Early to Rise: The Effect of Daily Start Times on Academic Performance

Local school districts often stagger daily start times for their schools in order to reduce busing costs. This paper uses data on all middle school students in Wake County, NC from 1999-2006 to study the impact of start times on academic performance. Using variation in start times within and across schools, I find that starting school one hour later leads to a three percentile point gain in both math and reading test scores. Using only variation in start times within schools over time, the effect is a two percentile point gain. I find evidence that later start times are associated with decreased absences, less time spent watching television and a greater amount of time spent on homework, indicating that these factors may explain why later starting students have higher test scores. (JEL Classification Code: I2