Over the last decade, the federal government of the United States and many states have taken a number of steps to improve educational outcomes in elementary, middle and high school. To that end, many programs have been applied, the primary goal of which is to hold schools accountable for their students performance. Recently policymakers have

While the federal government seeks to extend the school calendar, many states and cities have already increased the number of school days. Despite these ambitions, little is known about the efficacy of this type of intervention in comparison to other competing policies.

For example, reducing absences could be a viable alternative. In contrast to the majority of the literature, which has used countries, states or schools as the unit of analysis, we use detailed long-term data from North Carolina public schools at the individual level. Which is used to control for observable and unobservable characteristics of students, teachers, and schools.

As a result, where we would be able able to analyze the significance of time spent at school from various perspectives , as well as implement a exact econometric strategy to address internal problems in a variety of ways. Using a variety of identification strategies to deal with various threats to identification.

First, using previous year test scores, student, and teacher information. The results show that absences and days of class have a significant impact on test score performance.

According to data preferred specification, extending the school calendar by ten days would increase math and reading test scores by 1.7% and 0.8% of a standard deviation, while a similar reduction in absences would result in a 5.5% increase in math and a 2.9% increase in reading scores.

Estimation results show that absences have an even larger negative impact on low-performing students, implying that the costs of catching up are higher for those who struggle in school.