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California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

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Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#141
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every year I see what a insurmountable advantage my kid has by having educated, comfortably well off parents. He's in 3rd grade and last week he had a homework assignment that had to be completed on a computer. What, your kid doesn't have their own computer at home? Tough luck! We're also already into 'projects' - more hours of work, more resources to buy. "oh you can do it with stuff around the house" (no you can't)…

Are grade schoolers doing assignments that can't reasonably be completed on a raspberry pi grade computer or lower? It's difficult for me to imagine it, or the family that has two working parents yet legitimately can't fit $40 into the budget over the entirety of their child's career in school.

Most people with jobs —even low paying jobs have newish smartphones and tablets.

There likely are some parents who can’t afford those, but those parents are vanishingly small. Often times parents think that they “provide” the child and the school does the rest. Good parents, poor or otherwise know that it’s mostly on the parents to guide the kids.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#142

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…

As someone who lives in a country where schools all uniformly started at 9:00 am (i'm probably wrong on that, but lets just go with it), what's the social-background/theoretical reason for starting the school day at 7:00am? From the outside that just seems absolutely bonkers?

Remember that 7am in one place is not the same as 7am in another place. Time zones, latitude, seasons combine to cause big differences in what a time "means".

For instance on the equator sunrise and sunset is very consistent and so people tend to wake up earlier so that they can maximise daylight. Closer to the poles, it makes sense for school days (which tend to be shorter than work days) to start around the time that the sun rises in the winter so that they are in daylight all year. This is all relative what error your time zone has, as shown in this famous map:

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--pY-JErG4...

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#143
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every year I see what a insurmountable advantage my kid has by having educated, comfortably well off parents. He's in 3rd grade and last week he had a homework assignment that had to be completed on a computer. What, your kid doesn't have their own computer at home? Tough luck! We're also already into 'projects' - more hours of work, more resources to buy. "oh you can do it with stuff around the house" (no you can't)…

Are grade schoolers doing assignments that can't reasonably be completed on a raspberry pi grade computer or lower? It's difficult for me to imagine it, or the family that has two working parents yet legitimately can't fit $40 into the budget over the entirety of their child's career in school.

Agreed - but the milieu is that the child is bathed in ignorance of even basic computer concepts, both at school and at home.

They are also bathed in advertising, which drowns then in guilt at not being able to afford a multi-thousand dollar Windows or Macintosh rig, when a $40 Arm64 rig hooked up to a discarded flat screen TV and keyboard/mouse would be a superior learning option for their child.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#144
post #78

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 studen…

I'm sorry for your truly traumatizing experience, but you should know that not all public schools are like yours was.

There are a lot of public schools where students have great experiences on balance, but they tend to be in communities with resources, and importantly, involved parents, often via a PTA that is actively involved in keeping the school a safe place for children, usually with active anti-bullying programs and interventions.

Any school is ultimately an extension of the community it serves, and the problems and virtues of that community will manifest themselves in the school. For example, many wealthy private schools have severe problems with students who have access to high cost dangerous drugs. I personally know many people who have seen that phenomenon up close. Bullying can take place in these schools too, but be covered up by the fact that parents are paying very high tuition fees.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#145

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…

California doesn't want people to have families, that's not the progressive mindset unless you're making over 300-400k on a single income

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#146
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every year I see what a insurmountable advantage my kid has by having educated, comfortably well off parents. He's in 3rd grade and last week he had a homework assignment that had to be completed on a computer. What, your kid doesn't have their own computer at home? Tough luck! We're also already into 'projects' - more hours of work, more resources to buy. "oh you can do it with stuff around the house" (no you can't)…

Are grade schoolers doing assignments that can't reasonably be completed on a raspberry pi grade computer or lower? It's difficult for me to imagine it, or the family that has two working parents yet legitimately can't fit $40 into the budget over the entirety of their child's career in school.

> Are grade schoolers doing assignments that can't reasonably be completed on a raspberry pi grade computer or lower?

If the assignment involves a computer, the materials were probably not developed or tested on a Pi or anything similar, so, yeah, they probably often can't reasonably be completed on a Pi or lower as assigned, even if there is no technical reason that they couldn't have been developed with that in mind.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know what you mean with better, my two sons are top performers in their school and the school network is top 3% performing in NY state. They are in school at 7:45 latest each morning. There are many benefits to getting an early start in the morning as ling as you have had a long nights sleep. So i would like to see the base if those studies as they dont reflect the reality and statistics i know of. Edit to tho…

Your single anecdote does not outweigh the many, many scientific studies that been conducted on this subject (or any other subject for that matter). I would have that would be obvious to a HN reader.

My single anecdote isnt single at all. We are talking about several schools using same method with kids in the top 3% on average.

Show me the research and we can debate it, until then the primary problem in the us is that parent put their kids to bed too late.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know what you mean with better, my two sons are top performers in their school and the school network is top 3% performing in NY state. They are in school at 7:45 latest each morning. There are many benefits to getting an early start in the morning as ling as you have had a long nights sleep. So i would like to see the base if those studies as they dont reflect the reality and statistics i know of. Edit to tho…

Refuting the results of scientific studies with anecdotal evidence is not going to win any arguments. Surely you must understand how these scientific studies work?

Its not anectdotal and i would urge you to point to the scientific studies so we can debate their methodology and “scientific” base. I’m too old to just take these kind of studies as science without looking at the details. Now you dont have to take my examples for more than they are but they sure contradict the claims being made in this thread and onna state level.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids put properly to bed at proper time is more than fresh at 7. Thats the least of the problems here.

If school starts at 7:30, then that kid isn't waking up fresh at 7, they have to be woken up significantly earlier. I shudder to think of the other examples in the comments which have to already be in school at 7.

If kids get to bed around 8pm they will normally be up at around 6-6.30 plenty of time for most to get ready.

But sure if they are put to bed at 9-10 then its going to be tougher.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont know what you mean with better, my two sons are top performers in their school and the school network is top 3% performing in NY state. They are in school at 7:45 latest each morning. There are many benefits to getting an early start in the morning as ling as you have had a long nights sleep. So i would like to see the base if those studies as they dont reflect the reality and statistics i know of. Edit to tho…

Refuting the results of scientific studies with anecdotal evidence is not going to win any arguments. Surely you must understand how these scientific studies work?

I love scientific studies, illustrating the standard distribution or exponential long-tail nature of whatever biological/ethnical/identity based feature they are studying.

Then, I hope that everyone makes the obvious blunder of categorizing the target population according to the results of the study. Because it’s “scientific”, am-I-rite?

Finally, I harvest the crackerjack-smart, hard-working people from the (now) under-appreciated group.

My team wins; the scientism-ists get the lazy offspring of the wealthy elites protected by “science”.

Everyone wins!

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