As someone who’s direct family member manages a school schedule in the US, it’s sports. Schools are not for academia anymore. Everyone wants little Timmy to grow up and be a famous American Football star and get that scholarship. You have to start school early enough that it ends early afternoon. Which then allows for after school sport practice which finishes around the time mommy and daddy finish their 9 to 5. Then the games are scheduled after that so the parents can come watch and spend money. The spend money is a big one as they are wasting millions on these arenas for sports while the science labs have textbooks with no spines left.
In my family member’s district, that’s not even a consideration. And weirdly many in the district have a shared overall employer and work starts at 5am to 7am for many of them. Leaving the other parent to drop off or making kids ride the bus solo.
The only thing dictating the schedule is sports. You get some parents that complain about everything. Meaning a fraction of a percent will complain about school starting too early, too late, on days it’s too windy, on days the sun is too bright, whatever. Parents are super awful nowadays. But all that is noise. The only complaint en mass they get that isn’t political/vaccine/FoxNews is sports related. Game started too late/early, not enough fields for all the kids to practice. The million dollar astroturf is bent the wrong way now, and needs maintenance IMMEDIATELY.
There was a high school building that got severely flood damaged in a hail storm. Parts of it are still boarded up and not fixed. But the $30m+ stadium they don’t need is almost finished.
Yup. Spent high school in a relatively large city with dozens of high schools, had stadiums galore, and temp classrooms in porta-buildings that leaked all winter and sweltered in the spring and summer and most of the fall. No money to pay teachers aids, no COLA raises for educators, but somehow the football stadium screen got an upgrade regularly and shiny new jerseys and helmets for the sportos.
Sports in education is a cancer. (source: see NCAA.)
In my high school, the auditorium where we did school plays was falling apart. You literally couldn’t sit in a quarter of the seats. Meanwhile, the football team got a new private changing room with a jacuzzi.
We once got a $250 lumber budget for building sets rejected (with the rationale that we could just reuse the sets from last year, even though that was a totally different play from a different time period, nevermind completely disassembled). Meanwhile, the cheerleading squad was issued matching tracksuits with their names embroidered, including on the duffle bag it came in. Sports sucks up huge amounts of money from school budgets, and everyone else is left to fight over the rest.
This is it, regarding Canada at least. I took a course called HIstory of Canadian Education, the education system in Canada was created because of rising hooliganism in cities, as rural couples moved into cities and took factory jobs, and left their children home to fend for themselves.
YUP. I went to a small middle of nowhere school that punched far above its weight in academic performance and well below its weight in sports. Sports budget was consistently enormous compared to everything else and then would have massive splurge years on fucking stadium lights. That shit will never ever remotely meet its value but its the agenda.
I don’t think this is the whole picture, it doesn’t explain why we have such similar school schedules in other countries where school sports aren’t so relevant
All school schedules historically are because of farmers and blue collar worker schedules.
Now that we’ve outlawed child labour (well, it’s coming back…) and your family’s survival doesn’t count on getting those crops picked, we now have freedom to choose school hours at any time. Those countries without such strong sports have had few issues moving it to later start. It’s the sporty ones that resist.
The poorer countries that still have mostly basic labour students and/or child labour are still on an early schedule for the same reason the more developed nations started out that way.
I’d say the only outlier is China. They start early and go loooooong. That’s for bashing in some of the best education at the expense of most other things. There’s probably a happy middle ground in there somewhere.
As someone who’s direct family member manages a school schedule in the US, it’s sports. Schools are not for academia anymore. Everyone wants little Timmy to grow up and be a famous American Football star and get that scholarship. You have to start school early enough that it ends early afternoon. Which then allows for after school sport practice which finishes around the time mommy and daddy finish their 9 to 5. Then the games are scheduled after that so the parents can come watch and spend money. The spend money is a big one as they are wasting millions on these arenas for sports while the science labs have textbooks with no spines left.
But then it’s not so much sports. The real cause is it’s childcare while parents work.
In my family member’s district, that’s not even a consideration. And weirdly many in the district have a shared overall employer and work starts at 5am to 7am for many of them. Leaving the other parent to drop off or making kids ride the bus solo.
The only thing dictating the schedule is sports. You get some parents that complain about everything. Meaning a fraction of a percent will complain about school starting too early, too late, on days it’s too windy, on days the sun is too bright, whatever. Parents are super awful nowadays. But all that is noise. The only complaint en mass they get that isn’t political/vaccine/FoxNews is sports related. Game started too late/early, not enough fields for all the kids to practice. The million dollar astroturf is bent the wrong way now, and needs maintenance IMMEDIATELY.
There was a high school building that got severely flood damaged in a hail storm. Parts of it are still boarded up and not fixed. But the $30m+ stadium they don’t need is almost finished.
Yup. Spent high school in a relatively large city with dozens of high schools, had stadiums galore, and temp classrooms in porta-buildings that leaked all winter and sweltered in the spring and summer and most of the fall. No money to pay teachers aids, no COLA raises for educators, but somehow the football stadium screen got an upgrade regularly and shiny new jerseys and helmets for the sportos.
Sports in education is a cancer. (source: see NCAA.)
In my high school, the auditorium where we did school plays was falling apart. You literally couldn’t sit in a quarter of the seats. Meanwhile, the football team got a new private changing room with a jacuzzi.
We once got a $250 lumber budget for building sets rejected (with the rationale that we could just reuse the sets from last year, even though that was a totally different play from a different time period, nevermind completely disassembled). Meanwhile, the cheerleading squad was issued matching tracksuits with their names embroidered, including on the duffle bag it came in. Sports sucks up huge amounts of money from school budgets, and everyone else is left to fight over the rest.
This is it, regarding Canada at least. I took a course called HIstory of Canadian Education, the education system in Canada was created because of rising hooliganism in cities, as rural couples moved into cities and took factory jobs, and left their children home to fend for themselves.
it’s disgusting how we prioritize sports over education at the ostensibly education instutions
YUP. I went to a small middle of nowhere school that punched far above its weight in academic performance and well below its weight in sports. Sports budget was consistently enormous compared to everything else and then would have massive splurge years on fucking stadium lights. That shit will never ever remotely meet its value but its the agenda.
I don’t think this is the whole picture, it doesn’t explain why we have such similar school schedules in other countries where school sports aren’t so relevant
All school schedules historically are because of farmers and blue collar worker schedules.
Now that we’ve outlawed child labour (well, it’s coming back…) and your family’s survival doesn’t count on getting those crops picked, we now have freedom to choose school hours at any time. Those countries without such strong sports have had few issues moving it to later start. It’s the sporty ones that resist.
The poorer countries that still have mostly basic labour students and/or child labour are still on an early schedule for the same reason the more developed nations started out that way.
I’d say the only outlier is China. They start early and go loooooong. That’s for bashing in some of the best education at the expense of most other things. There’s probably a happy middle ground in there somewhere.
deleted by creator