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Well when you realize we treat school as glorified babysitting and not just education, part of the reason becomes more obvious. Parents work 40 hours so we need kids in school roughly that length of time. Especially when both parents have to work to afford to live.
We need to uplift a lot about the entire system for it to work.
Especially when both parents have to work to afford to live.
That's exactly the problem right there.
It's a bit depressing to me that we've known this for at least twenty years, and possibly more and it's still a problem.
A major concern has been busing. Even in normal times, districts use the same buses and drivers for students of all ages. They stagger start times to do that, with high schoolers arriving and leaving school earliest in the day. The idea is that they can handle being alone in the dark at a bus stop more readily than smaller children, and it also lets them get home first to help take care of younger siblings after school.
If high schools started as late as middle and elementary schools, that would likely mean strain on transportation resources. O'Connell said Nashville's limited mass transit compounds the problem.
"That is one of the biggest issues to resolve," he said.
This is basically it, school systems not wanting to buy the extra buses or hire the extra drivers they'd need.
Unfortunately I don't see this ever being solved without a major cultural/financial shift in the USA towards properly funding education. Too much financial pressure to have fewer buses and fewer drivers. If my high school and middle school had started at the same time as the elementary, that'd be like 14 new buses alone at $60k-$110k a pop, not including driver wages and the diesel for each one...and we had more than one high school and middle school in our district. So it'd be more like 50 new buses, just to start HS and middle school at the same time as elementary. The cost would eat smaller districts alive. It'd be several million just to procure the buses new.
When I was at school, the bus was a charter from the company that ran the local public bus fleet. Every other time it was running public routes or just part of that companies reserve.
But this was in the UK, where dedicated school buses are exceptional.
In the school district that I live in (and where my kids attend school), elementary school starts earliest and middle/high school both start at roughly the same time.
I've found that this works really well since my youngest wakes up and is ready to go earliest anyways, I don't have to adjust my schedule because they're out of the house before I have to get to work and I would need after school care regardless. My older kids can more or less fend for themselves before school so I don't need to worry about them while I get to work before they leave.
If elementary school started at 9 like high school and middle school I'd have to organize care for my youngest both before and after school since I'd be working at both times.
And now imagine if instead of making new schools in places where everybody needs to be driven there either by car or by bus we build them so the majority would walk or bike as it is the more convient option. Other countries like Japan can imagine. Turns out it's actually better to walk/bike to school even who knew!
schools are largely daycare facilities for the low/middle income brackets.
Because school is entirely geared towards parents. Nothing about school is actually good for the people going through it, but the system doesn't actually care about them, and isn't designed to.
Nothing? I’d argue that learning mathematics is good for people going through school but then again I’m no expert in education.
It's not the concept, it's the execution.
There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with having a classroom of students being taught a curriculum. It’s effective even if it’s inefficient. The execution is lacking for sure, but to suggest that none of it is good for students is a little dramatic.
I can tell you my personal hypothesis as to why it happens in universities:
It has always been about work. It lines up with most morning shifts because no one can afford childcare.
In my experience talking with school officials and reading between the lines of BS that get fed out by them, you get to take your pick because all are true.
Really all of them are actual reasons that they start so early despite overwhelming research that starting later in the morning would lead to better academic outcomes and better long-term information retention.
Schools in the USA are not about education. They are conditioning centers to "prepare" kids for abusive expectations in post graduation employment.
It should also say not every person has to be at their job at 9am plugging up the road for the same reason said teens are being dropped off by these parents.
They cite one reason, busses, for the issue? With no mention of sports? Bad reporting.
A major concern has been busing. Even in normal times, districts use the same buses and drivers for students of all ages. They stagger start times to do that, with high schoolers arriving and leaving school earliest in the day. The idea is that they can handle being alone in the dark at a bus stop more readily than smaller children, and it also lets them get home first to help take care of younger siblings after school.
If high schools started as late as middle and elementary schools, that would likely mean strain on transportation resources. O'Connell said Nashville's limited mass transit compounds the problem.
Are staggered start times common in America?
Very
Every school district I've been in does this.
I've only seen it the other way around, though. Elementary starts first around 7:30 am, middle school at 8 and high school 8:30.
Good God! 7.30!
9am start here for more or less everything, give or take 10 minutes (Ireland).
My preschooler is 9.30.
My oldest starts school at 7:35 and my youngest starts school at 9:20.
Because parents would then have to pay someone to babysit and then take their kids to school at the later time in addition to after school care. And why can't parents go to work later? Same reason companies aren't allowing work from home even though it's proven that the majority of people are more productive. The managers need to justify their existence, so they have to have their employees all there at the same time. And for some reason society has decided that morning people are somehow better than everyone else.
I'm pretty sure it just boils down to hatred of young people. "I had to get up early so you do too."
Which is why I think we should amend the constitution to allow cruel and unusual punishments for people who utter the phrase "build a better world for our children."
First it has to start early enough so parents can get kids off then get to work. Also, extra circular activities like sports and clubs, as well as parents wanting kids home when they are home.
Because parents have to go to work, and teens with boyfriends/girlfriends don't know how to use condoms and can't get abortions in some states. Also, used car prices and insurance make teens driving to school on their own unaffordable.
It all goes back to the farmers. Farmers were up at the crack of dawn to use the light, so industry followed them. Now we're trapped in a circle, following the same schedule because we follow the same schedule.
Actual answer one heard that unfortunately makes sense: school sports after class. If you start classes later everything gets pushed back to obscene times.
Personally my high school started a half hour in grade 12. Just that made a world of difference.
that unfortunately makes sense: school sports after class
I disagree that it makes sense. Get the sports out of the school system entirely and have them be community-based or similar. I think that should apply that to most extracurriculars. I participated in sports, band, theatre, etc. so it's not like I just hated it (I would argue that art, band, choir, gym, etc. are still good to have in the curricula of schools, just not the traditionally after-school part).
Makes sense as an answer to why it's so hard. Not that it's a good answer.
Just wondering friends in Canada and EU - when do your teens start the class day? I don't doubt this is yet another thing US education gets wrong but just wondering how better funded education systems are doing things.