necessarily those with the greatest number of compulsory instructional hours, but rather those that better steward time for teacher preparation, coaching, reflection, mentoring, and collaborative analysis of student learning. Rather than treating professional development as an occasional workshop or add-on, the article calls school leaders to embed meaningful teacher growth into the regular rhythm of school life. Ultimately, it suggests that if schools are serious about providing high-quality education, they must rethink the teacher’s workday, communicate the value of professional learning to their communities, and protect time for the practices that most directly strengthen instruction and student outcomes.

One of the enduring pursuits of any excellent school is the pursuit of quality. Whether the school is public, private, international, or faith-based, communities rightly expect that the time children spend in school will produce more than activity, coverage, and compliance. They expect formation, learning, wisdom, and readiness for the world ahead. Yet quality always carries a cost, and one of the highest costs in education is time.

The question is not merely how many hours students sit in classrooms or how many hours teachers stand in front of them. The better question is whether the school’s use of time reflects what research and experience both make clear: high-quality teaching requires protected time for preparation, collaboration, professional learning, feedback, reflection, and careful response to student needs.

The more urgent question is not, “How much time do we have?” but, “What kind of time are we protecting?”

From seat-time to learning-time

For many years, schools and accreditation teams often asked whether classrooms had enough technology, whether teachers were integrating it effectively, and whether students were receiving adequate exposure to modern tools. Similarly, we have often assumed that more time in class naturally leads to more learning. Both assumptions are too simple. Technology can expand learning or distract from it. Time can deepen learning or merely fill a schedule.

The most current OECD data continues to challenge the idea that more compulsory instruction hours, by themselves, produce better outcomes. Education at a Glance 2025 reports that students across OECD countries and economies receive an average of 7,604 hours of compulsory instruction during primary and lower secondary education. The range is striking: approximately 5,304 hours in Poland compared with about 11,000 in Australia.³ Across OECD systems, primary students average 804 compulsory hours per year, while lower secondary students average 909.³

Those numbers matter because they show that school systems make very different choices about the structure of time. But they do not prove that the highest number of hours produces the highest educational value. In fact, the strongest systems tend to treat time as a strategic resource rather than as a blunt instrument. They ask what teachers and students should be doing with the time, not merely how much of it can be scheduled.

What the current performance data tells us

The latest full international benchmark for 15-year-old student performance remains PISA 2022, released by the OECD in December 2023. It included about 690,000 students representing approximately 29 million learners across 81 countries and economies. The global picture is sobering. Across OECD countries, average mathematics performance fell by a record 15 points between 2018 and 2022, while reading declined by 10 points; science performance did not change significantly. The OECD also reported that, on average, one in four 15-year-olds was a low performer in mathematics, reading, and science.⁵

The results do not point to a simple formula in which more scheduled instruction equals better performance. Singapore led the PISA 2022 mathematics assessment, followed by Macao (China), Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong (China), Japan, and Korea. The OECD also highlighted systems such as Japan, Korea, Lithuania, and Chinese Taipei for maintaining or improving learning outcomes, fairness, and student well-being during years of disruption.⁵

For U.S.-style schools, the American comparison remains instructive. In PISA 2022, the United States had five education systems scoring higher in reading, 25 in mathematics, and 9 in science.⁶ The lesson is not that American education is weak in every area.

Systems that produce stronger outcomes usually pay attention to curriculum coherence, teacher expertise, student support, and the conditions that allow educators to keep improving.

The Latin American context also reinforces the urgency of the question. In 2024, the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank warned that three in four 15-year-olds in Latin America and the Caribbean could not demonstrate foundational mathematics skills, and more than one in two could not demonstrate foundational reading skills.⁷ These outcomes cannot be solved simply by adding minutes to the school day. They require improvements in the quality of instruction, the focus of the curriculum, teachers' skills, and the systems of support around students.

The teacher-time question

The OECD’s current teaching-hours indicator defines teaching time as the number of hours a teacher spends teaching a class under formal policy; it explicitly excludes time spent preparing to teach.⁴ That distinction is vital. Teaching is what families see. Preparation, assessment, coaching, collaboration, intervention planning, curriculum design, and professional learning are often what make the visible teaching effective.

In the most recent OECD data, public school teachers are required to teach, on average, 1,007 hours per year at the pre-primary level, 779 hours at the primary level, 712 hours at the lower secondary level, and 685 hours at the upper secondary level.⁴ These averages vary widely by country, but the pattern is instructive: as teaching becomes more specialized and complex, many systems formally reduce direct teaching time so educators can devote more time to the work that makes instruction effective.

This is where schools often face a difficult tension. Parents and boards may understandably equate value with visible seat time. Teachers may feel that every available hour is already claimed. Administrators may know that professional learning is needed, but struggle to protect the time for it. Yet the central reality remains: a school cannot claim to value instructional excellence while giving teachers no meaningful time to become more excellent.

A school cannot claim to value instructional excellence while giving teachers no meaningful time to become more excellent.

Professional development: not more meetings, but better learning

The argument for more professional development time should never be confused with an argument for more meetings. Teachers do not need more disconnected workshops, passive presentations, or compliance-driven sessions. They need professional learning that is connected to their students, their curriculum, their classroom challenges, and their professional growth.

The Learning Policy Institute’s review of 35 rigorous studies identified seven common features of effective teacher professional development: it is content-focused; incorporates active learning; supports collaboration; uses models of effective practice; provides coaching and expert support; offers feedback and reflection; and is sustained over time.⁹ Learning Forward’s Standards for Professional Learning similarly emphasize the conditions, content, and processes that lead to high-quality teaching and learning for both students and educators. ¹⁰

More recent evidence continues to support the value of job-embedded, practice-connected professional learning. A 2022 Institute of Education Sciences study of individualized video-based coaching found that structured cycles of coaching improved student achievement in English language arts and affected teachers’ instructional practices.¹² The finding is important because it points to the kind of professional learning that changes practice: specific, observed, coached, and connected to real classrooms.

OECD’s TALIS 2024, the world’s largest survey of teachers and principals, gathered insights from 280,000 educators across 55 education systems. It highlights the realities of modern teaching, including workload, professional development, collaboration, artificial intelligence, teacher well-being, and the conditions that influence teachers' retention in the profession.⁸ The message for school leaders is clear: professional learning cannot be separated from the working conditions of teachers. Time for growth is part of the architecture of a healthy school.

What high-value time looks like

If schools want to increase educational value, they should not begin by asking, “How can we reduce student time?” or “How can we add more PD days?” A better starting point is, “What work must teachers be able to do well for students to learn deeply?” Once that question is answered, the calendar and schedule must be designed accordingly.

High-value professional time includes:

• Collaborative planning around essential standards, learning targets, assessments, and instructional strategies.

• Structured analysis of student work and assessment data to identify patterns, misconceptions, and next steps.

• Instructional coaching, peer observation, and feedback cycles focused on specific classroom practices.

• Mentoring and induction for new teachers so they are not left to survive alone.

• Interdisciplinary conversations about student well-being, belonging, behavior, and support.

• Reflection on curriculum coherence so courses build toward deeper learning rather than isolated coverage.

• Professional learning on emerging challenges such as artificial intelligence, digital distraction, student mental health, and academic integrity.

  
  

None of this happens well in the margins. It requires scheduled, protected, accountable time. It also requires leadership discipline. Professional learning time must be connected to a school’s mission, instructional priorities, student data, and teacher growth goals. Without those connections, it becomes another meeting. With them, it becomes one of the school’s most powerful engines for improvement.

Recommended actions for school leaders

Current research and current school realities point toward several practical recommendations.

1. Audit the calendar before adding anything. Identify how much time is currently spent in direct instruction, meetings, supervision, collaboration, grading, parent communication, and professional learning. Schools often discover that they have more time than they think, but it is fragmented and unfocused.

2. Protect recurring collaborative time. Monthly professional development days are helpful, but they are rarely sufficient. Weekly or biweekly professional learning communities, grade-level teams, and department meetings should focus on student work, instructional practice, and shared commitments.

3. Shift from event-based PD to job-embedded professional learning. Conferences and workshops can be valuable, but the highest-impact growth usually occurs through cycles of practice, feedback, coaching, and reflection.

4. Use student evidence to set professional learning priorities. Let student learning needs shape teacher learning needs. Data should include assessments, writing samples, classroom observations, student surveys, attendance, behavior patterns, and well-being indicators.

5. Train leaders to lead professional learning. Department chairs, instructional coaches, principals, and teacher leaders need development in facilitation, observation, feedback, adult learning, and trust-building.

6. Communicate the value of teacher learning to parents and boards. Communities should understand that time without students is not time away from learning. It is often time invested directly into the quality of the learning students will experience next.

7. Evaluate impact. Professional learning should be measured by changes in teacher practice and student outcomes, not by attendance sheets or satisfaction surveys alone.

Implications for international and faith-based schools

International schools and faith-based schools often face additional complexity. They may operate under government requirements for instructional days or hours, serve families from multiple cultural backgrounds, and balance academic expectations with broader commitments to character, discipleship, service, and whole-child formation. In these settings, the stewardship of time becomes even more important.

For Christian schools in particular, education is not an assembly line that produces graduates and diplomas, even though graduation is a meaningful outcome. Education is fundamentally formative. It is rooted in relationships, discipleship, wisdom, truth, and the development of the whole child - intellectually, physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. If that philosophy is true, then teachers need time not only to deliver content but to become the kind of educators who can form students well.

This does not mean schools should casually reduce student learning time. It means they should distinguish well between time assigned and time used. A school day filled with passive seat time, rushed lessons, fragmented schedules, and exhausted teachers is not automatically more rigorous than a day designed around focused instruction, responsive support, and teachers with time to prepare deeply and collaborate wisely.

Conclusion: better time, not merely more or less time

So, does more professional development time for teachers and less seat time for students equal greater educational value? The best answer is: not automatically. Less seat time can be harmful if it simply reduces access to instruction. More professional development can be wasteful if it is disconnected from classroom practice. But when schools intentionally protect time for teachers to learn, collaborate, prepare, receive feedback, and respond to students, that time can become one of the strongest investments a school makes in educational quality.

The current evidence points us away from simplistic formulas and toward wiser stewardship. The question for school leaders is not whether time matters. Time matters enormously. The question is whether the school’s schedule reveals a mature understanding of how learning actually happens.

If we believe students deserve excellent teaching, then we must believe teachers deserve the time and support required to grow in excellence. In that sense, the pursuit of high-quality education is ultimately a question of trust: trusting teachers enough to invest in them, trusting the research enough to redesign old patterns, and trusting that better use of time will produce deeper learning for students.

The best schools do not merely manage time; they steward it.

About the Author

Dr. Toby Travis is the Head of School at Intermountain Christian School in Salt Lake City, Utah, a consultant, and author of the award-winning book, TrustED®: The Bridge to School Improvement. His work focuses on trusted leadership, school improvement, governance, culture, and the conditions that help educators and students flourish. He has served schools in the United States and internationally and writes for school leaders, boards, teachers, ministry leaders, and parents committed to building healthier and more effective learning communities.

Endnotes

1. Original article supplied by the author: Toby Travis, "Does More PD-Time for Teachers & Less Seat-Time for Students = Higher Educational Value?" uploaded Word document, "A Look At Time And Educational Performance.docx."

2. OECD. Education at a Glance 2025: OECD Indicators. OECD Publishing, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1787/1c0d9c79-en

3. OECD Education GPS. "EAG 2025, Part D: Teachers, learning environment and organisation of schools." Accessed May 16, 2026. https://gpseducation.oecd.org/

4. OECD. "Teaching hours" indicator. Accessed May 16, 2026. https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/teaching-hours.html

5. OECD. PISA 2022 Results (Volume I): The State of Learning and Equity in Education. OECD Publishing, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1787/53f23881-en

6. National Center for Education Statistics. "International Comparisons: Reading, Mathematics, and Science Literacy of 15-Year-Old Students." Last updated May 2024. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cnu/intl-age15-literacy

7. World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank. "IDB and World Bank: No Time to Waste to Address Learning Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean." March 1, 2024. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2024/03/01/banco-mundial-bid-crisis-educacion-america-latina-caribe

8. OECD. Results from TALIS 2024: The State of Teaching. OECD Publishing, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1787/90df6235-en

9. Darling-Hammond, Linda, Maria E. Hyler, and Madelyn Gardner. Effective Teacher Professional Development. Learning Policy Institute, 2017. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/effective-teacher-professional-development-report

10. Learning Forward. Standards for Professional Learning. Accessed May 16, 2026. https://standards.learningforward.org/standards-for-professional-learning/

11. UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report. Global Education Monitoring Report 2024/5: Leadership in Education - Lead for Learning. UNESCO, 2024/2025. https://www.unesco.org/reports/gem-report/en/2024

12. Clark, Melissa, et al. Study of Teacher Coaching Based on Classroom Videos: Impacts on Student Achievement and Teachers’ Practices. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, 2022. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/

©2026 Toby A. Trave. All rights reserved.