How the time of day affects productivity: Evidence from school schedules

Abstract

Increasing the efficiency of the school system is a primary focus of policymakers. I analyze howthe time of day affects students' productivity and if efficiency gains can be obtained by rearranging the order of tasks they perform throughout the school day. Using a panel data set of nearly 2 million Sixth-Through Eleventh-Grade students in Los Angeles County, I perform Within-Teacher, class type, and student estimation of the Time-Of-Day effect on students' learning as measured by GPA and state test scores. I find that given a school start time, students learn more in the morning than later in the school day.Having a morning instead of afternoon math or English class increases a student's GPA by 0.072 (0.006) and 0.032 (0.006), respectively. A morning math class increases state test scores by an amount equivalent to increasing teacher quality by One-Fourth standard deviation or half of the gender gap. Rearranging school schedules can lead to increased academic performance.