Panel Paper: Off to the Right Start? The Impact of School Start Times on Student Learning

Friday, November 3, 2017
Picasso (Hyatt Regency Chicago)

*Names in bold indicate Presenter

Umut Dur1, Robert G. Hammond1, Matthew A. Lenard2, Melinda S Morrill1, Thayer Morrill1 and Colleen Paeplow2, (1)North Carolina State University, (2)Wake County Public School System


The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that middle and high schools start at 8:30 or later, yet fewer than 15 percent of schools follow this recommendation. Estimating the benefit of a later start time has proven difficult as start times are not determined randomly. Using quasi-experimental variation embedded in the assignment process, we measure the causal impact of school starting times on student learning. Our instrumental variables strategy leverages exogenous variation arising from tie-breakers in the Deferred Acceptance algorithm. We use data on Wake County Public School System students who are entering middle school. These students may apply to magnet schools with start times ranging from 7:30am to 8:30am. For children whose counterfactual school starts the day at 7:30am, attending a magnet school that starts at 8:30am is associated with a large and statistically significant gain in reading scores. These results suggest that later school start times can substantially improve student learning.