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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

#301

Post by corey_moncure »

wasdfff wrote: post #160
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.

Outside of the tech bubble, no one knows what a raspberry pi even is, let alone knowing how to hook it up.

That's a very easy problem to solve given we have a captive audience of kids and their parents in a public school, wouldn't you agree? A school is purpose built to teach people new things.

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

#302

Post by cookieswumchorr »

rorykoehler wrote: post #283
jedberg wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distribution seems bi-modal. My wife was a teacher, and she had maybe one free week the whole summer, between development classes, curriculum work, and so on. On some summer days I would leave work at 7pm and then join her in her classroom until 8 or 9pm where she was just finishing up a 12 hour day. Then there were other teachers at the school who took off on the last day of school and you didn't see them again…

Similar experience for my wife. Some teachers just don’t give a shit and never update their curriculum or materials and repeat the same drivel over and over. She on the other hand spent the majority of her free time developing new material and kids actually looked forward to her lessons.

I would get suspicious in my wife was going to work for 3 months while her colleagues enjoy their vacation

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

#303

Post by tsss »

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…

Surely even the poor people have 3 days off per year. They're just unwilling to give it up. If the school can decide on the 3 dates I can understand but otherwise it's just laziness.

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

#304

Post by jupp0r »

johnpowell wrote: post #29
briandear wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has been driven by earlier and earlier school start times What about later and later bed times?

When I was kid I took apart my tv to disconnect the speakers and wire up my walkman headphones. This was so I could put a blanket over my head and tv and watch some Letterman at night. My mom would notice if there was light and noise coming from my room after bedtime. Now the kids have phones. If I had a phone and internet access I would have never slept.

Phones have parental controls. Learning how to hack those is a worthwhile skill to learn, too.

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

#305

Post by 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.

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

#306

Post by mcv »

rdlecler1 wrote: post #260
_coveredInBees wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 contributio…

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.

How about those parents who need it, just take their kids to pre-school care, so everybody else can have a normal night's sleep?

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

#307

Post by mcv »

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…

> " school tours for parents of kids entering kindergarten, middle school and high school are during the school hours, mostly in the morning."

Yeah, but not every day. Just take half a day off, or arrange to work 4 days a week, like many Dutch parents are doing.

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

#308

Post by mcv »

plughs wrote: post #120
Hermitian909 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you that, through most of the bay area at least, those policies are mostly about intentional socioeconomic segregation. My family has deep ties to local education infrastructure and its well known that most of the advocates for these policies are trying to keep poor kids out of their schools. While they don't say it in public forums they're generally more than happy to tell you in private.

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)…

> "What, your kid doesn't have their own computer at home?"

A friend of my son has a laptop provided by the city, presumably because his family is too poor. And because it's a laptop, he takes it with him when he comes over to play Minecraft. My son is a bit jealous, because despite his access to two excellent desktop PCs and numerous tablets, he doesn't have his own laptop. (I'll probably have to get him one when he goes to secondary school.)

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

#309

Post by ThomPete »

dragonwriter wrote: post #154
ThomPete wrote: post #129

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…

> I dont know what you mean with better, my two sons are top performers in their school and ... presumably they, then, can explain to you the difference between anecdote and data.

They will first have to teach you the difference between taking part in a sentence out its full context and then actually being intellectually honest and not just strawman them. One of the first things I taught them.

A school network applied to all of New York state is hardly an anecdote and it's frankly telling how quick you and others where to jump onto that idea.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/more-on-the-phenomenal-eye-po...

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

#310

Post by mcv »

duderific wrote: post #116
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…

FWIW my 5-year-old started kindergarten this year, and not only is he given about two hours of homework a week (expected to be spread out over a few days), but he is expected to do it without parental help/supervision, beyond getting him started/explaining the assignment (because he can't read). If you've ever been around a 5-year-old boy, you know how ridiculous this is.

2 hours of homework at 5? That's nuts. 5 year olds should play, and learn through play, not through study.

I've got the feeling even my 10 year old doesn't get 2 hours of homework per week (or if he does, he doesn't tell me).

(I also recently learned that Dutch schools have stopped standardised tests at kindergarten. I was appalled when my oldest son had to do those.)

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