An article on the front page of the metro section of this morning's New York Times reports that "A number of Connecticut lawmakers are pressing to stop high schools from starting their day before 8:30 a.m., a legislative response to research suggesting that teenagers do not physiologically wake up until well after their school day begins." This is not a joke, at least according to the Times article, which plays the story with barely a glimmer of a grin, dutifully quoting "many experts on teenage sleep." One of these "experts" operates out of the National Institutes of Health (your federal tax dollars at work); another is stationed at an Ivy League university.
For some reason, the problem of early morning classes seems particularly acute for teenagers. The Times reports that "younger children generally do not have the same trouble adjusting to early-morning start times," perhaps because their "circadian rhythms are not as affected by early morning school hours."
For some reason, it does not seem to have occurred to the Times that a reason these teenagers are tired in the morning could be that they were up all night gossiping on the phone to their friends, listening to rock music, doing drugs and having sex (with the assistance of taxpayer-provided free contraceptives). Or that a possible response to the problem of tired teens in early morning classes might be, rather than having the classes start later, having the teens go to bed earlier. Or that having to get up early and think while tired might be good preparation for the world of work, where many employees in demanding fields are expected to do exactly that.
The entire story is a good example of the liberal approach to educational standards: If the students don't meet the standards, the standards should be changed to be less rigorous. If the students can't make it to school on time and awake, the proper response is to delay the start of the school day.