I, too, have mixed thoughts on the subject. I agree that most adults, unless they are working a 4-10 (or other) shift, would balk at starting before 8am or 9am, or working more than 8 hours/day. To expect kids to do so because we adults don't want to pay higher taxes is unconscionable.

On the other hand, kids seem to start staying up later at much younger ages. I remember in the 6th grade finally getting to stay up until 8:30pm. It was a huge concession, because my younger brothers still had to be in bed by 8pm. My mother was a kindergarten teacher and bedtimes were all but inviolable--Christmas, New Year, and occasionally at my grandma's. In high school I was allowed to stay up until 10pm except on weekends. If kids stay up till 9pm when they are little, and they expect to get to stay up later as they get older, high school bedtimes are going to be pretty late. Few people of any age function well on less than 6-7 hours of sleep.

Another somewhat-related issue is class loads.

My son is taking 4 AP classes (Calculus, Government, English, Communications) plus 2 other classes. (We are on a block schedule--4 classes/day, every other day. Would be 4 other classes if he weren't a senior, but he's kind of run out of things to take.) The AP classes are for college credit--3 credits each--12 college semester credits--a slightly less-than-average load for a college student, but the college student would only have those 4 classes, and would only be in class for about 4 hours/day. I'm fine with more challenging classes--wish I had had the opportunity--but I think we need to pay attention to the time requirements. If we're going to encourage the kids to take classes for college credit, we need to adjust their schedules to better reflect the higher work load.

Kathleen