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-

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.