What does research say about the effect of later school start times on student academic performance? (2024)

Home Ask A REL What does research say about the effect of later school start times on student academic performance?

Northeast & Islands | February 01, 2020

Following an established REL Northeast & Islands research protocol, we conducted a search forrecent research on the effect of later high school start time on student academic outcomes. Thesources searched included ERIC and other federally funded databases and organizations,academic research databases, and general Internet search engines (For details, please see themethods section at the end of this memo.)

We have not evaluated the quality of references and the resources provided in this response andwe offer them only for your reference. Because our search for references is based on the mostcommonly used resources of research, it is not comprehensive and other relevant references andresources may exist.

Research References

Bastian, K. C., Fuller, S. C. (2018). Answering the Bell: High School Start Times and StudentAcademic Outcomes. AERA Open, 4(4).
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1201174
From the abstract: “We contribute to the school start time literature by using statewidestudent-level data from North Carolina to estimate start time effects for all students andfor traditionally disadvantaged students. Descriptively, we found that urban high schoolswere likely to start very early or late. Later start times were associated with positivestudent engagement outcomes (reduced suspensions, higher course grades), especially fordisadvantaged students. Achievement results were mixed, with positive and negativeassociations between start times and high school students' test scores. Continued researchis necessary to evaluate the efficacy of later start times as a scalable and cost-effectiveapproach for boosting engagement and achievement.”
Carrell, S. E., Maghakian, T., & West, J. E. (2011). A's from zzzz's? The causal effect of schoolstart time on the academic achievement of adolescents. American Economic Journal:Economic Policy, 3, 62â€“81.
https://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/scarrell/sleep.pdf
From the abstract: “Recent sleep research finds that many adolescents are sleep-deprived because of both early school start times and changing sleep patterns during the teen years. This study identifies the causal effect of school start time on academic achievement by using two policy changes in the daily schedule at the US Air Force Academy along with the randomized placement of freshman students to courses and instructors. Results show that starting the school day 50 minutes later has a significant positive effect on student achievement, which is roughly equivalent to raising teacher quality by one standard deviation. (JEL I23, J13)”
Heissel, J., Norris, S. (2019). Rise and Shine: How School Start Times Affect AcademicPerformance. Education Next, 19(3), 54-61.
https://www.educationnext.org/rise-shine-how-school-start-times-affect-academic-performance/
From the abstract: “American teenagers are chronically sleep deprived. As children enter puberty, physiological changes delay the onset of sleep and make it more difficult to wake up early in the morning. By the end of middle school, there is a large disconnect between biological sleep patterns and early-morning school schedules: one study found that students lose as much as two hours of sleep per night during the school year compared to the summer months, when they can better control their sleep schedules. Such deficits may have big implications for learning and cognition. Important memory formation and consolidation processes occur overnight, as the brain replays patterns of activity exhibited during learning. Could something as simple as changing when school starts each day really make a difference in how much students learn? And which students would benefit most from a later start time? The authors consider differences between sunrise and school start times among a group of public schools in northern Florida's "Panhandle," which straddles the central and eastern time zones. In this region, sunrise times differ, but school start times do not fully adjust for this difference. Students may start school at the same hour on the clock but not at the same "time"--those in the later time zone could have as much as one additional hour of early-morning daylight before school compared to their neighbors in the earlier zone. How does this affect their performance in school? The authors compare test scores for students between the ages of 8 and 15 who move from one time zone to the other and find substantial differences, especially for adolescents. A one-hour delay in start times relative to sunrise increases math scores by 8 percent of a standard deviation for adolescents--the equivalent of roughly three months of student learning--but by only 1 percent of a standard deviation for younger children. The effects on reading scores are similar, but smaller. These findings are the first to quantify the potential academic benefits of changing high-school start times--a seemingly straightforward policy that districts can find difficult to implement.”
Hinrichs, P. (2011). When the Bell Tolls: The Effects of School Starting Times on AcademicAchievement. Education Finance and Policy, 6(4), 486-507.
https://teensneedsleep.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/hinrichs-when-the-bell-tolls-the-effects-of-school-starting-times-on-academic-achievement.pdf
From the abstract: “A number of high schools across the United States have moved to later bell times on the belief that their previous bell times were too early for the "biological clocks" of adolescents. In this article I study whether doing so improves academic performance. I first focus on the Twin Cities metropolitan area, where Minneapolis and several suburban districts have made large policy changes but St. Paul and other suburban districts have maintained early schedules. I use individual-level ACT data on all individuals from public high schools in this region who took the ACT between 1993 and 2002 to estimate the effects of school starting times on ACT scores. I then employ school-level data on schedules and test scores on statewide standardized tests from Kansas and Virginia to estimate the effects of bell times on achievement for a broader sample. The results do not suggest an effect of school starting times on achievement.”
Wahlstrom, K. (2002). Changing Times: Findings from the First Longitudinal Study of LaterHigh School Start Times. NASSP Bulletin, 86(633), 3-21.
https://www.spps.org/cms/lib010/MN01910242/Centricity/Domain/7352/bulletin_12_02_wahlstrom_2.pdf
From the abstract: “In the early 1990s, medical research found that teenagers have biologically different sleep and wake patterns than the preadolescent or adult population. On the basis of that information, in 1997 the seven comprehensive high schools in the Minneapolis Public School District shifted the school start time from 7:15 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. This article examines that change, finding significant benefits such as improved attendance and enrollment rates, less sleeping in class, and less student-reported depression. Policy implications are briefly discussed, acknowledging this to be a highly charged issue in school districts across the United States.”

Additional Organizations to Consult

Start School Later, Inc. https://www.startschoollater.net/
From the website: “Start School Later, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to healthy, safe, equitable school hours.”

Methods

Keywords and Search Strings

The following keywords and search strings were used to search the reference databases and othersources:

Later school start times student performance
See Also
Early Release v. Late Start: Which do Students Prefer?

Later school start times

School start times on academic achievement

Longitudinal study of later high school start times

Databases and Resources

We searched ERIC for relevant resources. ERIC is a free online library of over 1.6 million citations of education research sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences. Additionally, we searched Google Scholar and PsychInfo.

Reference Search and Selection Criteria

When we were searching and reviewing resources, we considered the following criteria:

Date of the publication: References and resources published for last 18 years, from 2002 to present, were included in the search and review.

Search Priorities of Reference Sources: Search priority is given to study reports, briefs, and other documents that are published and/or reviewed by IES and other federal or federally funded organizations, academic databases, including WWC, ERIC, and NCEE.

Methodology: The following methodological priorities/considerations were given in the review and selection of the references: (a) study types â€“ randomized control trials, quasi experiments, surveys, descriptive data analyses, literature reviews, policy briefs, etc., generally in this order; (b) target population, samples (representativeness of the target population, sample size, volunteered or randomly selected, etc.), study duration, etc.; (c) limitations, generalizability of the findings and conclusions, etc.