Block Scheduling: The Debate Continues

I have taught in middle schools with and without block scheduling and honestly see the argument on both sides. Check out this fascinating link to form your own opinion:

CCASN (http://casn.berkeley.edu) has just revised its comprehensive writing on block and other scheduling options for high schools. It is probably the definitive work on scheduling.

That having been said, the first question has got to be, "Scheduling for what purpose?"

If you have not addressed purpose, then any old schedule will [not] do. And if you change the schedule radically, you had better give teachers a lot of time to work together to figure out how to design instruction to fit the new system.

But again, I'd rather start with: what do we want kids to learn, and how will we know that they know it? What kinds of things should they be doing to learn that? Then, how should we structure time so they can do that?