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.
As someone who’s direct family member manages a school schedule in the US, it’s sports. Schools are not for academia anymore. Everyone wants little Timmy to grow up and be a famous American Football star and get that scholarship. You have to start school early enough that it ends early afternoon. Which then allows for after school sport practice which finishes around the time mommy and daddy finish their 9 to 5. Then the games are scheduled after that so the parents can come watch and spend money. The spend money is a big one as they are wasting millions on these arenas for sports while the science labs have textbooks with no spines left.
YUP. I went to a small middle of nowhere school that punched far above its weight in academic performance and well below its weight in sports. Sports budget was consistently enormous compared to everything else and then would have massive splurge years on fucking stadium lights. That shit will never ever remotely meet its value but its the agenda.
it’s disgusting how we prioritize sports over education at the ostensibly education instutions
But then it’s not so much sports. The real cause is it’s childcare while parents work.
In my family member’s district, that’s not even a consideration. And weirdly many in the district have a shared overall employer and work starts at 5am to 7am for many of them. Leaving the other parent to drop off or making kids ride the bus solo.
The only thing dictating the schedule is sports. You get some parents that complain about everything. Meaning a fraction of a percent will complain about school starting too early, too late, on days it’s too windy, on days the sun is too bright, whatever. Parents are super awful nowadays. But all that is noise. The only complaint en mass they get that isn’t political/vaccine/FoxNews is sports related. Game started too late/early, not enough fields for all the kids to practice. The million dollar astroturf is bent the wrong way now, and needs maintenance IMMEDIATELY.
There was a high school building that got severely flood damaged in a hail storm. Parts of it are still boarded up and not fixed. But the $30m+ stadium they don’t need is almost finished.
This is it, regarding Canada at least. I took a course called HIstory of Canadian Education, the education system in Canada was created because of rising hooliganism in cities, as rural couples moved into cities and took factory jobs, and left their children home to fend for themselves.
whose* direct family member
deleted by creator
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.
It’s baffling how many U.S problems can be traced back to car-oriented development.
Here in Sweden, dedicated school buses are uncommon - getting to school is usually a matter of walking when young, and then using the common public transportation when older, or biking, or a mix of those two.
Here’s how I got to school while growing up:
- Years 1 -6: school 0.4 km away, walked or biked
- Years 7-9: school 2 km away, biked or took the bus
- Years 10-12: school 9.1 km away, took the bus to school
Note that this was one of the most car-oriented cities in Sweden of about 100k people, meaning that this experience is probably unusually bad for Sweden.
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.
Yeah you were lucky. I had to take public transport for the number 93 bus. Memories of queuing in the rain.
On the plus side, the bus was filled with pretty Japanese students going from their Hall of Residence to University.
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!
The problem is you’d have to build not just schools, but entire neighborhoods so they are walkable + tunnels under any larger roads between them, or maybe guarded crossings would do here and there. While it could certainly be done, the majority of the US is built to be car centric from the ground up.
good thing there’s plenty of reasons to do that anyways
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.
Thank you for the insight! Love reading comments that really get to the heart of an issue without all the emotional crap.
Your comment for example, I had never thought along those lines. Not an easy problem.
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.
Isn’t that about what I said? Of course the idea of children learning important topics in an organized fashion is decent. The objections I have are the forced social structures, mandatory attendance at risk of school or legal punishment, limited ability to specialize in topics or pick a curriculum, rigid schedules all day enforced with various punishments or humiliation including strict control of access to bathrooms, and in general the prison-like obsession with routines and schedules.
I’d add the fact that not everyone learns the same way, and while some people do well with lectures and note-taking, others would be better reading books alone, and others would be better in a discussion format. My experiences varied wildly. One major issue for me was that the strict scheduling and punitive obsessions didn’t work well with what was going on with my health and family life, but there’s little room for that. Personally I would have done much better to have not attended school at all. Each year was pretty much an excruciating review of things I learned from books 2 years before, combined with extensive peer and administration torture.
strict control of access to bathrooms, and in general the prison-like obsession with routines and schedules
I’d argue that this is one of the only real life situations that school prepares people for: you’re very likely to be stuck living on someone else’s schedule for the vast majority of your life. Your employer decides what time you have to be there and what time you’re allowed to leave; when you get a break; when you can use the bathroom; when you’re allowed to take a vacation. Sick for more than a day or two? Better burn some cash and get a doctor’s note. Need to go to a funeral? Immediate family only, company policy, sorry buddy.
youre being a bit hyperbolic with the ‘nothing’, no reason to double down
they’re not even the person who said that. Neither of squiblet’s posts even contains the word “nothing”. Drink some coffee
Person saying it is probably a teenager
Removed by mod
Math and literacy are both fundamental and essential tools for a self sufficient adult. You don’t need to remember how to to apply the quadratic theorem or complete the square outside of high school for most jobs. You do need to remember how to read and basic concepts like compound interest or multiplication. People who don’t are ill prepared for life, not just adulthood.
Removed by mod
Given a bunch of middle school and high school kids have been pushed forward in the system (past pandemic) with very shaky understanding of these very crucial subjects, I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. The education system in the US really doesn’t seem to care about making independent and intellectually curious adults. It begins in elementary but is a failure to proceed beyond that.
Adults also need a fundamental understanding of more advanced maths like statistics so they’re not conned by people who lie with statistics. And WOW, is there ever a ton of that going on these days.
It’s not designed to teach mathematics particularly well
Source?
John Caldwell Holt, either “Instead of Education” or “How Children Fail.” I should reread them; is been a while.
I need to read holt too. maybe we should organize a book club?
honestly abolish school. I can’t imagine subjecting my hypothetical child to what I went through.
Exactly my feeling. I wouldn’t put somebody I hate through that; why the fuck would I do it to someone I love?
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
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.
Every school district I’ve been in does this.
Where I’m from primary, middle, and secondary school are near each other, use the same busses & staggered start times, and we have no public busses. At least I see more bike racks now than when I attended!
Because kids need to be at school while parents work
Right, so they get home at 3pm, makes perfect sense
It roughly lines up with morning shifts, I guess? When I was working at a grocery store our morning shift was like 6-3 with an hour lunch. I don’t know how you make sure your kids actually go to school if you’re at work by 6, though… And if you work evenings (or overnights, for places that are still open 24 hours) it doesn’t help at all.
Removed by mod
My rationale for what? 9-5s were covered by implication in the comment I was replying to: if you work 9-5, it’s kind of awkward that the kids get off at 3. I was just saying that if you work mornings it’s kind of awkward that you probably have to leave before the kids do, and if you don’t work during the school day then the kids aren’t at school while you work.
Not sure what I’m parroting. The topic of this subthread is Grammaton Cleric’s assertion that “kids need to be at school while parents work,” so I’m just mentioning that for a lot of parents that already isn’t the case.
I don’t have an opinion on times they “should” be at school.
Removed by mod
I wasn’t defending kids being in school so early. I was just musing that it sort of lines up better than it does with 9-5s. Which is probably incidental.
Easy. Let parents start work later too.
I hate how getting up early is somehow perceived to be more efficient. There’s nothing natural about working hours anyway. We could choose to place them when it fits more people.
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.
Sports are part of the reason many students even go to school. Taking athletics away from school would have a significant effect on dropout rates.
That’s a pretty shit excuse at least for my schools times.
School starts at 7:20ish and gets out at 2ish and football, baseball, softball, soccer, basketball, and volleyball (maybe more idk) games start at 7. We don’t need 5 hours between. Getting out at 4 would not change that. It would just allow those players to get home late as always but actually get some sleep (footballs on Friday so those aren’t huge issues but the rest of the sports are during weekdays, often multiple in a row, which means those kids are tired as fuck.)
Tennis, Bowling, Swimming/Dive, Cross Country/Track and Golf (and any others idk) are all at about 3 which gives students time to get to said place after school lets out. Pushing those to 5 instead wouldn’t be that bad they’d get out at like 7 or 8 and have time to get home, do homework, and still get to bed before 11.
We talking bout practice. Not the game. Practice.
No sport is practicing for 6 hours. They’ll get home at not horrible hours after practice. Most could still practice for 2 hours then work a short closing shift then sleep.
And do homework when?
School, Sport, work, sleep.
Miss dinner, homework, time with family… What a fucking hellscape.
Also /woosh
Your high school started at what time?
755 then 825 iirc
I’m an adult and my day sucks If I gotta be awake at 7
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.
They would just stay up later if they knew they could sleep in. It won’t fix that.
Also, If we are going to change it, we need to just shift everyones starting time back an hour so their parents can still take them to school before work. Or possibly drop some time off the workday.
My response was also along the lines of “just go to sleep earlier”. Then I yelled at some kids to get off my lawn before complaining about prune prices.
Jokes aside, I remembered that I’m not really a kid anymore, that I used to be sleepy during the day as well, and that I still couldn’t fall asleep before midnight.
I don’t have a viable solution for this problem. Going to bed earlier doesn’t seem feasible. The only thing I can come up with rhymes with amphetamine.
JuSt gO tO BeD eARliEr
They would just stay up later if they knew they could sleep in.
A) Not infinitely
B) Not all of them
C) That doesn’t change the actual data we have that says later start times are better
we need to just shift everyones starting time back an hour so their parents can still take them to school before work.
Or… we could stop designing our cities so that that’s necessary?
Our regular middle schools start late. It can work. The reason they don’t do it for high school where it is needed most is sports.
Why is it so hard to sleep earlier?
The sun does weird stuff to melatonin and teenage brains are weird
Because teachers give hours worth of busy work to try and justify their existance.
We already know that doesn’t work for most teens.
But you were just posting it to feel proud of yourself, not to actually help anyone. If you wanted to help, you’d have searched why that’s not an option.
How about a nap time and just extend the day. It’s odd to me that school gets out so early anyway.
Then you’re extending the workday for teachers, who are already underpaid. I’d just start later
