> This has been driven by earlier and earlier school start times
What about later and later bed times?
What about later and later bed times?
Now the kids have phones. If I had a phone and internet access I would have never slept.
Also, later school start times have in other states led to better academic performance, better behavior, etc., independent of any control for bedtime.
This decision has no downside. It's like mandating that hot dog vendors not sell disguised dog turds.
And how much of that is because kids are staying up to watch the Walking Talking After Dead Chat Show that start at 9, 10, 11pm or because they start getting tired playing Fortnight that late instead of learning how to fall asleep naturally and thus starting school later lets them stay up later and still get sleep?
This is the real factor. When I was a kid - it was in bed, lights out and go to sleep at 9pm the latest during school nights - strictly enforced by my parents.
Now I regularly see small children (< 10 years old) out at the store past 10pm or 11pm on school nights.
When I was a teen, on weekends with no where to be, I'd regularly sleep until noon, 1pm, sometimes 2pm or later. Should we push school back until, say, 4pm through 10pm-12am? Doubtful that's good either.
On some level, it teaches kids that they have to be someplace at a certain time, regardless of what they might want... You know, obligations and responsibility.
Did you read the article? They have done several studies to show a significance difference in academic performance with a slight shift. That's the whole reason for this change.
"One three-year study (pdf, p.1) of 9,000 high-school students across three states, for example, found that academic performance, “including grades earned in core subject areas of math, English, science and social studies, plus performance on state and national achievement tests, attendance rates and reduced tardiness show significantly positive improvement with the later start times of 8:35 AM or later.”
I can be skeptical this will have any real impact, despite the findings of one survey-study.
The cited study was a survey students voluntarily completed... which opens the door for response bias. The study was only conducted over a single school year, and no two schools had the same modified schedule. Nor did they repeat the study for a second school year to ensure they didn't observe anomalies, nor go back to the old schedule to see if a simple schedule change - not the late start time - is what prompted the changes. Nor did they follow students through their student career, maintaining the altered schedule to see if performance results were consistent.
The 9,000 students might sound impressive - but this is not actually a good long term study... far from it.
School didn't start until 08:00 though, and it was definitely too early if you asked teenage me.
I also had my own car Junior/Senior year and drove myself to school... and if I was late I had to deal with the consequences both at school and at home.
I also had a "Zero Period" starting at 7am - so ya, I still went to bed pretty early, even when it was my decision.