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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

#161

Post by Armisael16 »

polynomial wrote: post #91
malandrew wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geographical latitude can make a big difference. Right now, there is a 30 minute difference between sunrise in Los Angeles (6:59am) and Seattle (7:29am). Given that most US television programming has historically been produced in Los Angeles, it's not surprising that we should see daylight more commonly depicted during waking hours than what many Americans experience.

Presumably this reverses during the opposite season.

Schools are generally not in session during the summer.

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

#162

Post by Filligree »

gregpilling wrote: post #88
btilly wrote: post #55

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 learnin…

I have 4 children and I actively help them with/cheat on their homework. They are assigned too damn much of it. They are all getting good grades and I don't think it is impacting them academically.

If you're doing it right, it's probably helping.

Good on you. I find the American school system utterly absurd, especially the amount of homework you get.

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

#163

Post by shakna »

corey_moncure wrote: post #135
plughs wrote: 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?

Any assignment that makes use of a proprietary software that the school has purchased.

That is to say that there are plenty of times when a student _must_ use X software that only runs on platform Y, and the school very rarely takes into account what platforms the student may have available to them.

I ran IT support for a Prepatory Year 12 school. The number of times I had to gently remind the early grade teachers that not every child has access to an iPad at home and that an Android tablet cannot run iPad software was quite frequent.

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

#164

Post by georgeburdell »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #139
lonelappde wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are claiming that poor parents will changed their school choice based on the availability of parent-teacher conferences? And that the problem of poverty is overemployment, not underemployment?

So the following is a true story: In a district in the bay area, one of the elementary schools was given a certain special designation that allowed them to accept kids from the district by lottery. The condition of entering the lottery was as follows: 1. A parent must take a 2 hour tour of the school, tour times were between 9 am and 3 pm. 2. A parent must sign an agreement to volunteer at the school at least 3 days…

Sounds like an elementary school in my Bay Area district. Lottery admissions. Parents are required to volunteer ~10 hours per year and pay for uniforms. The school is 90% Asian even though Asians make up 1/3 of the city.

Another one that's more art focused and requires 4 hours of volunteering PER WEEK is majority white even though whites are 1/3 of the population.

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

#165

Post by _coveredInBees »

ThomPete wrote: post #148
_coveredInBees wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Someone else already replied with links so I'm not going to rehash here, but your parent post was the very definition of anecdote. You tried to refute entire studies and the current scientific consensus with a single example of how your kids do great academically despite waking up early for school. That is literally what an anecdote is.

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

#166

Post by guiambros »

ThomPete wrote: post #148
_coveredInBees wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why We Sleep [1], by Matthew Walker, PhD.

Page 92:

"Adolescents face two other harmful challenges in their struggle to obtain sufficient sleep as their brains continue to develop. The first is a change in their circadian rhythm. The second is early school start times."

Also:

"... the circadian rhythm of a young child runs on an earlier schedule. Children therefore become sleepy earlier and wake up earlier than their adult parents. Adolescent teenagers, however, have a different circadian rhythm from their young siblings. During puberty, the timing of the suprachiasmatic nucleus is shifted progressively forward: a change that is common across all adolescents, irrespective of culture of geography."

It goes on to explain why this is the case, and the impact on your sleep schedule.

Also page 308-16 there's an entire chapter on Sleep and Education, and the problem of schools starting progressively early, mostly for the convenience of society at large, rather than a net benefit of the kids.

The book has been largely discussed on HN before; definitely worth reading.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501...

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

#167

Post by 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?

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

#168

Post by blobbers »

sieabahlpark wrote: post #145
meristem wrote: post #34

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

California is a place where you can make 300-400k on a single income. Not many states where that's the norm.

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

#169

Post by kaitai »

mc32 wrote: post #141
corey_moncure wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In some countries, schools exist to teach students, rather than simply warehousing them and saying it's parents' fault for not teaching everything in the hours from 3 pm - 10 pm and weekends.

Truly, your comment does reflect the attitude of much of the teaching establishment: if children can't learn to read from their parents, they're hopeless [1]; if children can't learn math from their parents, they're hopeless. It's a total abdication of the vocation of teaching, and it's not universal. In Finland it's accepted that teachers teach children how to read, and accepted that every kid needs a good lunch in order to be able to concentrate. That's 'obvious' in their cultural context, but in the US cultural context poverty and struggle are just signs that God doesn't love you (the prosperity 'gospel' in action).

[1] https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-a...

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

#170

Post by kaitai »

ThomPete wrote: post #149
PeterisP wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My bus came at 6:27 am all of junior high and high school. Yeah, I was still valedictorian, but I sure as f(*7 brought a pillow with me and slept through the bus ride and sometimes first period.
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