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Comment by kayodelycaon | Hacker News Reader

Tried this. Was not allowed to switch because it would cause an uneven class size. At least, that's what I was told the policy was for.

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It's probably true; schools are generally run for the benefit and convenience of teachers, not students. The former have a strong union with outsized influence on local elections, whereas the latter don't even vote. The same incentives lead to early school start times which help teachers at the cost of students (particularly teenagers who generally have 'later' circadian rhythms).

> It's probably true; schools are generally run for the benefit and convenience of teachers, not students.

This is, emphatically, not even close to true. If someone told you this, they were lying or just had no idea how schools work and were guessing.

> early school start times which help teachers at the cost of students

A perfect example of how you're veering away from reality with your faulty premise: teachers don't like super-early starts, either! Except the coaches who like having plenty of time for long after-school practices with the sun still up. Parents of athletes may like it, too, just so only one end of their daily schedule changes when their kids' sports are in season (as opposed to having to get them in for an early practice, and pick them up late for a late practice, unable to use the school bus for either end). The justification given for keeping it is usually some combo of "parents want it" (do they? I'm a parent and I fucking don't—but then I don't have any high school athletes in my house yet) and, overriding all other concerns, school sports. Adjusting those schedules may also mean elementary kids start earlier so that the high schoolers can start later, because districts want to be able to stagger bus schedules so they need fewer busses—again, not because teachers are demanding it—which I guess maybe some parents don't like (I'm a parent of elementary kids, and yeah, I'd like them there earlier and the high school kids later, reverse of how most districts do it, but maybe some parents do in fact want their elementary kids starting at 9 o'goddamn-clock when they've already burned 1-2 of their most alert hours for the day, and the high schoolers starting before 8:00, for some reason). It is absolutely not because teachers are demanding to start school before the sun's even up in the Winter.

like daylight savings, I think everyone feels compelled to pretend there is a reason for this madness.

I don't believe there is any purpose in the current school start time, but it's been this way for ages. I'm sure it works for at least some people - but I don't see any reason why student athletes couldn't practice in the morning and spare the rest of us.

The sports-parent and coach lobby in high schools is often one of the stronger interest groups. I've known teachers to advocate for later starts in meetings (again: it really, really isn't due to some powerful cabal of ordinary teachers who just looooove starting school incredibly early) and be told sports are the reason it's not gonna happen (plus having to re-do bus schedules—admin hates working). Also, I can report that the old trope of high school athletes getting grades adjusted or being given way more leeway on disciplinary issues, which one might hope was now only observable on retro 80s movie nights, is still very much a real thing. Most teachers hate that crap, too, but administrators, coaches, and sports-parents all like the preferential treatment for athletes.

My understanding is that schools are run for the convenience of administrators, who want metrics based performance to look at like butts in seats, test scores, cost per student, etc

I have no doubt administrators have a large role to play in this but "test scores" and "cost per student" seem like perfectly fine metrics by which to judge schools, no?

"I literally don't have the time to cover the Indian Wars or Jim Crow south while still covering what I need to cover so my students can pass the state standardized test"

-A teacher I was talking to last week

Point is, test scores aren't perfect.

The idea is to get rid of all standardized testing, so that there will be no contraindications to the story of public school excellence.

What's the alternative?

Metrics are meaningless without context, useful only for snap judgements by peanut galleries. Judging by metric is an pernicious antipattern that sounds good but the public and politicians rarely have the time for the contextualization necessary to make truly “data-driven decisions”. This is true outside of school management as well.

Are teachers really the ones pushing for such early starts of school? Anecdotally, most teachers I know don't love waking up at 5am in order to get ready and get to school on time. I always thought the early start was to have enough time in the afternoon and evening for after-school activities, but not sure.

I believe it's basically sports plus buses (times are staggered so the same buses can be used for several school levels).

My understanding was, it's so teenagers can get home before their younger siblings.

Oh wow. You know U.S. labor is in a terrible place when AFT is described as a powerful union with an outsized influence on elections. (It’s exactly the opposite, actually, the only power teachers have left is the power to strike.)

> the only power teachers have left is the power to strike.

That's the only power any worker has. Pay and/or other powers tend to correlate to how often the worker ceases to work and/or how expensive it would be to replace them (true for both union and non-union workers).

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