Later school start times are linked to better student performance, says a study published this month in Education Next.
Researcher Finley Edwards, an assistant professor of economics at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, examined the relationship between school start times and standardized test scores from 2000 to 2006 in the 146,700-student Wake County public school system in North Carolina, where start times vary from 7:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.
He found that math scores improved by 2 percentile points and reading scores by 1 point in middle schools that moved to a later start time.
Score improvements were particularly striking among older and lower-performing students in those middle schools.
