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Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

I dont know what you mean with better, my two sons are top performers in their school and the school network is top 3% performing in NY state. They are in school at 7:45 latest each morning.

There are many benefits to getting an early start in the morning as ling as you have had a long nights sleep. So i would like to see the base if those studies as they dont reflect the reality and statistics i know of.

Edit to those who claim it's anecdotal: Their school network is Success Academy.

And I was originally responding to the claim that you can't be fresh as a kid at 7 if you go to bed in proper time which is simply wrong.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/more-on-the-phenomenal-eye-po...

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> I dont know what you mean with better, my two sons are top performers in their school and

... presumably they, then, can explain to you the difference between anecdote and data.

They will first have to teach you the difference between taking part in a sentence out its full context and then actually being intellectually honest and not just strawman them. One of the first things I taught them.

A school network applied to all of New York state is hardly an anecdote and it's frankly telling how quick you and others where to jump onto that idea.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/more-on-the-phenomenal-eye-po...

Look, when I was in high school we had our first period starting at 7:07am, and the school overall was released at 2:15pm. Plenty of kids, myself included, performed just fine. But, that doesn't mean it's physiologically optimal, and it also doesn't mean it's practical for families to get kids in bed at an appropriate time. Anecdotally, I know lots of families whose middle schoolers are regularly up until 10-11pm doing homework. This is particularly true for those kids participating in time-consuming extra-curriculars.

It's probably physiologically accurate that later start times are better for children. This bill is research-backed. It also makes things harder for parents who will then need to find long before-care options or start their own commutes later.

Also anecdotally, I have two children in elementary school, who also play competitive soccer with training 4 days/wk. Soccer is typically 1.5hr at a time, and either 4:30-6pm or 5-6:30pm. Training fields are 15-20min drive from our house. School gets out at 2:15, but we have to pick up our 2yo from daycare before the older ones get home (no bussing service because we're <1mi from the school). The result is that the older ones get home, unpack their backpacks, change into soccer gear, have time for a snack and perhaps 15-30 minutes for homework (besides written homework, they also have to read 30 minutes every day) before leaving for soccer. My wife thankfully works from home and is able to handle the afternoon routine after having shifted her work schedule 3 timezones (5am-2pm). I pick everyone up from soccer practice and then we get home, shower and eat dinner from around 6:45-7:45. Then it's time to finish homework and reading. I'm lucky they get to go to bed by 8:30-9:00pm. Then I wake them up at 6:15 to get ready for band practice at school @7:15.

This is an anecdote about an 8 & 10 year old in the bay area, and we have excellent work situations (I work for a flexible tech company, and my wife works a shifted schedule from home). If we both worked traditional 8-5 schedules, the majority of what our kids are able to do now would not be possible: they'd go to YMCA before care on campus around 7am and then to aftercare until 5:30pm. Sports would be out of the question unless we made arrangements with friends. There would be no decompression time after school and before home/family/activity time.

Go back and read what I was responding to. I was responding to a claim that you are not awake at 8 to which I responded that depends on when you put your kids to sleep.

I wasn't even introducing the idea of performance. I was responding to a blanket claim about performance with a rather non-anecdotal example of SA schools dominating the performance list yet having one of the earliest times of school attendance. If you haven't seen it click on the link and if that doesn't convince you that it's more than anecdotal then I just don't know what will.

All the studies is fundamentally about sleeping time NOT about at which hour it's optimal to be in school which is exactly my point yet somehow it gets completely ignored and everyone just yells anecdotal.

It's not anecdotal it's statistical with a sample of more than 2000 schools and SA dominating almost all the top 30 results and that with schools that have a majority of black and hispanic kids.

> A school network applied to all of New York state is hardly an anecdote

Maybe another thing your top performing students in their top performing school network can explain to you is the difference between evidence and irrelevancy; specifically, that, with California being the first state to mandate a later start time, its unusual for schools to start later (New York is experimenting with some later start times, but very few schools have them [0]), so, really, neither your sons’ status nor those of their network indicate (as evidence or even anecdote) anything contrary to the research at issue here (nor, to take the next step, necessarily would their school even if a sizable number of others did start significantly later unless it was similar to those later-starting schools in all other respects besides start time; for some reason you've posted an argument from a libertarian propaganda mill which does nothing relative to the discussion but make a case as to why you raising it in this discussion is the farthest thing possible from relevant for that reason.)

I get that you are proud of your sons and like their school network. I can't figure out why you think either are relevant to the matter at hand.

18% of new york schools have a start time later than 8.30 a huge number have between 8 and 8.30, SA starts at 7:45 yet dominates the best performing elementary school.

If you can't see the relevance then perhaps my boys should teach you about statistical significance you are clearly confusing it with arrogance.

We are talking about 2400 elementary schools and SA being in the top 30 dominating almost every position there.

Can you at least try to understand what people are trying to tell you?

I am understanding what they are trying to tell me, they are just wrong about it for reasons I have already explained.

Getting out of bed before ten no matter when I went to sleep was a mortal struggle until I was probably 25. Now I’m gassed by 11 and up by 6. The research has shown that circadian rhythms change with age.

I've noticed the same thing. In my twenties waking up before ten was extremely difficult and made getting into work stressful every morning. But now in my thirties I find myself awake when the sun rises without issue.

My lights are out at 11, but getting up at 7 is difficult still. On the other hand, it was straight impossible to do at 25.

I fall asleep around 2-3am every night and am up at 7:15am during the week. I'm 39. I've been a night owl since I was a teen, and even today I have to force myself to sleep. During vacations it becomes extreme, I easily stay up till 6-7am and sleep till 12 or so - which seems to be ideal as I always revert to those times given 3-4 days where I'm not required to be up early. Adjusting my schedule back to "normal" involves skipping sleep for a night.

Your single anecdote does not outweigh the many, many scientific studies that been conducted on this subject (or any other subject for that matter).

I would have that would be obvious to a HN reader.

My single anecdote isnt single at all. We are talking about several schools using same method with kids in the top 3% on average.

Show me the research and we can debate it, until then the primary problem in the us is that parent put their kids to bed too late.

Here is NPR's article on it: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/12/12/6761187...

Here is the journal article referenced: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/12/eaau6200

Here is the CDC's summary referencing further studies: https://www.cdc.gov/features/school-start-times/index.html

Thanks, I read it:

1) The study doesn't conclude what the parent was claiming and what you seem to think it's claiming. 2) It's only for high school students and its sample is pretty small. 3) It actually supports my point of enough sleep more than anything else which seems to be completely ignored of course. 4) Here is my evidence https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/more-on-the-phenomenal-eye-po... my sons are Success Academy.

What do you suggest I conclude from that?

5) Just saying something is science isn't enough and just saying it's science because someone did some studies isn't enough either. I read through the paper and it wasn't even close to being anything but a very small sample especially when you factor in that two different schools yielded two different results. So perhaps rather than just scream science, it would help if people took a deep breath and looked into what they hold in front of them as science cause that wasn't it.

6) I was responding to a claim about not being fully awake in the morning with a simple observation that if you go to bed early you are not going to be tired in the morning. That was then challenged with a completely new challenge which was that kids perform better when they are in school later to which I know for a fact that's not true and from the article you are referencing that's not what's being said either.

I think arguing isn't worth the effort. The fact is, it's easier for the state to set start times later than it is for millions of parents to get their kids to bed on time (for all sorts of reasons).

Well but that's a very different discussion and not the one I was originally engaging in.

But claims of anecdotal evidence are simply factually wrong.

How is it you think that is evidence somehow? You might as well conclude that having a unicorn as your school mascot is why kids do so well at that school. http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

There are so many confounding factors that could be causing students to do better in those schools.

Here is my take away from your 'data': Imagine how much better those students would be doing if they also weren't getting up earlier than is natural or recommended.

Refuting the results of scientific studies with anecdotal evidence is not going to win any arguments. Surely you must understand how these scientific studies work?

Its not anectdotal and i would urge you to point to the scientific studies so we can debate their methodology and “scientific” base. I’m too old to just take these kind of studies as science without looking at the details. Now you dont have to take my examples for more than they are but they sure contradict the claims being made in this thread and onna state level.

Someone else already replied with links so I'm not going to rehash here, but your parent post was the very definition of anecdote. You tried to refute entire studies and the current scientific consensus with a single example of how your kids do great academically despite waking up early for school. That is literally what an anecdote is.

Here is exactly what I wrote:

, my two sons are top performers in their school and the school network is top 3% performing in NY state.

I wasn't just talking about my two sons but about the school network in New York state. That's not anecdotal what so ever.

Here are the actual results from Success Academy: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/more-on-the-phenomenal-eye-po...

How is that anecdotal?

"This one school performs well and it has a start time before 8" is anecdotal evidence. Only one school's performance or start time is considered.

Not single school, school network! I don't know how more clear I can be.

"This one school network..." doesn't stop it from being an anecdote.

It does when it results are compared to the entire new york state and its consistently in the top.

What’s your control? Do other schools in or out of the top 3% have earlier or later start times? How do you account for confounds like socioeconomics and demographics? If you don’t, what you have is an anecdote, not evidence. Others are pointing you to studies that look at real data and apply statistical rigor. You are arguing that your knowledge of a single example outweighs that evidence. That is precisely what people mean when they accuse you of using ‘anecdata’.

17.3% of schools in New York start later than 8.30, the majority starts between 8-8.30 SA starts at 7.45 yet they dominate the Top 30 out of a sample of 2400 schools.

I can live with that as a significant sample size and control group ESPECIALLY since I never said that the earlier you are up the better but simply that it's not a problem if you get early enough to sleep.

The study you refer to compares 2, TWO schools and doesn't come to any conclusion that contradicts mine in fact it support it. More sleep means better performance most of all.

But sure keep on claiming I am the one who is making anecdotal claims.

>But sure keep on claiming I am the one who is making anecdotal claims

You are. This doesn't mean they are for sure wrong, but you are looking at the success of one school system and saying that means that the start time does not matter. For all you know, that school system could change to starting at 8:30 and rank even higher. It is a textbook anecdotal claim.

>The study you refer to compares 2, TWO schools and doesn't come to any conclusion that contradicts mine in fact it support it. More sleep means better performance most of all.

That study doesn't compare two schools, it compares two classes in both of the schools against each other. This let's them better isolate the start time as the variable responsible for the change. It also references other studies with similar results. And it does disagree with you, the later start time was associated with kids getting 30 more minutes of sleep.

I am comparing +2400 schools in New York state with each other based on the stats I told you and with Success Academy both being the earliest and dominating the top of that list (two thirds of the top 1.8% of the school. And that's with a majority of the children being black and Hispanic and from less financially well of homes.

It's not just one school system it's various school systems Charter school vs. elementary school vs. different start time vs. different income groups etc.

You are just moving the goal post. For all intents and purposes what I am citing is as good if not better than the study you seem to think is more accurate.

With regards to the study, it compares two classes in two schools in high school. Yet somehow that's not anecdotal?

Furthermore no it actually says that the amount of sleep is what leads to better performance. NOT the time in the morning which was the entire claim of the parent I was answering so it does, in fact, agree with me even though it's, of course, actual anecdotal using two classes and it certainly isn't proving anything with regards to general performance or optimal time of day that kids can learn.

I am not even sure what we are debating anymore. But claiming my example is anecdotal is simply not true. It's much less anecdotal than any of the other studies being done here when it comes to performance which was what I originally responded to claims about.

Here's the definition of anecdotal

>Based on casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis.

You're basing it off your own casual observation of one school system. Nobody is moving goalposts.

>With regards to the study, it compares two classes in two schools in high school. Yet somehow that's not anecdotal

Because they actually ran an experiment where they tracked and controlled as many variables as possible. It had scientific rigor.

>Furthermore no it actually says that the amount of sleep is what leads to better performance.

It also says the later start time gave children thirty more minutes of sleep. So yes, it does say that a later start time is better.

2400 schools and exactly the same school system the “scientific studies” are based on, so yes you are moving the goal post. What i have is a pretty clear indication that meeting early in school does not affect your abilities to perform well in fact when you compare SA which have the earliest meeting time they dominate of a top 30, 20 of those are SA. I was responding to a claim that Later was better for performance.

Whatever that stude had in scientific rigor it lagged in sample size, if anything that was the very definition of anecdotal no matter how deep itcwent it was still only two classes on two different schools. Also notice how it talks about the sociodemographic reality as a way to explain some of thecredults yet SA is mostly from exactly that sociodemographic group yet outperform 98.2% of all other elementary schools in new york state.

And no the later time is only better because they got more sleep, but that can wasily be solved by going to bed earlier.

I dont for a second believe you cant see that your positive is simply not supported by your evidence and if you really cant see the holes in your position then i guess there is nothing more i can do. You are the one supporting anecdotal evidence, however detailed it is, not me.

You loterally started claiming i was talking about one school only, then you just kept moving the goal post. That’s intellectually dishonest and not something i care continuing supporting. Thanks for the talk.

>What i have is a pretty clear indication that meeting early in school does not affect your abilities to perform well in fact when you compare SA which have the earliest meeting time they dominate of a top 30, 20 of those are SA.

All this shows is that there are more things that impact performance than start time. Those SA schools could still be performing better with a later start time, you have no idea.

>anything that was the very definition of anecdotal no matter how deep itcwent it was still only two classes on two different schools.

I gave you the definition of anecdotal, and it was not "based off of a small sample size." Only using two classes makes it a smaller experiment, but it still provides reliable data and it still cites other studies that have similar results.

>And no the later time is only better because they got more sleep, but that can wasily be solved by going to bed earlier.

Right, because children always do what is best for themselves and would never stay up later than they should.

> You are the one supporting anecdotal evidence, however detailed it is, not me.

I still can't believe you do not understand what anecdotal evidence is.

>You loterally started claiming i was talking about one school only, then you just kept moving the goal post

It was my mistake not to realize you were talking about a group of schools, I live in a rural area and a "school system" just means the elementary, middle, and high school in town. I have never moved the goalposts though, your statement was anecdotal whether talking about one school or a group of schools.

Of course there are other factors, but what I was responding to what the claim that meeting early lead to poorer performance. THATS the context here.

You are moving the goalpost whether you want to admit it or not. You made the mistake and you can't even live up to that. That says it all.

The mistake I admitted I made in my last post and gave context as to why I made the mistake? The mistake that doesn't even matter, as your evidence would still be defined as "anecdotal" either way? That says it all?

> It's much less anecdotal than (...) studies being done

You what? Come on man. There aren't degrees of "anecdotalness". That doesn't even make sense. Neither does calling a study anecdotal. I'm starting to think you don't know what the word means. I'll give you one hint: it does not have as much to do with the meaning of the word "anecdote" as you seem to think, but with the way factual evidence is collected and being compared.

You should have learned this in school.

Huh? I learned in school that sooner or later anecdotes become statistics. If you didn't learn that you are missing something.

So here is the statistics for you.

2400 elementary schools in NY state,

ALL 30 SA schools is in the top 3% and 2/3s of the top 1.5% is SA schools.

The claim was that the time you meet in school makes you perform poorer.

17% of NY elementary schools meet after 8.30, most meet between 8-8.30, SA schools meet 7.45.

In what universe is that anecdotal?

By all means.

It was anecdotal because your example started as a story about your kids. The statistics you quote here are pretty much meaningless, so it doesn't change a thing. Let me explain why.

If the SA schools perform consistently higher, and assuming for a school to be "SA" involves a bit more then starting at 7.45, then you need to compare the performance of SA schools that start at 7.45 with the performance of SA schools that start at 8.30. There aren't any? Then there is no way to tell. Not via statistics, at least.

Your comparison of statistics changes way too many variables to make any conclusion.

There's simply no way to tell if an SA school might not perform even better if they started later. Especially since the statistics you quote are not objective but "top X", which if they're already near the top, you couldn't measure improvement even if it was there.

Similarly, without quoting the proper statistics, there is also no way to tell if the schools starting at 8.30 might not perform worse if you changed nothing but starting them at 7.45. The numbers you quote simply do not say anything about this.

(also you're never going to prove anything about an effect in highschoolers by quoting irrelevant statistics about elementary schools)

Either way, your numbers don't prove what you are claiming, yet you still hold to this claim. If your claim is not anecdotal, then it is simply wrong.

Why We Sleep [1], by Matthew Walker, PhD.

Page 92:

"Adolescents face two other harmful challenges in their struggle to obtain sufficient sleep as their brains continue to develop. The first is a change in their circadian rhythm. The second is early school start times."

Also:

"... the circadian rhythm of a young child runs on an earlier schedule. Children therefore become sleepy earlier and wake up earlier than their adult parents. Adolescent teenagers, however, have a different circadian rhythm from their young siblings. During puberty, the timing of the suprachiasmatic nucleus is shifted progressively forward: a change that is common across all adolescents, irrespective of culture of geography."

It goes on to explain why this is the case, and the impact on your sleep schedule.

Also page 308-16 there's an entire chapter on Sleep and Education, and the problem of schools starting progressively early, mostly for the convenience of society at large, rather than a net benefit of the kids.

The book has been largely discussed on HN before; definitely worth reading.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501...

100% this - I read the Why We Sleep book earlier this year and this quote immediately came to my head when I read this news.

I just came here to see this citation :)

Nothing in that contradicts what i wrote, it supports it.

I love scientific studies, illustrating the standard distribution or exponential long-tail nature of whatever biological/ethnical/identity based feature they are studying.

Then, I hope that everyone makes the obvious blunder of categorizing the target population according to the results of the study. Because it’s “scientific”, am-I-rite?

Finally, I harvest the crackerjack-smart, hard-working people from the (now) under-appreciated group.

My team wins; the scientism-ists get the lazy offspring of the wealthy elites protected by “science”.

Everyone wins!

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