Early School Start Dates Spark Debate

A new study shows that families went on half as many trips in August and September when school commenced before Labor Day.  More importantly, the study found a 30 percent drop in overall summer travel from May through September, indicating that families were not simply rescheduling their trips to another time in the summer.   

The study, conducted by the University of Minnesota Tourism Center, followed school districts in Michigan, Virginia, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin; states that have mandates regulating when school starts. The data spanned five years from 2005 to 2010, with states varying start dates before and after Labor Day. 

Why are schools starting earlier?

	Standardized testing has put pressure on teachers to make sure their students are prepared for testing earlier in the school year.

Traditionally, schools have returned to class after Labor Day.  This developed during the ‘40s and ‘50s when intense heat during the summer months made it impractical to begin classes before September. 

Recently, districts have pushed to start the school year ever earlier into August, turning Labor Day into a school holiday, not a starting line. When the “No Child Left Behind Act” was instituted in 2002, standardized test scores became the yardstick for measuring teacher achievement. Under the current system, better test scores mean better teachers and more government funding for the school. Teachers argue that in order to prepare students properly for these crucial tests, they need the extra school time that an August start date provides.

The downside for tourism and families

	Earlier start dates could reduce time for summer activities like family vacations or student jobs.

Though each state varies in the number of school days it requires, oftentimes starting school before Labor Day does not translate into getting out significantly earlier in the spring. In addition to travel plans, this could have implications on student summer jobs as well.  With less time to look for and hold a position, summer earning potential for teenagers is diminished.  

The variation in school start dates also poses a challenge for hotels, resorts and other tourism-based businesses to plan ahead. These establishments often hire additional employees and stockpile perishables, like food, for the busy summer months.  According to the study, this means that favorite vacation spots may not be able to offer customers the same standard of quality: prices may be higher, staff may be less accessible and food choices may be more limited.  

How the data was gathered

	School start dates are determined at the state and local level, and vary widely throughout the country.

The authors of this study compared actual data about how families spent their time during years in which school started before Labor Day to years when school started afterwards. Previous studies had used hypothetical data by simply asking families what they would do if their school’s start date changed. 

The study used data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), the nation’s largest effort to document how Americans spend their time on a monthly basis. ATUS data is compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, which allowed the authors to control for other possible reasons for changes in travel patterns such as income, race and geographic differences between respondents. 

“This setup makes policy evaluation about as reliable as possible for a non-experimental study,” says the study's author, Elton Mykerezi.  “To be honest, this was also a study of opportunity because of the availability of rich data set on travel from ATUS and the fact that some states, like Wisconsin and Iowa, have policies that force them to start after Labor Day in some years but not others.”