11 ms·

Most states start school too early in the morning

116 points by jseliger 3y ago

bhpm 3y ago
The primary function of state funded K-12 is childcare to enable two parents to work. Unless and until that is not the case, school will start earlier than parents need to be at work. If it started later, that time would be replaced with pre-school care/activities.
- beaeglebeached 3y ago
  Or just legalize 'neglect' (aka letting school age children be latchkey again without someone constantly lording over them). This bizarre and historically unprecedented scenario where parents simultaneously must both work but be prosecuted for doing so will likely be a blip in history.
  - jonathankoren 3y ago
    You can reliably get a young kid to come home by themselves. You can't reliably get a young kid to go to school by themselves.
    - cjfd 3y ago
      I started going to school all by myself, on bike, starting age 6 and did so reliably.
      - beaeglebeached 3y ago
        As did I by middle school, which is the earliest age the article actually focused on.
        seba_dos1 3y ago
        I'd rather ask: who didn't? The only reason to not come to school on your own by that age is if the school is far away and hard to get to by public transport, which usually isn't the case.
        blahedo 3y ago
        > which usually isn't the case Where do you live? There are many, many places in the US where it is indeed usually the case. (Possibly depending on your definition of "far away")
        seba_dos1 3y ago
        I live in Poland. Wherever the distance to your nearest school is more than 4 kilometers (or 3 kilometers in the early grades), the municipality has to provide transport - which is usually the case only in rural areas. In cities you'll most likely have multiple schools within 1km, which is perfectly walkable even for younger children. The high school I went to was 3.5km away from my home and I was getting there by tram, but if I went to the nearest one it would be 250m away, just like the primary school I went to. Same with kindergarten in fact, but IIRC I wasn't going there on my own back then. I live in suburbs now and the nearest primary school is 700m away - no reason to drive (nor walk) a ~10yo kid to their school here either. (for the record: primary school encompasses what US calls elementary and middle schools here) My very liberal definition of "far away" would probably be something like "more than 1.5km" (the distance I was going by foot to a swimming pool as a kid), more if we consider public transport and bikes too - though those of course won't necessarily be viable options everywhere and at every age.
      - scns 3y ago
        Did so, from my second day of school, on foot.
      - CrazyStat 3y ago
        I also walked myself to school starting at 6. It was only a couple blocks, but I was responsible for getting myself there on time.
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      Kids used to run entire farms unsupervised for weeks at a time. They are as capable as you allow them to be.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      My dad was walking to school around 1948.
    - vondur 3y ago
      I started walking to school in the 5th grade here in the US. My Mom never liked driving and gave it up.
    - function_seven 3y ago
      I started riding my bike to school in the 4th grade. Would have done so earlier, but the bike racks at school were off-limits until that grade.
      - trgn 3y ago
        your school at least had bike racks.
    - IggleSniggle 3y ago
      I'm sure that's true for some kids. But it's also true that many young kids are perfectly capable, although perhaps not all environments are conducive to this. I walked approximately half a mile to kindergarten with a friend every day, starting at age 5. I never had an issue with tardiness until high school, when I started driving. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve conversations with peers from these walks. I think it's an incredible shame that I can't let my children do the same, even at 8, and even though my 8yo is miles more mature than I was at his age.
    - em-bee 3y ago
      being late for school had consequences that most kids would try to avoid, so no, if a kid is capable to come home on their own, they are also capable to go to school on their own. at one point my oldest was in a school that did not allow kids to go to school or go home on their own. so in the afternoon i had to go to the school and pick him up. they would not let him leave until i showed up. however they could not force me to accompany him in the morning. because, well, what were they going to do when the kid was at the school gate and i wasn't there?
  - lolinder 3y ago
    For those who haven't found it, Let Grow [0] is a great organization pushing for this kind of change. They have resources for parents and have actively worked with a number of states to get free range kids laws on the books. [0] https://letgrow.org/ https://letgrow.org/
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    I don't know. It seems to be getting worse. Entire neighborhoods now come to a standstill because hundreds of giant cars converge on a school to deliver or pick up one kid at a time. And this is in L.A., home to probably the least-challenging weather in the country. We have entire generations of junior-high and high-school kids who are apparently too feeble to ride their bikes, walk, or take the bus to school. Pathetic.
    - entropicdrifter 3y ago
      You really think the kids are the ones with the agency to cause this kind of cultural shift, as opposed to changes in parenting culture?
      - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        Did anyone claim that?
    - pengaru 3y ago
      > And this is in L.A., home to probably the least-challenging weather in the country. We have entire generations of junior-high and high-school kids who are apparently too feeble to ride their bikes, walk, or take the bus to school. Pathetic. Weather is a minor factor vs. the population-size/density/quality of a place like LA. Just watch some of the George Floyd protest videos from LA to get a sense of what likely really concerns LA parents. No amount of snow, sleet, wind, and sub-zero temps can hold a candle to those apocalyptic scenes.
      - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        L.A. is a giant county masquerading as a city, spread out with many areas' density being that which is generally called "suburban." Nobody is advocating sending kids out into a riot. So that leaves... I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say probably 364.8 riot-free days a year suitable for playing or moving about outside.
        3y ago
- macspoofing 3y ago
  >The primary function of state funded K-12 is childcare to enable two parents to work. That's the PRIMARY function, eh?
  - panzagl 3y ago
    Its not the stated function, but does appear to be the primary function.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      I think that is a cynical and incorrect take. If babysitting was the primary function, there are much cheaper and easier ways to achieve it. Given that the vast majority of cost and effort is spent on the educational aspect, I would argue that is indeed the primary function. Additionally, if you look to history, schooling originated long before the need for babysitting.
      - whythre 3y ago
        Baby-sitting has always existed as a need; in the past it may have been done by various family members, but the modern ‘daycare’ model has its roots in the Industrial Revolution: as long as there have been machines for both parents to work, there has been someone offering to watch their kids for Money. Industrializing England had ‘baby mills’ where working class mothers could leave their kids (often in appalling conditions). The initial argument for public education was civics- if you want a nation of competent and driven citizens, they need to be armed with a good, comprehensive education. A lot changed in the Post-War era. Women entered the workforce, and the role of the public school has mutated to the point that many families depend upon it as the primary caregiver for non infant children (hence the complaints when the school week gets shortened from 5 days to 4). Also you seem to believe that school being expensive somehow guarantees it’s primary purpose is education. Many districts spend that money incredibly inefficiently. We have lots of touchscreen devices and giant stadiums. And yet teachers are forced to provide their own basic school supplies for the kids every year. Ancient musical instruments failing in kids hands due to rot. It’s really not good out there.
- gmm1990 3y ago
  the article states the recommendation is for middle and high school students so maybe a little overlap. I assume most kids can be autonomous when they are in high school.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  But starting absurdly early presumably means kids get OUT absurdly early, so it doesn't solve the work problem.
  - ejb999 3y ago
    and that is why after school programs exist - start school later, then you need before school activities instead - which doesn't solve any problem.
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      If your job doesn't allow you to get your kid to school at 8:30 and no earlier, you need a job that treats you like an adult. + Sad that some downtrodden drones try to bury this sentiment instead of demanding better treatment.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  I would not call it the primary function, as state-funded K-12 has existed far longer than dual-income families. Though I admit I'm just making this up and I could be completely wrong. How common was it to mothers to work in the 60s, 50s, and before? Was state-funded K-12 as ubiquitous back then as it is now?
  - throwaway17_17 3y ago
    It is my understanding that in general the ‘mandatory’ nature of education was less enforced prior to ~mid-70’s. Especially when considering rural, and agriculturally intense, locales.
    - op00to 3y ago
      Imagery of Dennis the Menace from the 50s and 60s getting taken to school by a truancy officer begs to differ.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        Cartoons often are not a reliable basis for assessing actual practices. All those comics indicate is that most people would understand, in context, the notional function, it tells you nothing about the degree of practical enforcement.
    - mikestew 3y ago
      I grew up in Indiana, literally in the middle of cornfields. Farm kids went to school, and sometimes smelled like they'd just got done with chores. But no one to my knowledge got cut slack because they had farm work to do. And what parent wants their kid to grow up uneducated? Even if they're supposed to grow up and take over the farm later, you'll never go to Purdue for that ag degree if you don't go to high school. Granted, just one piece of anecdata from just one U. S. state. But without evidence to the contrary, I'm having a hard time picturing any adult in the process, parents or school employee, being content with uneducated ignoramuses as long as they get the pigs fed.
- tesdinger 3y ago
  If that is the case then the children could simply stay at home and leave later.
- wharvle 3y ago
  Schools in my area start elementary schools way too late for that, unless you're paying for pre-care and not using the bus. They do this so high school—and nb many high schoolers can get themselves to school in the morning, so parents don't necessarily have to be home for that—can start earlier (no district has so many buses they can start all schools around the same time—they have to stagger them), to leave more time after school for sports practice and other extracurriculars (but really, for sports). > If it started later, that time would be replaced with pre-school care/activities. Even without ours being the way it is, that would still just mean more time in (typically paid) after-school care. The hours absolutely do not overlap well enough to provide convenience, only relief from part of the cost of childcare.
deleted 3y ago
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dadjoker 3y ago
I still don't understand why just going to bed earlier is a difficult concept to grasp.
- herpdyderp 3y ago
  It’s simple: bedtime = school_start - time_to_get_ready - 9_hours
- krunck 3y ago
  Have you raised a teen?
  - ironmagma 3y ago
    For that matter, were they not a teen?
    - anthomtb 3y ago
      Sometimes I think the stress of parenting causes folks to forget what they were really like in their youth.
      - deathanatos 3y ago
        I'm not a parent per se, but I routinely see my own childhood self in my nibling¹. It makes me always say a silent "I'm sorry, Mom" for all the same grief I caused her when I was a child. I figure this is why parents (and moms, in particular, since historically they've been the one to rear children) are so revered: they put up with all that crap, and now we all feel guilty for it. (¹https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nibling https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nibling)
- mstudio 3y ago
  The article addresses this here: > Early school starts are not the only cause of teenage drowsiness, but they are a crucial factor—especially because natural sleep cycles make it difficult for post-puberty teenagers to fall asleep before 11 p.m.
karaterobot 3y ago
> This map shows which parts of the U.S. ignore the science. I'm starting to dislike the phrase "the science", since I usually hear it used as a conversational bludgeon. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended 8:30 AM as a minimum start time, that's not the same as "the science" definitely saying one thing or another. I don't have kids, and don't really care when schools start, so this is less a comment about that as it is about how annoying "the science" is as a phrase, how it's not a good description of how science works, and how it's usually misapplied to end conversations in favor of your prior opinion.
- legitster 3y ago
  > I'm starting to dislike the phrase "the science", since I usually hear it used as a conversational bludgeon This also goes up there with the "in this house we believe SCIENCE IS REAL" signs. We're currently living through the replication crisis and are awash in fraudulent academic journals. I don't think people who say this stuff would actually engage with you in a conversation about proper p-values for given sample sizes. So it's really just shorthand for trying to associate yourself to a certain intellectual class.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    > trying to associate yourself to a certain intellectual class. In general, it's filling the vacuum left by religion. One part of that is what you identified: people generally need something greater than themselves to identify with, and "intellectual" is a tempting option. Another part of it is that people generally crave certainty and fear the unknown. Religion fills that need by providing crisp, clean answers that don't provide a lot of room for questions and "what if"s. In the absence of a traditional organized religion, people try to fill that void with what seems to be the new, popular replacement—science. Unfortunately, science is by design all about uncertainty. As soon as it becomes a dogma it ceases to be science.
    - Dalewyn 3y ago
      Completely agree. If anyone "believes", "trusts", "follows", etc. science, then they are doing science wrong. The most fundamental element to science is skepticism. Following the essays of a scientist is no different than following the teachings of a priest.
logifail 3y ago
I routinely have to drag our eldest two kids out of bed at 6.25am for breakfast in order for them to leave the house in time to walk to our local station to catch their 7am train to get them into town to walk to school in time for their lessons. I'm an early riser, so it's not a problem for me. For them, it's always been a challenge :(
- krumpet 3y ago
  What would happen if you just let them get up and get to school on their own? They might be late initially, but I bet they would figure it out and be on time after a short adjustment period.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - khazhoux 3y ago
    I think their problem is not actually the part about having to drag the kids out of bed, but about the kids needing to be up before 6:30a in order to walk->train->walk to school on time.
- letwhile 3y ago
  Probably they go to bed too late?
  - logifail 3y ago
    > Probably they go to bed too late? It does eventually settle into some kind of rhythm, although the agreement that they should not take their devices into their bedrooms at bedtime definitely helps with them actually going to sleep at a sensible time.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  As a night owl, this is actually insane. I can't remember the last time I woke up earlier than 7AM for _anything_. Probably ended up being an inch or 2 shorter, due to bad sleep cycles during adolescence, which led to many other issues.
vondur 3y ago
I had zero period in high school (being in band), and we started at 6:55 AM.
PaulHoule 3y ago
I get downvoted every time but sometimes I wonder if the school bus was invented by General Motors to give people an early experience with buses that will make people think riding the bus is like putting your hand in a toilet.
- kylehotchkiss 3y ago
  I appreciate your perspective and am immediately reminded how miserable and uncomfortable everything about school busses was. Very cramped "pleather" seats, often broken windows, no real AC or heat, bus driver with questionable background talking to herself, bus driver forgetting stops.
  - rufus_foreman 3y ago
    And the kitty litter they put down over the vomit when a kid threw up.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      And being a victim of bullying.
    - kylehotchkiss 3y ago
      I used to work on a roller coaster which used the exact same solution 30 seconds prior to boarding the next guest! I wish they would at least have given us a hose.
vicehamster 3y ago
Went to high school in Louisiana. School doors opened at 6:40am, First bell at 7:20am. Was absolutely brutal. Worked fast food until 11pm most school nights. The chronic fatigue was miserable. On top of that the majority of my school was on free/reduced lunch (myself included). So you end up with an understaffed school full of exhausted, hungry teenagers that are still expected to give 100% to their schoolwork.
- tesdinger 3y ago
  This would be illegal in Germany, where it is legally required that there are 11 hours of resting period between work days, or work and school. So students and workers can not work later than 9pm if they start at 8pm on the next day.
  - op00to 3y ago
    There were similar laws in my US state 30 years ago when they would have applied to me. I was limited in the hours, and needed a permit from my school to be employed at all. Oh wow, it’s still a thing: https://www.nj.gov/labor/youngworkers/find-a-job/working-papers/faqs.shtml https://www.nj.gov/labor/youngworkers/find-a-job/working-pap...
- wharvle 3y ago
  7:35 start time here. Worked 4-7 most nights, age 15 on. Only saw briefly saw the (low-in-the-sky) sun during a ~30 minute gap between those things, 5 days a week, for months on end (Winter). Took me years to get over a kind of situation-induced SAD that I'm pretty sure was caused by that. Like, 15 or so years. More broadly, how many folks have nightmares about school for years into adulthood? Mine didn't stop until my mid-30s—they were practically the only nightmares I still had, and were frequent. And my experience in high school was relatively good! High school's... kinda horrible, as practiced. Being cooped up in bad lighting during Winter with at least a few total assholes you can't escape and the school can't kick out unless they get really bad, and add hormones to the mix. Work expectations and judgement harsher and far less flexible than anything I've experienced in the "real world". No wonder people have nightmares. I'd drop a job with those conditions as soon as I could find another, if not sooner.
0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
I feel like I have been hearing about this research for years, yet nothing has changed. Are there any districts which have meaningfully pushed back star times?
mjfl 3y ago
I was overscheduled in high school and constantly sleep deprived from doing too much. However, shifting the school day forward 1 hour or 2 would not have helped me since it would have just shifted my whole day forward 1-2 hours, as I was completely 'booked' with sports/homework. I think another problem is that a lot of people plan for a certain amount of sleep, but then stay up late due to devices, which is a new, modern problem that I think is actually very severe given the addictiveness of apps. Judging other commenters here, I am pessimistic about people's ability to self-delude themselves into thinking they or their kids don't have a screen problem, and just need the schedule to be shifted forward.
Hippocrates 3y ago
I would have thought school starts before 8:30 because most parents have a workday starting at 9. And, starting earlier may avoid that rush-hour traffic for the busses or parents dropping kids.
deleted 3y ago
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legitster 3y ago
> Why do American high schools generally start so early? One large part of the answer: school buses. A lot of school districts re-use the same buses to pick up students from different schools: first the high schoolers, then the middle schoolers, and finally the elementary schoolers. Not sure what the solution they are suggesting here. Triple the number of buses and bus drivers on the road? Let high schoolers sleep in so that grade schoolers can stand on dark streets at 7:30am? Have grade schoolers stay home until 10:30am stay at school until evening? Also, having been a teenager [citation needed], I have strong doubts about the "the science" as presented. Had school started two hours later, my natural sleep cycle would probably have... also been delayed two hours.
- tesdinger 3y ago
  Bicycles, Denser settlement structures instead of urban sprawl, stricter gun laws. These factors allow kids to go to school on their own in Europe.
  - MeImCounting 3y ago
    Yes, yes and no. I doubt gun laws have anything to do with it.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  In my hometown, all schools started at the same time but where I live now, the lower grades start earlier than the upper grades. Reuse of the same buses might be part of the reason but at least here, the bigger issue is being able to have the same bus driver run multiple routes. The district probably could afford more buses but every year they have more difficulty in finding enough drivers.
  - duffyjp 3y ago
    This is how it works in my town. My elementary school kids start at 7:20, but I checked their future high school and they start at 8:15. Logistically it makes sense-- high school kids can get themselves to school even if their parents have already left for work. Sucks for little kids though. My five year old has to be in bed by 7:00pm and even then waking him up is a chore. He sleeps until 8:00 or 8:30 if left undisturbed on weekends.
lp4vn 3y ago
I think most people here nailed it. School has become a place where children stay so that their parents can work. While there is nothing inherently bad about trying to solve two problems with only one solution, for the specific case of the educational system, conceptualizing schools as places for taking care of kids instead of a place for learning is very problematic in so many aspects that it's hard to even start.
JohnMakin 3y ago
Changing this would require parents en masse caring about their own children's well being more than the convenience of the pseudo-daycare services a school provides.
- khazhoux 3y ago
  Because if there's one thing parents don't care about, it's their children's well being! (??)
  - JohnMakin 3y ago
    It was proven definitively that sending children back to school during covid was putting theirs and others’ lives at risk, yet there wasn’t a big outcry about it, quite the opposite even. It’s easy to draw conclusions as to why - school provides free day care to most parents. Valuable day care. It’s not a remotely controversial statement. It’s why you’re never going to win this battle on the merit of the science or the kids well being. I guarantee you if they proved sending kids to school at 9am daily would prevent a majority of childhood illness there’d still be a big push against it. It’s come up many times over the last few decades.
    - em-bee 3y ago
      the problem is lack of support for parents. it should be a legal right to accommodate working times and locations so that parents can take care of their kids. there need to be benefits for companies hiring parents so that they are not favoring childless employees.
    - khazhoux 3y ago
      > It’s easy to draw conclusions as to why - school provides free day care to most parents That's one conclusion but not the only one. Another is that COVID was never shown to be a severe risks to children (symptoms were generally mild, in great majority of cases) and being out of school would stunt their education and impact their friend relationships, mental health, and more. Parents who pushed for their kids to stay in school (whether one agrees with the argument) did so out of concern for their well-being.
jellyfishbeaver 3y ago
Suffered through 7:15AM start time all throughout high school... no thank you.
- duffyjp 3y ago
  I drop my two elementary school kids off before the 7:20 bell every morning. We're too close for school bus service, but I checked the schedule and the first stops begin before 6:45.
nonameiguess 3y ago
I think the cynicism about the school system here is not warranted. You may face voter pressure in the 20s, but the school system does not exist to enable dual-income households. Putting aside that they weren't even common when public school first became mandatory, this article seems to be largely talking about high school. High schoolers do not need their parents to be home every minute they're also home, and if this were the case, schools would also not be able to let children leave until parents were home from work, which is not the case. I don't currently have any teenagers, but at least in the 90s when I was still in high school myself, it was not uncommon for kids to end the day and go home as early as 2 PM. California had and has no laws about miniumum babysitting age, but typically 12 was the recommendation I always heard, and where US states do have laws, the minimum age for a babysitter ranges from 6 to 14. There is no US state where you can't leave a high school age child home alone for an hour or two. Whatever the actual reason for the schedule, it is not this, at least not as the only or original reason. There are plenty of other reasons. It may be difficult or dangerous to practice outdoor sports after school in some parts of the country if you end the day too late. There's some housekeeping that needs to be done by the school staff after the kids leave, whether that be literally cleaning the school or grading homework, and the staff probably doesn't want to be doing that super late into the evening. It's fairly sensible to intentionally be offset from office-induced rush hours, so the day may start earlier than a typical workday for that reason. Kids who work after school can more easily do so if they get off school before the typical start of a late work shift. I'm not intending to personally endorse any of these as good enough reasons to continue the early day, and I will also gladly admit that I've been an early bird my entire life so the schedule worked out fine for me even as a child. For what it's worth, my elementary school actually had two different schedules for cohorts called "early birds" and "late birds." The early birds started the day at 7 AM and the late birds at 10 AM. This was in LA County in the mid 80s. I have no idea how widespread that ever was or why my middle school and high school didn't do the same thing.
throwitaway222 3y ago
Two things that can help anyone here if they actually try them instead of whining: 1) The reason melatonin does not build up in kids anymore is because the lights are on, and the screens are on. Those actually prevent melatonin build up in the brain. Turn off the lights in the house, and get the screens dimmed to nearly the lowest level. 2) Wake up early on purpose. Your body will SET your go to bed time based on your wake up time. Even if you miss some sleep because of it, waking up at 6 (and staying up all day) will almost certainly make you wake up at 6 the next day and cause your body to get tired when it is supposed to. But, you're all right, just keep whining about this. Maybe if whining keeps wining we'll all have school at 8pm at night because people keep shifting things for the next 100 years. But don't worry, because education is racist, school will only last 15 minutes.
- deleted 3y ago
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nytesky 3y ago
For most school systems is because of limitations of available buses. They use the same set of buses for hs, ms, elem, and it’s generally discouraged to have the youngest kids waiting in the low light morning.
johnea 3y ago
The only reason public education has survived in the US is because industry needs a tax-payer funded babysitting service for their underpaid workers... So the time of start is really determined by when people need their kids out of their hair so they can work, not because it's some optimal time for the kids...
tqi 3y ago
Is anyone here actually familiar with the science? If so, I would LOVE to hear more about it. A cursory look through links provided in other threads, it seems like the recommendation is based on the following facts: teenage sleep patterns shift to an avg of 11pm, and teenagers need at 8-10 hrs of sleep. Hence, 830am start. But that seems too simplistic to actually be how that conclusion was reached. As others have said, my instinct is that if you gave high school me a later start time I would have simply stayed up later. My bedtime was almost never dictated by sleepiness, but rather things like homework, hanging out on AIM with friends, video games, etc. Surely this is something that has been studied already. Is there a correlation between school start time and student bed times? Or a statistically significant difference in teenage bedtimes between standard and daylight savings time?
gilbetron 3y ago
Our son's high school has a late start option, so he starts at 9am and goes until 4pm, all three of us are happy with it! I'm shocked more people don't use it - it seems there is a slight undertone of it being the "lazy" option. We could care less, it works so much better for us!
xracy 3y ago
tl;dr The infographic misrepresents its own data source. The following is how I proved this to myself in roughly stream-of-consciousness how I followed what was happening. I had questions about how this is averaged... I know that in Seattle schools start after 8:50am. But it has Washington as a dark orange. But given that Washington's 2 most populous urban areas (Encompassing Spokane, Seattle, and Tacoma) both start their schools after 8:40am, I'm wonder how this has Washington as averaging 7:56am to 8:05am. Additionally, the more I check the counties in Washington, the more I doubt that this is correct. School start times seem to be consistently after 8:30am, which would align with what I know about the state. So I looked at their source: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_table_05_s1s.asp https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_table_05_s1... And their information for Washington is just wrong, from their own source. It's also for the years 2017-2018.
AndrewDucker 3y ago
As a note, my kids go to a state school here in Scotland, and school starts at 8:50. As we both work, we pay for a school club that will look after the kids from 7:40, and after school until 18:00. Although thankfully our work is flexible enough that we generally only have them in there from 8:30-17:00.
nothercastle 3y ago
Too early for what? School in the USA is mostly for childcare learning is an afterthought

116 points by jseliger 3y ago

bhpm 3y ago

The primary function of state funded K-12 is childcare to enable two parents to work. Unless and until that is not the case, school will start earlier than parents need to be at work. If it started later, that time would be replaced with pre-school care/activities.

beaeglebeached 3y ago
Or just legalize 'neglect' (aka letting school age children be latchkey again without someone constantly lording over them). This bizarre and historically unprecedented scenario where parents simultaneously must both work but be prosecuted for doing so will likely be a blip in history.
- jonathankoren 3y ago
  You can reliably get a young kid to come home by themselves. You can't reliably get a young kid to go to school by themselves.
  - cjfd 3y ago
    I started going to school all by myself, on bike, starting age 6 and did so reliably.
    - beaeglebeached 3y ago
      As did I by middle school, which is the earliest age the article actually focused on.
      - seba_dos1 3y ago
        I'd rather ask: who didn't? The only reason to not come to school on your own by that age is if the school is far away and hard to get to by public transport, which usually isn't the case.
        blahedo 3y ago
        > which usually isn't the case Where do you live? There are many, many places in the US where it is indeed usually the case. (Possibly depending on your definition of "far away")
        seba_dos1 3y ago
        I live in Poland. Wherever the distance to your nearest school is more than 4 kilometers (or 3 kilometers in the early grades), the municipality has to provide transport - which is usually the case only in rural areas. In cities you'll most likely have multiple schools within 1km, which is perfectly walkable even for younger children. The high school I went to was 3.5km away from my home and I was getting there by tram, but if I went to the nearest one it would be 250m away, just like the primary school I went to. Same with kindergarten in fact, but IIRC I wasn't going there on my own back then. I live in suburbs now and the nearest primary school is 700m away - no reason to drive (nor walk) a ~10yo kid to their school here either. (for the record: primary school encompasses what US calls elementary and middle schools here) My very liberal definition of "far away" would probably be something like "more than 1.5km" (the distance I was going by foot to a swimming pool as a kid), more if we consider public transport and bikes too - though those of course won't necessarily be viable options everywhere and at every age.
    - scns 3y ago
      Did so, from my second day of school, on foot.
    - CrazyStat 3y ago
      I also walked myself to school starting at 6. It was only a couple blocks, but I was responsible for getting myself there on time.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    Kids used to run entire farms unsupervised for weeks at a time. They are as capable as you allow them to be.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    My dad was walking to school around 1948.
  - vondur 3y ago
    I started walking to school in the 5th grade here in the US. My Mom never liked driving and gave it up.
  - function_seven 3y ago
    I started riding my bike to school in the 4th grade. Would have done so earlier, but the bike racks at school were off-limits until that grade.
    - trgn 3y ago
      your school at least had bike racks.
  - IggleSniggle 3y ago
    I'm sure that's true for some kids. But it's also true that many young kids are perfectly capable, although perhaps not all environments are conducive to this. I walked approximately half a mile to kindergarten with a friend every day, starting at age 5. I never had an issue with tardiness until high school, when I started driving. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve conversations with peers from these walks. I think it's an incredible shame that I can't let my children do the same, even at 8, and even though my 8yo is miles more mature than I was at his age.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    being late for school had consequences that most kids would try to avoid, so no, if a kid is capable to come home on their own, they are also capable to go to school on their own. at one point my oldest was in a school that did not allow kids to go to school or go home on their own. so in the afternoon i had to go to the school and pick him up. they would not let him leave until i showed up. however they could not force me to accompany him in the morning. because, well, what were they going to do when the kid was at the school gate and i wasn't there?
- lolinder 3y ago
  For those who haven't found it, Let Grow [0] is a great organization pushing for this kind of change. They have resources for parents and have actively worked with a number of states to get free range kids laws on the books. [0] https://letgrow.org/ https://letgrow.org/
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  I don't know. It seems to be getting worse. Entire neighborhoods now come to a standstill because hundreds of giant cars converge on a school to deliver or pick up one kid at a time. And this is in L.A., home to probably the least-challenging weather in the country. We have entire generations of junior-high and high-school kids who are apparently too feeble to ride their bikes, walk, or take the bus to school. Pathetic.
  - entropicdrifter 3y ago
    You really think the kids are the ones with the agency to cause this kind of cultural shift, as opposed to changes in parenting culture?
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      Did anyone claim that?
  - pengaru 3y ago
    > And this is in L.A., home to probably the least-challenging weather in the country. We have entire generations of junior-high and high-school kids who are apparently too feeble to ride their bikes, walk, or take the bus to school. Pathetic. Weather is a minor factor vs. the population-size/density/quality of a place like LA. Just watch some of the George Floyd protest videos from LA to get a sense of what likely really concerns LA parents. No amount of snow, sleet, wind, and sub-zero temps can hold a candle to those apocalyptic scenes.
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      L.A. is a giant county masquerading as a city, spread out with many areas' density being that which is generally called "suburban." Nobody is advocating sending kids out into a riot. So that leaves... I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say probably 364.8 riot-free days a year suitable for playing or moving about outside.
      - 3y ago
macspoofing 3y ago
>The primary function of state funded K-12 is childcare to enable two parents to work. That's the PRIMARY function, eh?
- panzagl 3y ago
  Its not the stated function, but does appear to be the primary function.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    I think that is a cynical and incorrect take. If babysitting was the primary function, there are much cheaper and easier ways to achieve it. Given that the vast majority of cost and effort is spent on the educational aspect, I would argue that is indeed the primary function. Additionally, if you look to history, schooling originated long before the need for babysitting.
    - whythre 3y ago
      Baby-sitting has always existed as a need; in the past it may have been done by various family members, but the modern ‘daycare’ model has its roots in the Industrial Revolution: as long as there have been machines for both parents to work, there has been someone offering to watch their kids for Money. Industrializing England had ‘baby mills’ where working class mothers could leave their kids (often in appalling conditions). The initial argument for public education was civics- if you want a nation of competent and driven citizens, they need to be armed with a good, comprehensive education. A lot changed in the Post-War era. Women entered the workforce, and the role of the public school has mutated to the point that many families depend upon it as the primary caregiver for non infant children (hence the complaints when the school week gets shortened from 5 days to 4). Also you seem to believe that school being expensive somehow guarantees it’s primary purpose is education. Many districts spend that money incredibly inefficiently. We have lots of touchscreen devices and giant stadiums. And yet teachers are forced to provide their own basic school supplies for the kids every year. Ancient musical instruments failing in kids hands due to rot. It’s really not good out there.
gmm1990 3y ago
the article states the recommendation is for middle and high school students so maybe a little overlap. I assume most kids can be autonomous when they are in high school.
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
But starting absurdly early presumably means kids get OUT absurdly early, so it doesn't solve the work problem.
- ejb999 3y ago
  and that is why after school programs exist - start school later, then you need before school activities instead - which doesn't solve any problem.
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    If your job doesn't allow you to get your kid to school at 8:30 and no earlier, you need a job that treats you like an adult. + Sad that some downtrodden drones try to bury this sentiment instead of demanding better treatment.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
I would not call it the primary function, as state-funded K-12 has existed far longer than dual-income families. Though I admit I'm just making this up and I could be completely wrong. How common was it to mothers to work in the 60s, 50s, and before? Was state-funded K-12 as ubiquitous back then as it is now?
- throwaway17_17 3y ago
  It is my understanding that in general the ‘mandatory’ nature of education was less enforced prior to ~mid-70’s. Especially when considering rural, and agriculturally intense, locales.
  - op00to 3y ago
    Imagery of Dennis the Menace from the 50s and 60s getting taken to school by a truancy officer begs to differ.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      Cartoons often are not a reliable basis for assessing actual practices. All those comics indicate is that most people would understand, in context, the notional function, it tells you nothing about the degree of practical enforcement.
  - mikestew 3y ago
    I grew up in Indiana, literally in the middle of cornfields. Farm kids went to school, and sometimes smelled like they'd just got done with chores. But no one to my knowledge got cut slack because they had farm work to do. And what parent wants their kid to grow up uneducated? Even if they're supposed to grow up and take over the farm later, you'll never go to Purdue for that ag degree if you don't go to high school. Granted, just one piece of anecdata from just one U. S. state. But without evidence to the contrary, I'm having a hard time picturing any adult in the process, parents or school employee, being content with uneducated ignoramuses as long as they get the pigs fed.
tesdinger 3y ago
If that is the case then the children could simply stay at home and leave later.
wharvle 3y ago
Schools in my area start elementary schools way too late for that, unless you're paying for pre-care and not using the bus. They do this so high school—and nb many high schoolers can get themselves to school in the morning, so parents don't necessarily have to be home for that—can start earlier (no district has so many buses they can start all schools around the same time—they have to stagger them), to leave more time after school for sports practice and other extracurriculars (but really, for sports). > If it started later, that time would be replaced with pre-school care/activities. Even without ours being the way it is, that would still just mean more time in (typically paid) after-school care. The hours absolutely do not overlap well enough to provide convenience, only relief from part of the cost of childcare.

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dadjoker 3y ago

I still don't understand why just going to bed earlier is a difficult concept to grasp.

herpdyderp 3y ago
It’s simple: bedtime = school_start - time_to_get_ready - 9_hours
krunck 3y ago
Have you raised a teen?
- ironmagma 3y ago
  For that matter, were they not a teen?
  - anthomtb 3y ago
    Sometimes I think the stress of parenting causes folks to forget what they were really like in their youth.
    - deathanatos 3y ago
      I'm not a parent per se, but I routinely see my own childhood self in my nibling¹. It makes me always say a silent "I'm sorry, Mom" for all the same grief I caused her when I was a child. I figure this is why parents (and moms, in particular, since historically they've been the one to rear children) are so revered: they put up with all that crap, and now we all feel guilty for it. (¹https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nibling https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nibling)
mstudio 3y ago
The article addresses this here: > Early school starts are not the only cause of teenage drowsiness, but they are a crucial factor—especially because natural sleep cycles make it difficult for post-puberty teenagers to fall asleep before 11 p.m.

karaterobot 3y ago

> This map shows which parts of the U.S. ignore the science. I'm starting to dislike the phrase "the science", since I usually hear it used as a conversational bludgeon. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended 8:30 AM as a minimum start time, that's not the same as "the science" definitely saying one thing or another. I don't have kids, and don't really care when schools start, so this is less a comment about that as it is about how annoying "the science" is as a phrase, how it's not a good description of how science works, and how it's usually misapplied to end conversations in favor of your prior opinion.

legitster 3y ago
> I'm starting to dislike the phrase "the science", since I usually hear it used as a conversational bludgeon This also goes up there with the "in this house we believe SCIENCE IS REAL" signs. We're currently living through the replication crisis and are awash in fraudulent academic journals. I don't think people who say this stuff would actually engage with you in a conversation about proper p-values for given sample sizes. So it's really just shorthand for trying to associate yourself to a certain intellectual class.
- lolinder 3y ago
  > trying to associate yourself to a certain intellectual class. In general, it's filling the vacuum left by religion. One part of that is what you identified: people generally need something greater than themselves to identify with, and "intellectual" is a tempting option. Another part of it is that people generally crave certainty and fear the unknown. Religion fills that need by providing crisp, clean answers that don't provide a lot of room for questions and "what if"s. In the absence of a traditional organized religion, people try to fill that void with what seems to be the new, popular replacement—science. Unfortunately, science is by design all about uncertainty. As soon as it becomes a dogma it ceases to be science.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    Completely agree. If anyone "believes", "trusts", "follows", etc. science, then they are doing science wrong. The most fundamental element to science is skepticism. Following the essays of a scientist is no different than following the teachings of a priest.

logifail 3y ago

I routinely have to drag our eldest two kids out of bed at 6.25am for breakfast in order for them to leave the house in time to walk to our local station to catch their 7am train to get them into town to walk to school in time for their lessons. I'm an early riser, so it's not a problem for me. For them, it's always been a challenge :(

krumpet 3y ago
What would happen if you just let them get up and get to school on their own? They might be late initially, but I bet they would figure it out and be on time after a short adjustment period.
- deleted 3y ago
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- khazhoux 3y ago
  I think their problem is not actually the part about having to drag the kids out of bed, but about the kids needing to be up before 6:30a in order to walk->train->walk to school on time.
letwhile 3y ago
Probably they go to bed too late?
- logifail 3y ago
  > Probably they go to bed too late? It does eventually settle into some kind of rhythm, although the agreement that they should not take their devices into their bedrooms at bedtime definitely helps with them actually going to sleep at a sensible time.
antisthenes 3y ago
As a night owl, this is actually insane. I can't remember the last time I woke up earlier than 7AM for _anything_. Probably ended up being an inch or 2 shorter, due to bad sleep cycles during adolescence, which led to many other issues.

vondur 3y ago

I had zero period in high school (being in band), and we started at 6:55 AM.

PaulHoule 3y ago

I get downvoted every time but sometimes I wonder if the school bus was invented by General Motors to give people an early experience with buses that will make people think riding the bus is like putting your hand in a toilet.

kylehotchkiss 3y ago
I appreciate your perspective and am immediately reminded how miserable and uncomfortable everything about school busses was. Very cramped "pleather" seats, often broken windows, no real AC or heat, bus driver with questionable background talking to herself, bus driver forgetting stops.
- rufus_foreman 3y ago
  And the kitty litter they put down over the vomit when a kid threw up.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    And being a victim of bullying.
  - kylehotchkiss 3y ago
    I used to work on a roller coaster which used the exact same solution 30 seconds prior to boarding the next guest! I wish they would at least have given us a hose.

vicehamster 3y ago

Went to high school in Louisiana. School doors opened at 6:40am, First bell at 7:20am. Was absolutely brutal. Worked fast food until 11pm most school nights. The chronic fatigue was miserable. On top of that the majority of my school was on free/reduced lunch (myself included). So you end up with an understaffed school full of exhausted, hungry teenagers that are still expected to give 100% to their schoolwork.

tesdinger 3y ago
This would be illegal in Germany, where it is legally required that there are 11 hours of resting period between work days, or work and school. So students and workers can not work later than 9pm if they start at 8pm on the next day.
- op00to 3y ago
  There were similar laws in my US state 30 years ago when they would have applied to me. I was limited in the hours, and needed a permit from my school to be employed at all. Oh wow, it’s still a thing: https://www.nj.gov/labor/youngworkers/find-a-job/working-papers/faqs.shtml https://www.nj.gov/labor/youngworkers/find-a-job/working-pap...
wharvle 3y ago
7:35 start time here. Worked 4-7 most nights, age 15 on. Only saw briefly saw the (low-in-the-sky) sun during a ~30 minute gap between those things, 5 days a week, for months on end (Winter). Took me years to get over a kind of situation-induced SAD that I'm pretty sure was caused by that. Like, 15 or so years. More broadly, how many folks have nightmares about school for years into adulthood? Mine didn't stop until my mid-30s—they were practically the only nightmares I still had, and were frequent. And my experience in high school was relatively good! High school's... kinda horrible, as practiced. Being cooped up in bad lighting during Winter with at least a few total assholes you can't escape and the school can't kick out unless they get really bad, and add hormones to the mix. Work expectations and judgement harsher and far less flexible than anything I've experienced in the "real world". No wonder people have nightmares. I'd drop a job with those conditions as soon as I could find another, if not sooner.

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago

I feel like I have been hearing about this research for years, yet nothing has changed. Are there any districts which have meaningfully pushed back star times?

mjfl 3y ago

I was overscheduled in high school and constantly sleep deprived from doing too much. However, shifting the school day forward 1 hour or 2 would not have helped me since it would have just shifted my whole day forward 1-2 hours, as I was completely 'booked' with sports/homework. I think another problem is that a lot of people plan for a certain amount of sleep, but then stay up late due to devices, which is a new, modern problem that I think is actually very severe given the addictiveness of apps. Judging other commenters here, I am pessimistic about people's ability to self-delude themselves into thinking they or their kids don't have a screen problem, and just need the schedule to be shifted forward.

Hippocrates 3y ago

I would have thought school starts before 8:30 because most parents have a workday starting at 9. And, starting earlier may avoid that rush-hour traffic for the busses or parents dropping kids.

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legitster 3y ago

> Why do American high schools generally start so early? One large part of the answer: school buses. A lot of school districts re-use the same buses to pick up students from different schools: first the high schoolers, then the middle schoolers, and finally the elementary schoolers. Not sure what the solution they are suggesting here. Triple the number of buses and bus drivers on the road? Let high schoolers sleep in so that grade schoolers can stand on dark streets at 7:30am? Have grade schoolers stay home until 10:30am stay at school until evening? Also, having been a teenager [citation needed], I have strong doubts about the "the science" as presented. Had school started two hours later, my natural sleep cycle would probably have... also been delayed two hours.

tesdinger 3y ago
Bicycles, Denser settlement structures instead of urban sprawl, stricter gun laws. These factors allow kids to go to school on their own in Europe.
- MeImCounting 3y ago
  Yes, yes and no. I doubt gun laws have anything to do with it.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
In my hometown, all schools started at the same time but where I live now, the lower grades start earlier than the upper grades. Reuse of the same buses might be part of the reason but at least here, the bigger issue is being able to have the same bus driver run multiple routes. The district probably could afford more buses but every year they have more difficulty in finding enough drivers.
- duffyjp 3y ago
  This is how it works in my town. My elementary school kids start at 7:20, but I checked their future high school and they start at 8:15. Logistically it makes sense-- high school kids can get themselves to school even if their parents have already left for work. Sucks for little kids though. My five year old has to be in bed by 7:00pm and even then waking him up is a chore. He sleeps until 8:00 or 8:30 if left undisturbed on weekends.

lp4vn 3y ago

I think most people here nailed it. School has become a place where children stay so that their parents can work. While there is nothing inherently bad about trying to solve two problems with only one solution, for the specific case of the educational system, conceptualizing schools as places for taking care of kids instead of a place for learning is very problematic in so many aspects that it's hard to even start.

JohnMakin 3y ago

Changing this would require parents en masse caring about their own children's well being more than the convenience of the pseudo-daycare services a school provides.

khazhoux 3y ago
Because if there's one thing parents don't care about, it's their children's well being! (??)
- JohnMakin 3y ago
  It was proven definitively that sending children back to school during covid was putting theirs and others’ lives at risk, yet there wasn’t a big outcry about it, quite the opposite even. It’s easy to draw conclusions as to why - school provides free day care to most parents. Valuable day care. It’s not a remotely controversial statement. It’s why you’re never going to win this battle on the merit of the science or the kids well being. I guarantee you if they proved sending kids to school at 9am daily would prevent a majority of childhood illness there’d still be a big push against it. It’s come up many times over the last few decades.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    the problem is lack of support for parents. it should be a legal right to accommodate working times and locations so that parents can take care of their kids. there need to be benefits for companies hiring parents so that they are not favoring childless employees.
  - khazhoux 3y ago
    > It’s easy to draw conclusions as to why - school provides free day care to most parents That's one conclusion but not the only one. Another is that COVID was never shown to be a severe risks to children (symptoms were generally mild, in great majority of cases) and being out of school would stunt their education and impact their friend relationships, mental health, and more. Parents who pushed for their kids to stay in school (whether one agrees with the argument) did so out of concern for their well-being.

jellyfishbeaver 3y ago

Suffered through 7:15AM start time all throughout high school... no thank you.

duffyjp 3y ago
I drop my two elementary school kids off before the 7:20 bell every morning. We're too close for school bus service, but I checked the schedule and the first stops begin before 6:45.

nonameiguess 3y ago

I think the cynicism about the school system here is not warranted. You may face voter pressure in the 20s, but the school system does not exist to enable dual-income households. Putting aside that they weren't even common when public school first became mandatory, this article seems to be largely talking about high school. High schoolers do not need their parents to be home every minute they're also home, and if this were the case, schools would also not be able to let children leave until parents were home from work, which is not the case. I don't currently have any teenagers, but at least in the 90s when I was still in high school myself, it was not uncommon for kids to end the day and go home as early as 2 PM. California had and has no laws about miniumum babysitting age, but typically 12 was the recommendation I always heard, and where US states do have laws, the minimum age for a babysitter ranges from 6 to 14. There is no US state where you can't leave a high school age child home alone for an hour or two. Whatever the actual reason for the schedule, it is not this, at least not as the only or original reason. There are plenty of other reasons. It may be difficult or dangerous to practice outdoor sports after school in some parts of the country if you end the day too late. There's some housekeeping that needs to be done by the school staff after the kids leave, whether that be literally cleaning the school or grading homework, and the staff probably doesn't want to be doing that super late into the evening. It's fairly sensible to intentionally be offset from office-induced rush hours, so the day may start earlier than a typical workday for that reason. Kids who work after school can more easily do so if they get off school before the typical start of a late work shift. I'm not intending to personally endorse any of these as good enough reasons to continue the early day, and I will also gladly admit that I've been an early bird my entire life so the schedule worked out fine for me even as a child. For what it's worth, my elementary school actually had two different schedules for cohorts called "early birds" and "late birds." The early birds started the day at 7 AM and the late birds at 10 AM. This was in LA County in the mid 80s. I have no idea how widespread that ever was or why my middle school and high school didn't do the same thing.

throwitaway222 3y ago

Two things that can help anyone here if they actually try them instead of whining: 1) The reason melatonin does not build up in kids anymore is because the lights are on, and the screens are on. Those actually prevent melatonin build up in the brain. Turn off the lights in the house, and get the screens dimmed to nearly the lowest level. 2) Wake up early on purpose. Your body will SET your go to bed time based on your wake up time. Even if you miss some sleep because of it, waking up at 6 (and staying up all day) will almost certainly make you wake up at 6 the next day and cause your body to get tired when it is supposed to. But, you're all right, just keep whining about this. Maybe if whining keeps wining we'll all have school at 8pm at night because people keep shifting things for the next 100 years. But don't worry, because education is racist, school will only last 15 minutes.

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nytesky 3y ago

For most school systems is because of limitations of available buses. They use the same set of buses for hs, ms, elem, and it’s generally discouraged to have the youngest kids waiting in the low light morning.

johnea 3y ago

The only reason public education has survived in the US is because industry needs a tax-payer funded babysitting service for their underpaid workers... So the time of start is really determined by when people need their kids out of their hair so they can work, not because it's some optimal time for the kids...

tqi 3y ago

Is anyone here actually familiar with the science? If so, I would LOVE to hear more about it. A cursory look through links provided in other threads, it seems like the recommendation is based on the following facts: teenage sleep patterns shift to an avg of 11pm, and teenagers need at 8-10 hrs of sleep. Hence, 830am start. But that seems too simplistic to actually be how that conclusion was reached. As others have said, my instinct is that if you gave high school me a later start time I would have simply stayed up later. My bedtime was almost never dictated by sleepiness, but rather things like homework, hanging out on AIM with friends, video games, etc. Surely this is something that has been studied already. Is there a correlation between school start time and student bed times? Or a statistically significant difference in teenage bedtimes between standard and daylight savings time?

gilbetron 3y ago

Our son's high school has a late start option, so he starts at 9am and goes until 4pm, all three of us are happy with it! I'm shocked more people don't use it - it seems there is a slight undertone of it being the "lazy" option. We could care less, it works so much better for us!

xracy 3y ago

tl;dr The infographic misrepresents its own data source. The following is how I proved this to myself in roughly stream-of-consciousness how I followed what was happening. I had questions about how this is averaged... I know that in Seattle schools start after 8:50am. But it has Washington as a dark orange. But given that Washington's 2 most populous urban areas (Encompassing Spokane, Seattle, and Tacoma) both start their schools after 8:40am, I'm wonder how this has Washington as averaging 7:56am to 8:05am. Additionally, the more I check the counties in Washington, the more I doubt that this is correct. School start times seem to be consistently after 8:30am, which would align with what I know about the state. So I looked at their source: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_table_05_s1s.asp https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_table_05_s1... And their information for Washington is just wrong, from their own source. It's also for the years 2017-2018.

AndrewDucker 3y ago

As a note, my kids go to a state school here in Scotland, and school starts at 8:50. As we both work, we pay for a school club that will look after the kids from 7:40, and after school until 18:00. Although thankfully our work is flexible enough that we generally only have them in there from 8:30-17:00.

nothercastle 3y ago

Too early for what? School in the USA is mostly for childcare learning is an afterthought