U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Department of Labor Logo United States Department of Labor
Dot gov

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Bureau of Labor Statistics > Productivity Research and Program Development Group > Productivity research home

Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia finds that later school start times improve student test scores

Sabrina Pabilonia and Jeffrey Groen used time use data from the Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine school start times, time use, and academic performance.  Some findings in brief:

  • Longer sleep led to greater academic achievement generally.
  • Later high school start times led to higher reading test scores and more daily sleep for females.
  • Later high school start times affected students’ wake-up times but not bedtimes, and did not reduce time on after-school jobs or sports.

Results were published in the Economics of Education Review. A nontechnical summary is published here.

Jeffrey A. Groen and Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia. “Snooze or Lose: High School Start Times and Academic Achievement.”  Economics of Education Review Vol. 72, 2019, pp. 204-218.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.05.011