I checked the time on my coffee maker as the middle school bus rumbled by outside: 6:59 a.m.

I groaned. In less than 6 months, my daughter will have to get ready for that bus--every morning. Like her sisters and brother before her, she'll leave the comfy world of elementary school, where she doesn't even climb out of bed until 7:30 a.m. and instead gather with the troops in the cold darkness of a Michigan morning.

Mind you, this wouldn't have affected her personal health and wellness about 10 years ago. Then she routinely bounced me out of bed in the predawn hours--weekdays, weekends and holidays included. In fact, my best friend and I made a pact during those weary days that when our children were teens, aching to sleep in on weekends, we would once in awhile wake them at 6 a.m. on Saturdays....just because. (Paybacks can be sweet.)

What Sleep Research Shows

I've often wondered why we start school earlier just as our kids start to sleep later. The policy seems to fly in the face of logic and ignore new research about health in school.

We don't, for example, start secondary school earlier because it meets the teenagers' fitness needs. Scientists say that adolescents actually need more sleep than they did when they were younger. About 9 hours and 15 minutes, to be exact. That means for a 6 a.m. wake-up call, a kid would have to hit the sheets around 8:45 p.m. Yeah right.

Even if their parents could get them there, going to bed earlier won't necessarily help. That's because most teens answer to a biological clock that keeps them awake later at night and doesn't wake them naturally until about 8 or 9 a.m.

How Early School Hours Affect Behavior and Learning

We also don't do it to improve behavior. Tired teens are cranky teens. And it's no secret that adolescents who get into trouble usually do it during the after-school hours before their parents come home from work.

We don't do it to improve learning. Common sense tells teachers that a student who's drooling on the desk is probably not learning much. Scientists now tell us that as much as half of a day's new learning can be lost by lack of sleep that night. Grades and test scores seem to bear that out. In general, students who struggle or fail at school get less sleep than classmates who earn As and Bs. Three years after delaying their start time by an hour, a Minnesota school's average SAT scores rose 140-160 points--about 25 percent.

Rationale that Isn't Rational

A few weeks ago I listened to a radio call-in program that asked folks if they thought school should begin later. Some listeners (probably parents like me who live with sleep-deprived teens) said it was a great idea. Most said no, but for interesting--and disturbing--reasons. "It will mess up athletic schedules." "I gotta get up early; they can too." "It's good for them to learn how the real world works." "We'll have to rearrange bus schedules." And my favorite, from a teacher: "I don't want to drive home at rush hour."

So, Emily, I guess we'll still have early-morning wake-up calls as you march off to middle school. I hope someday it will change, though. Working out the details might be tough, but a world that would fight biology, ignore evidence and snub learning because of tradition or self-interest scares me a little. And even I can see that paybacks don't make for good public policy.

In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if the truth isn't closer to the cry of one young teen, who learned her community, for the third time, rejected proposals to delay start time so she could board her school bus later than 5:15 a.m.

She looked up from her homework, tears in her eyes, and asked, "Why is it that people around here don't like kids?"