The Relationship Between School Start Times and Educational Outcomes

Evidence shows that adolescents need later wake times for sufficient sleep and that starting school later improves sleep outcomes. In recent years, there has been increased interest in the effect of school start times on educational outcomes. We aim to summarize recent studies, evaluate key findings, and identify limitations in the literature. Recent studies examined the relationship of school start times to attendance, discipline, grades, test scores, and other outcomes. Many studies found that later start times improved attendance and grades. The results for test scores and other outcomes were more mixed. Nascent evidence suggests the relationship between start times and educational outcomes exists for younger students as well. While findings suggest that later school start times were associated with better educational outcomes, the methodological approaches employed have limitations. Few studies used rigorous methods to examine within school changes in start times.