I was enjoying the traffic-free bliss of August (when people are out of town and schools are not in session) when I found myself caught in a traffic jam.
At a school.
The next day I read an article in the Beverly Hills Courier that said, indeed, school began August 13 this year, the earliest ever. It looks like LAUSD also began the 13th.
Apparently, the schools are trying to get a leg up on state tests, and want to log more weeks before the test dates. The problem is that the tests are scaled and percentile-based. That means that if everyone starts earlier, nobody is going to have an advantage.
Unless of course they improved the actual teaching taking place, but that hasn't apparently been suggested! ;)
You really have to feel sorry for these kids. Maybe someday we'll go back to Labor Day being the cutoff point for school to start....
