I think changing the start times is something the district had wanted to do for a long time. Therefore once the research and the algorithm suggested it was a good idea, they quickly jumped on board.
Now I am sure we have done some communications mistakes. For example the algorithm does not "decide" the start times. You just give it a (long) list of preferences and objectives (e.g., less HS students starting early, more fairness across the population...), and then the algorithm generates thousands of solution that try to satisfy these objectives. Solutions are carefully reviewed, and the objective updated if we think we can do better.
So in the end, this research is just a tool, it does not solve all the problems, and in the end people still need to find a way to agree. Hopefully they have a little bit more information to do so!
> start times is something the district had wanted to do for a long time
So, was the real motivation here one of efficiency and cost-savings then?
That is a clear thorn they might have wanted to solve.
Is the added sleep beneficial to students, all other things equal? I'm sure it is, but was the real motivation a cost savings and the sleep deprivation a nice cover for the real motivation?
No, as far as I know having later school start times for high schoolers was the main objective, and that was the strongest one in the solution that was chosen by Boston when they used our algorithm.
There has been a lot of research on high school students lack of sleep, and it seems that the school times do have a important impact on the students :
Did you read the article? It clearly stated that cost-savings was one of the outcomes to be balanced, but not the motivation. There were solutions that saved lots of money that were thrown out because they didn't balance the other outcomes enough.
BPS is pretty forward-thinking, and lots of research has shown that high school students are better off with later start times. Don't dismiss this as the actual motivation.
