Many high schools have recently begun pushing back school start times to 8AM, and some, even 9AM. College classes often start, at the earliest, at 8AM, and studies have shown that student performance is maximized with higher amounts of sleep. However, many communities, at the local level, have been pushing against this movement due to the tremendous costs as well as the fact that it seems as though the school day schedule would simply be pushed back. What are your thoughts and experiences with this?
Khushboo Shah
Jul 21, 2018
Discussion
Greetings, fellow Ambassadors, As we know, the July 2018 topic for the Roundtable Discussion is Education Funding. I recently came across this extremely informative resource about education funding. The resource explores how funding has changed over time, and provides statistical data in understanding the changes made over the local, state, and federal level in the USA. Article: http://apps.urban.org/features/education-funding-trends/ As mentioned on their website, the data they they collected "measured the progressivity of school funding as the ratio of two weighted averages of each district’s per-student revenue: (1) weights are the number of poor students; and (2) weights are the number of nonpoor students. For example, an estimate of 1.1 would imply that, on average, poor students attend districts that receive 10 percent more in per-student funding than the districts nonpoor students attend. " (source: http://apps.urban.org/features/education-funding-trends/) What do you all feel about this article and the information put forward by them? Ambassadors belonging to other nationalities, how does education funding work in your country? Could you please share your insights, or any other resources or articles you find valuable? Thank you so much for all your inputs!
Here's an update: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/05/30/school-start-times-massachusetts-state-house-present-petition/
I support this because students often stay up late doing homework and extracurriculars, and requiring them to be on campus so early prevents them from getting the necessary sleep. My school has always started at 8:35 am and ended at 2:55 pm, so schools can push back start times and still have students get a full day of study in. Starting classes later also allows more time for clubs before school.
I would strongly support pushing back start times. Given the overwhelming evidence about how a teenager's brain functions, I think there's an imperative to change school schedules accordingly. One of the major criticisms of later start times is that students will just stay up later, but research does not support this claim and suggests that it leads to more hours of sleep among students.
In California, my representative in the state Senate Anthony Portantino recently introduced and passed a bill requiring middle and high schools to start no earlier than 8:30. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB328