Sleep later and save money

By Dave Anderson:

School districts are under significant pressure to demonstrate large gains in student performance.  Earlier in the decade when we were theoretically booming, throwing money at the problem through popular but ineffecient interventions such as significant reductions in classroom sizes had some traction and little poltiical opposition.  However, other alternatives such as rapid re-assessment and feedback mechanisms which showed two to three times the impact as smaller classroom sizes but at a tenth of the cost were politically unpopular as low student:teacher ratios have an intuitive logic that other interventions may not. 

The theory behind it is simple --- teachers are important to educational success, and the more 'teacher experience' that a child receives, the better....Teachers like smaller classes as their jobs become easier and it provides more jobs. Parents like it for the above intuitive reasons. Politicians like it because everyone else likes it, and who wants to vote against the children....

Increasing classroom sizes and using those funds for less popular but more effective interventions is something most school districts should experiment with.  There are other simple changes that should show increased results for studentswith costs that are less than counterfactual interventions.  One is starting the school day a bit later for high school students.  New research again shows that teenagers have different sleep patterns and sleep needs.  Shifting school start times by half an hour or more shows significant improvement chances:

The study echoes lots of other research documenting the perils of forcing teens to get to school too early. Adolescence brings with it biological changes that make it difficult for teens to fall asleep before 11 p.m. or to wake up before 8 a.m...

According to a new study, students were far more likely to get eight hours of shut-eye at night and were less likely to report being unhappy, depressed, annoyed or irritated when they began their first class at 8:30.

Researchers from Rhode Island studied the student body of a New England boarding school that once began its day at 8 a.m. but later delayed its start time until 8:30. You might not be surprised to learn that the students slept in later after the change was made. But � get this � they started going to bed earlier too.

This is not shocking, nor is it counterintuitive.  However, shifiting high school start times back by thirty minutes or an hour would be unpopular as parents count on cheap babysitting for younger siblings, coaches and boosters want enough time for football practice, Dunkin Donuts wants their minimal wage afternoon shift to show up on time, and the bus coordinator will go crazy as they re-arrange their schedules.  Yet, this is a reasoanble and cost effective policy change that should increase student achievement at minimal real cost. 

 In a tight budgetary environment, we need to think creatively on how we can get the best outcomes on a smaller budget.