
California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am - dpflan
https://qz.com/1727790/californias-new-law-bans-schools-from-starting-before-8am/
======
meristem
Unfortunately, the school systems still rely on one parent at home. It is not
just drop off and pick up times: school activities, parent-teacher
conferences, etc. For example, in the SF Unified District, school tours for
parents of kids entering kindergarten, middle school and high school are
during the school hours, mostly in the morning. It is all built around the
expectation of a parent at home or a job structure that allows parents to have
time off and not be penalized for it. Neither of those are necessarily
representative of a family's current reality.

~~~
_coveredInBees
I understand the frustration, but I think it is absurd to expect teachers and
school administrators (who are woefully underpaid, especially in the Bay area)
to accommodate working parents by working extra hours just for the parent's
benefit. It's a hard enough job as it is, what with the poor pay, large
workload, dealing with entitled, helicopter parents and the diminishing
societal appreciation for their contributions and importance to society.

~~~
rdlecler1
There’s a 20:1 to 30:1 ratio so are you suggesting it’s better for 20-30
working, single parent families? Maybe the government should pay teachers more
and pay less on defense and we’d have a more productive society.

~~~
cobookman
I've read multiple studies that the biggest influence in a kids success in
school is their parents involvement.

Don't make the assumption that throwing more money at teachers will improve
our schools. Zuckerberg tried that with little success, as have many before
him.

I'd rather a focus on ensuring every kid has a healthy meal at the table. A
support group who's invested in tbe individual kids success. A family that
encourages and supports during the best and worst of times.

Arguably the "advantage" well to-do middle class families get.

~~~
emiliobumachar
I don't doubt your main point, but your main example does not support it. How
much of Zuckerberg's money trickled down all the way to teachers? From what I
remember seeing reported, most of it went to consulting and administration.

------
socalnate1
My high school started at 7am. I also took the bus; which picked up around
6:15am; so I usually woke up around 5:45am during the week. I would often nod
off during my first or second period; and routinely took 2-3 hour naps when I
got home from school; which screwed up my ability to fall asleep early at
night or get much homework done. I sometimes wonder what my academics would
have been like if I was actually awake during those first two periods.

(This was in the 90's)

~~~
non-entity
I've always been confused by TV shows showing kids leaving for school and it's
bright outside with the whole family awake. Growing up, it was dark when we
got up for school and just barely sun up (depending on the season still dark)
by the time we left to get on the bus.

~~~
rz2k
On the shortest days of the year in Los Angeles[1], there is civil twilight
around 6:30am and full daylight before 7am. Maybe the writers, who even have
children, live close to the schools they attend.

[1] [https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/los-
angeles](https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/los-angeles)

~~~
widforss
Wow, this really gives you perspective. My corresponding times are 8:21 and
9:55.

I would give the world for the opportunity of sunlight evenly distributed over
the year.

~~~
ghaff
The thing with evenly distributed sunlight is that, if you work in an office,
you're not going to have a lot of free time to be outside and not commuting
while the sun is out during the week.

With a big skew between winter and summer hours, it's dark in the winter but
you don't actually lose that much in-the-sun free time while you gain a huge
amount of light during the long summer evenings.

------
dsalzman
School children are sleeping on average 1 hour less than theirs peers did 50
years ago. This has been driven by earlier and earlier school start times.
Sleep deprivation in school age children has been linked to lower test scores,
lower knowledge retention, higher rates of "trouble making".

Really happy to see these laws getting put in place!

~~~
briandear
> This has been driven by earlier and earlier school start times

What about later and later bed times?

~~~
Alupis
> What about later and later bed times?

This is the real factor. When I was a kid - it was in bed, lights out and go
to sleep at 9pm the latest during school nights - strictly enforced by my
parents.

Now I regularly see small children (< 10 years old) out at the store past 10pm
or 11pm on school nights.

~~~
arcticbull
This is also anecdotal. While it will of course vary from person to person,
it's been conclusively shown teenagers circadian rhythms are shifted later
than adults. Sleeping later and waking up later in teenagers is biological and
it doesn't do anyone good to fight it.

~~~
Alupis
While what you say is true, does pushing the start time of class back 30
minutes or 1 hour make any difference? I'm skeptical.

When I was a teen, on weekends with no where to be, I'd regularly sleep until
noon, 1pm, sometimes 2pm or later. Should we push school back until, say, 4pm
through 10pm-12am? Doubtful that's good either.

On some level, it teaches kids that they have to be someplace at a certain
time, regardless of what they might want... You know, obligations and
responsibility.

~~~
slykat
> While what you say is true, does pushing the start time of class back 30
> minutes or 1 hour make any difference? I'm skeptical.

Did you read the article? They have done several studies to show a
significance difference in academic performance with a slight shift. That's
the whole reason for this change.

"One three-year study (pdf, p.1) of 9,000 high-school students across three
states, for example, found that academic performance, “including grades earned
in core subject areas of math, English, science and social studies, plus
performance on state and national achievement tests, attendance rates and
reduced tardiness show significantly positive improvement with the later start
times of 8:35 AM or later.”

~~~
Alupis
Like I said - why not push it to a start time of noon or later then? Was that
studied too? Or are we just basing policy off a half-baked idea, here in
Calunicornia?

I can be skeptical this will have any real impact, despite the findings of one
survey-study.

The cited study was a survey students voluntarily completed... which opens the
door for response bias. The study was only conducted over a single school
year, and no two schools had the same modified schedule. Nor did they repeat
the study for a second school year to ensure they didn't observe anomalies,
nor go back to the old schedule to see if a simple schedule change - not the
late start time - is what prompted the changes. Nor did they follow students
through their student career, maintaining the altered schedule to see if
performance results were consistent.

The 9,000 students might sound impressive - but this is not actually a good
long term study... far from it.

------
btilly
Wonderful.

Now can we pay attention to all of the research saying that homework creates
stress but doesn't work, and have schools stop assigning so much?

More precisely, the research shows that homework done right helps, done wrong
hurts, and the result is that more homework increases the correlation between
parent's socioeconomic status and student performance. But on average is
approximately net neutral for learning.

But there is one very strong correlation. More homework means more conflict in
the home...

~~~
light_hue_1
You are misinformed about research on homework. Even when you control for
socioeconomic status homework has a large positive impact. [This is a nice
review of many papers]([http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-
leadership/mar0...](http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-
leadership/mar07/vol64/num06/The-Case-For-and-Against-Homework.aspx)). The
only place where homework is questionable is for very young children, like in
kindergarten.

~~~
jacobolus
The paper by Cooper cited positively in your link claims:

> _For elementary school students, the effect of homework on achievement is
> trivial, if it exists at all_
> [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=86753143098932071...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=8675314309893207133)

Which is diametrically different from the “large positive impact” you
described in your comment. Maybe by “very young children” you mean to include
5–10 year olds?

(For what it’s worth, I don’t find Cooper’s arguments that arbitrary amounts
of homework are beneficial for secondary students very convincing. But we
should at least not mischaracterize the claims about primary students.)

------
carapace
All this commotion around _what time_ to begin soul-crushing conformity
factory amuses me grimly. Studies show children are slightly less
psychologically crippled for life if you let them sleep in for an hour before
putting them in the electric Skinner Box. Terrific.

~~~
polynomial
We're gonna need a box tightener over here, someone is thinking outside it.

------
awillen
I didn't even realize schools started before 8... I believe that's when my
high school started. Thinking back to the useless slug that I was in the
mornings as a teenager, I can't imagine this will do anything but help
learning.

If only there had been a law saying college classes couldn't start before 11am
(or 2pm on Fridays) when I was there...

~~~
grawprog
I used to have both a technical math and a statistics class that started at
7am in college. Fridays if i remember right for the math class. That was
always a 'fun' way to start the day.

~~~
thrower123
Foreign language drill classes at 7 AM was quite possibly the worst thing I
dealt with during college. Rapid-fire German when it is dark and frozen and
you are hung over is very rough.

------
topkai22
This is a great move by California. My family engaged with school district
officials a few times on why we started school so early, when there is so much
research showing it is harmful for teenager. The answer we got was... buses
and sports. And little kids.

Basically, the district needed to make sure that elementary school kids
weren't walking to school or waiting for buses in the dark, so they had to
start around 9a at the earliest. Since they needed to share the buses, they
couldn't start all grade levels at the same time.

The reason why they went 725a, 750a, and 9a instead of something like 8a, 9a,
930a is that if you started Jr high or High school at 930a, they wouldn't
start after school activities till 4p and would go after dark in the winter.

This always seemed an insane argument to me, but was said multiple times. My
home district looks to still use the same bell schedule too.

~~~
skissane
As a non-American I find this interesting, that school start times would be
decided based on availability of buses.

Here in Australia, most schools don't own their own buses (I see a few
expensive private schools do). Buses are provided by private bus companies
and/or by a government-owned bus company (depending on who provides regular
non-school bus services in the area). The bus fare is either paid by the
student's parents, or else by the government, depending on factors like how
long it would take the student to walk, how old the student is, whether they
have a disability, etc. The government subsidises buses for all school
students equally, irrespective of whether they attend private schools or
government-run schools. I don't know how exactly schools decide their start
times, but I doubt bus availability would have much to do with it. Bus
availability is something for bus companies to worry about, not schools.

~~~
ApolloFortyNine
>Bus availability is something for bus companies to worry about, not schools.

If you have all 3 classes of students going to school at the same time, your
bus costs are going to be 3 times as high. It doesn't matter if it's public or
private, that's just how it works.

~~~
shakna
> If you have all 3 classes of students going to school at the same time, your
> bus costs are going to be 3 times as high. It doesn't matter if it's public
> or private, that's just how it works.

In Australia, it is also normal that all 3 classes of students also start at
around the same time. (8:45-9:00am).

This doesn't seem to be a problem that the public transit system seems
incapable of handling.

~~~
irrational
What is a public transit system? What a quaint idea.

Seriously though, public transit is such a joke in most parts of the USA
(especially the rural areas) that this is basically a non-starter.

I live in a part of the country that does have a pretty good public transit
system, I just checked on taking public transit from my neighborhood to my
son's high school and discovered that it's not possible. There is no public
transit (bus, light rail, tram, trolley - all of which we have) within 2 miles
of the high school.

~~~
thanatropism
People say "flyover country" as metonymy of the two different realities that
are both called "USA", but "transit country" and "SUV country" may be better
images.

Outside the USA, 80% of what we see on TV shows is NYC. Sometimes I have this
acute FOMO that I should be miserably scraping by in NYC just to be in the
Navel of the World. It's just a mindfuck to us unamericans how big the US
really is and how empty and boring.

~~~
irrational
Empty, yes. Boring? No. The empty parts are where the national parks are like
the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zions, Canyonlands, Arches, Yellowstone, Crate Lake,
etc.

------
jelliclesfarm
I don’t know what to say..I grew up in India. My mom would wake me up at 4.30,
make me a hot beverage and go back to sleep. I would study in the early hours
because she believed that early morning is the best time for the mind to
absorb and retain what I study.

Go for a brisk walk at 6.00 and leave for school by 7.15-7.30. School was from
8.30-3.30. 8.00-8.30 was morning assembly which was mandatory.

Extra curricular activities like music or dance or outdoor sports till
sunset(6.00). My grandmother won’t let me in before 6.00 because she thought
that outdoor play was important and in the sun. Freshen up and homework till
8.00. Dinner and then TV time. Reading and to bed by 9.00-9.30.

In high school, less play and more classes. But these tutoring classes were
outside. And I would leave by 5.00 to catch the bus to get to them. I was old
enough to travel by myself. I loved school. I loved my teachers.

My math tutor from 1989..we keep in touch and she is now teaching me Indian
classical music by whatsapp video chat thrice a week. I call her once a year
and this year I told her I am joining a neighborhood music group. She made me
sing. Entirely disapproved my technique and we started classes immediately.

If my teachers asked me ‘jump’, I would. My school years were the best years
of my life. I don’t think I would have had this experience had I grown up in
CA in this time and age..and gone to public schools here. Case in point: The
public school teachers in my Bay Area city recruit parents and students to
strike in their support during their union wage negotiations. It’s a travesty.

I think children should wake up earlier. It’s delightful to wake up before
dawn and have a goal. The rest of the day at school becomes easy peasy.

~~~
arcticbull
Studies show children don't perform as well in the early morning which is why
this change was made. I don't want to de-value your experiences because they
sound fantastic. However. Anecdota is not a substitute for science. I suggest
skimming the summary by the Centers for Disease Control [1] which references
numerous studies in support of schools starting later than 830am. You are of
course welcome to wake your children up at any time, should you disagree with
the CDC's findings, or you know, if they're morning people.

[1] [https://www.cdc.gov/features/school-start-
times/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/features/school-start-times/index.html)

~~~
jelliclesfarm
I did begin my reply with ‘I don’t know what to say’. It was intended to be
anecdotal.

------
mcv
> _" one-quarter will need to wait an additional 31 to 60 minutes to get
> going."_

So one quarter of Californian schools were starting between 7 and 7:30? I'm
surprised there haven't been revolts in the streets about that. That's
completely ridiculous.

Apparently this is to accommodate parents who need to leave for work at
ridiculously early hours, but if you want to accommodate parents, why only
those, and not the parents who prefer to get out of bed a bit later?

My wife and I have arranged it so that she works early (she often leaves at
7:15 when the rest of the family is barely out of bed) and is home in time to
pick the kids up from day care, while I take the kids to school at 8:30 and am
usually home a bit too late to pick them up (though I work fairly nearby and
can still pick them up if I have to).

But if this isn't an option for whatever reason, why not take your kids to
pre-school care? Leave early, drop the kids off at pre-school care, go to
work, and when school starts, pre-school care ensures the kids get there on
time.

~~~
udkl
> why not take your kids to pre-school care?

That’s a very privileged view. I would imagine most of the country cannot
afford any sort of paid external care.

~~~
mcv
So what do working parents do after school? Schools starting early also end
early, I assume. If kids can't go to school on their own, I guess they can't
come home on their own either.

------
WillPostForFood
Weird thing is the assumption there is a single one-time-fits-all solution.
Give some flexibility to kids and families on start time. Optional period 1
paired with optional period 8(or 7 or 9).

~~~
conanbatt
Thats not how public schooling works: its mechanics are rules on rules.

------
collyw
I am going to ask this again, as I never receive a satisfactory answer when
this subject comes up.

Isn't time all relative? Its just a number, which we adjust by an hour twice a
year. It takes us a couple of days to get used to it. Can't people just be
more disciplined and go to bed an hour earlier if they need an hours extra
sleep? That's effectively what we do in spring when the clocks change.

I came to this conclusion travelling from Chile to Peru, going pretty much
directly north. One country had daylight saving for summer the other didn't
and on top of that there was an hour difference for time zone - so in total
two hours difference. As I say, it took a couple of days to get used to it.

Can anyone give me a decent rebuttal to this argument?

~~~
x3n0ph3n3
No, not all time is relative and the presence of light has profound impacts on
our biological circadian rhythm. Even DST has shown negative health impacts.
[1]

1\. [https://www.businessinsider.com/daylight-saving-time-is-
dead...](https://www.businessinsider.com/daylight-saving-time-is-
deadly-2018-3)

~~~
collyw
Ok, that's a fair point, but don't certain countries effectively rise a lot
earlier than others? (Greenwich meantime for example passes through London and
also through Spain, yet there is an hour difference in the time zone). Is
there evidence that that affects these countries differently? Plus we have
light bulbs in this day and age, so lighting is not affected by the sun in the
same way that it used to be.

------
haywirez
I think this doesn't go far enough, there should be a ban on starting before
10 am. During high school I recall frequently falling asleep around 3-4 am and
having the alarm go off at 6:30.

------
malchow
California: everything is either banned or required.

~~~
arcticbull
Ultimately the buck for public education in US states stops at the state,
therefore, this amounts to an administrative change. They set the curricula,
is it a stretch to say they should also decide when that curriculum is
administered?

------
trezemanero
Here, in Brazil, when my classes was in the morning, it started 7:00AM. To be
at class on time, i was off the bed at 6:00AM, took a breakfast and walked 20
minutes to the school. It was rough.

They had 2 classes shifts, a 7-11:30AM and another 1-5:30AM, depending of your
grade and the school, it could be on the morning or the evening shift.

Edit: I forgot to mention that i live in a city with 80k habitants, a small-
medium city. At the biggest cities here, like São Paulo, the kids usually have
to wake even early to take the bus.

------
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
I wonder how the policy discussions looked when considering the impact on poor
parents who have to be at work. Maybe the thinking was that the start time of
7:30-8AM was already too late to save these folks, so 8:30AM would not make
them much worse off? Or maybe there are fewer people in these circumstances
than I fear?

~~~
secabeen
This law is only for grades 7-12, so most affected kids can get themselves to
school, or don't need direct supervision between when parents leave for work
and when the bus arrives.

~~~
kenperkins
My 7 and 9yo kids start school at 8:50am, and don't get off the bus until
4:30pm. It's ridiculous. They're young and need time off but because the
district moved everyone back to make room for the High Schools now elementary
kids aren't home until half past 4.

Not enough time for them to play in the afternoons now.

~~~
vonmoltke
Either their elementary school is in session for an awful long time (mine was
6 hours), or they have a really long bus ride home.

------
war1025
School K-12 started at 8:30am where / when I grew up. I assumed that was just
the universal time school started everywhere.

I have a feeling we're in for quite a shock when my daughter starts school in
a couple years. Our current routine has her waking up sometime between 7:30
and 9.

------
epmaybe
I'm extremely oblivious to what the benefits to starting later are, and how
stable the benefits will be over time. Anyone care to explain?

I'm particularly concerned that this will incentivize students to just stay up
later, negating many benefits of increased sleep.

~~~
mLuby
That assumes sleep(2100, 0500) == sleep(2300, 0700), which anecdataly is
false.

~~~
epmaybe
Could you elaborate? I think you mean that there are benefits to waking up
later due to the effect light has on circadian rhythm, but I don't want to
assume.

~~~
mLuby
That, and that some people are naturally early birds and others are night
owls.

------
yellowapple
I have a couple questions/concerns about this:

\- Does this only impact "regular" classes, or does it also impact optionally-
early schedules (a.k.a. "0 Period", as the middle and high schools called it
where I grew up)?

\- Has there been any consideration on the impact from students having less
time to do homework every night if school starts (and therefore ends) later?

------
avischiffmann
Of course this happens after I leave California

------
dillon
My mother works for a school district in California. There was an open hearing
around moving the starting school time from 8:00 am to 7:00 am. There's been
countless research showing that this is generally bad for children to wake up
this early (I'm sorry for not linking a reference).

At the hearing, there are some words that go something like "Children come
first" printed on some wall in a large font. My mother made her case that
starting so early isn't a good idea, and is bad for children and they may as
well remove those words. The reason for the change is that teachers generally
live pretty close to the school they teach at. They also have a car. So, for
them they can wake up at 6:30 and make it on time. Whereas kids, especially
poor kids, might live further and may be taking a bus where the bus pick up
times could be as early as 6:00 am so the kids are waking up even earlier just
to make it. An early starting time, generally, benefited the teachers as they
can wake up later and they get out of class around 2:00 pm. The after-school
programs then rake in cash by keeping kids longer since most parents don't get
off work until 5:00 pm.

tl;dr the early starting times were to make teachers happy. Good on California
to put students over teachers. Now, if only we can raise teacher's salaries.

~~~
topkai22
I'm also pretty sure at the higher grade levels (Middle to high school) it is
partially about keeping other professions out of sports coaching. If high
school starts at 930a and ends at 4p, an awful lot of working professionals
could still be there by 415-430p to coach. When high school let out at 245,
it's a lot harder.

------
jdkee
[https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/2017/ss6708.p...](https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/2017/ss6708.pdf)

------
pier25
8am is still too early for teenagers. Not only their brains need more sleep
than adults (9+ hours) but their clocks shift which is why it's common for
teenagers to go to bed later than adults.

------
sologoub
A lot of the comments are focusing on the burden for the parents, but there is
also negative impact on the kids from less wealthy backgrounds.

My last 2 years of high school, I went to 7am first period to be able to get
out early enough to put in 6-8 hours of work and still have enough time for
homework. That extra hour and a half was critical to making it work.

Without the work and extra cash, I probably would have had a lot different
experience and may have not stayed motivated for college/grad school/etc. But
more importantly, this income let me feel on the level around much wealthier
kids who didn’t work or worked for their parents businesses. Confidence is
priceless at that age!

------
Dowwie
School may start at 8am but morning begins at 5am in an industrious household.
Even one solid hour of daily morning practice before school is a great gain.

------
baby
Some classes in my uni started at 7:45am. I never went.

------
fortran77
Shouldn't the school do what's appropriate for the local community it is in?
Now they won't be able to.

------
Raed667
My High-school started at 8 and university at 9.. I thought it was too early
for both!

------
duxup
Does this allow for before / after school care at schools to start before 8?

------
devm0de
Why not elementary schools too? :(

------
vinniejames
Great, now just add a law banning parents' workplaces from starting before 8am
and we are all set

------
35787
Public schools are a cancer. They are worse for your intellectual development
than just being left alone. They actually damage your mind by suffocating you
of free thought and experimentation. And in the name of doing this, they pile
on the stress and expose you to viscous bullies. The kids run these schools
now, they are closer to day-care centers or zoos than schools. The teachers
just watch idly while their students succumb to the horrible circumstances
that they are forced into. I know because it happened to me. American public
schools in particular are a disgrace. And to top it all off they woke me up at
6AM 5.5 days a week which was never necessary and has been shown to be
detrimental to students wellbeing. God damn if there is one thing in this
world that I resent it is the mother fucking public schools. God fucking damn
them.

~~~
armenarmen
They’re the only place that most people will ever experience physical
violence.

~~~
35787
This is true for me. Public schools are so horrible that it drives me insane
just to think about it. And people brush it off because of some vague notion
that there’s no other choice. Look at billy eilish. She’s fantastic and very
successful and she was homeschooled. Palmer luckey who founded oculus and is
now worth something like 500 million dollars, homeschooled. “I can’t afford
homeschooling. I have never even tried to assemble a budget or think
critically about it but I just know it would be too expensive and would not
work because nobody was ever successful after homeschooling. I guess I’ll just
throw my child to the lions and hope they don’t become a shooter.”

~~~
whymsicalburito
Of course there are exceptions, but most homeschooled people I've met have
displayed some sort of social deficiency. I wouldn't support a blanket
statement that the solution is more home schooling.

~~~
barry-cotter
Homeschooling and the Question of Socialization Revisited

[https://www.stetson.edu/artsci/psychology/media/medlin-
socia...](https://www.stetson.edu/artsci/psychology/media/medlin-
socialization-2013.pdf)

This article reviews recent research on homeschooled children’s socialization.
The research indicates that homeschooling parents expect their children to
respect and get along with people of diverse backgrounds, provide their
children with a variety of social opportunities outside the family, and
believe their children’s social skills are at least as good as those of other
children. What homeschooled children think about their own social skills is
less clear. Compared to children attending conventional schools, however,
research suggest that they have higher quality friendships and better
relationships with their parents and other adults. They are happy, optimistic,
and satisfied with their lives. Their moral reasoning is at least as advanced
as that of other children, and they may be more likely to act unselfishly. As
adolescents, they have a strong sense of social responsibility and exhibit
less emotional turmoil and problem behaviors than their peers. Those who go on
to college are socially involved and open to new experiences. Adults who were
homeschooled as children are civically engaged and functioning competently in
every way measured so far. An alarmist view of homeschooling, therefore, is
not supported by empirical research. It is suggested that future studies focus
not on outcomes of socialization but on the process itself.

------
aidenn0
Don't worry, we'll work around that law by switching to year-round DST.

------
withinboredom
On which day and timezone?

~~~
kccqzy
On schools day, in the time zone in use in California (PT).

------
pjkundert
Ah, meddling central-planners preventing hard-working families from doing what
it takes to achieve their dreams...

Don’t you just have to shake your head at people who’ve literally never had to
accomplish anything life-and-death in their entitled little lives, making
rules to protect us?

It brings a tear to the eye.

~~~
arcticbull
Nope, it's science ([https://www.cdc.gov/features/school-start-
times/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/features/school-start-
times/index.html)).

~~~
conanbatt
Science says 8:30, law says 8:00, so the state is not following the state's
recommendation.

Also, what is best for an ideal scenario for the idealized kid is not the same
as what is best for the parents.

Finally the biggest perpetrator of sending kids early is precisely public
schooling, private schooling has variety that suits the parent's choices.

What is the best public policy then? school vouchers, and let parents decide.

~~~
arcticbull
> What is the best public policy then? school vouchers, and let parents
> decide.

That may work, it does in Sweden apparently, but your conclusion certainly
doesn’t follow from your premise. This feels like classic junior engineer
baby-with-the-bath water thinking. It’s easier to throw a system out and start
over than make the modifications to your existing system but somehow it never
does turn out exactly right, more like a ruined fresco meme.

------
newnewpdro
I used to get up well before the sun rose for private school, it wasn't a big
deal, we just went to bed earlier than most.

It was nice to have more time to myself before parents got home from work.

It seems strange for the state to be meddling in this.

~~~
cylentwolf
A bunch of studies came out saying that students are better with more sleep
and generally waking up after 7 is best so we get this law. The problem here
is that I am betting that the kids still get home before their parents from
work and now they will have to start after their parents leave for work so it
will put an economic crunch on dual working parents.

~~~
newnewpdro
Why don't kids just go to sleep earlier?

Isn't part of raising children teaching them self-discipline? Things like
putting down the electronic gadgets at night, not consuming stimulating
food/drinks in the evening, etc.

It's shit like this that makes California look so ridiculous to the rest of
the nation.

~~~
arcticbull
No, it's biology.

------
colordrops
The implied assumption in all this discussion is that everyone stays up late
so 7am doesn't work. Perhaps the question should be why society is so geared
for waking hours shifted partly into the night. Perhaps people should wake
with the sun and sleep soon after dark. But so much entertainment is scheduled
during the evening, and everyone is so deeply entrenched in their habits.

~~~
theptip
I don't think that is the implied assumption; the stated reason for this
change, FTA:

> The American Academy of Pediatrics, which backed the bill, said in 2014
> policy statement that getting too little sleep puts teenagers’ physical and
> mental health at risk, as well as their academic performance. The
> organization cited research that shows that biological changes in puberty
> make it difficult for the average teenager to fall asleep before 11pm, and
> that teenagers need between 8.5 and 9.5 hours of sleep to function at their
> best.

~~~
colordrops
Did they give a cause as to why it's hard for them to sleep before 11pm? That
doesn't contradict what I said in the slightest.

~~~
theptip
> The organization cited research that shows that biological changes in
> puberty make it difficult for the average teenager to fall asleep before
> 11pm

I didn't follow the citation, but that would be my suggestion for the first
place to look if you want to understand their theory better.

------
jimbob45
This seems to flagrantly ignore the parents' need to be to work on time. I
think the kids will ultimately be the ones suffering because the parents will
struggle that much more.

No, the bus is not always an option, nor is leaving your kid alone at home for
any amount of time.

~~~
crooked-v
Given that this will be a job-negotiating concern of literally every parent in
California, businesses will just have to adapt to the new normal.

~~~
jimbob45
It's the lower-class parents who can't afford babysitters or who might be
divorced that will be the most affected by this. Coincidentally, it's those
same parents who have the least room to negotiate in their positions.

------
kgwgk
If the objective is for people to get more hours of sleep probably it would
have been better to pass a law dividing the day in 32 hours... Kids will sleep
the same amount of time in all cases, but it would be 50% more hours.

------
DenisM
The "early wakeup time makes people groggy" story always looked puzzling to
me.

I mean, when DST kicks in everyone adjusts in day or two. What prevents one
from setting up their own personal DST and getting up earlier still? Certainly
not biology.

~~~
topkai22
Every time this comes up, I recommend "Internal Time" by Till Roenneburg. It
is wonderfully written, and it demolishes this concept quite thoroughly. It
really is biology.

Summary of the book as relates here though: People really do have internal
clocks and preferred awake/sleep cycles. These internal clocks vary between
individuals, and are there is most likely a genetic component. These internal
clocks vary with age- in particular, teenagers and young adults clocks are
generally shifted much later than kids or older adults. Shifts to people's
schedules (such as DST) that cause them to leave their preferred sleep/awake
cycle mitigate with time, but do not fully go away.

Outside that book, there are plenty of studies showing that a non-standard
hours shift work is biologically harmful.

