The Perfect and the Free

Why I hate daylight savings time

It was a lovely morning in North Carolina today.  I went for a run around 7, through a misty drizzle, with a quite comfortable ambient temperature of 60 degrees, admiring the sights of (literal) green shoots on lawns, the sounds of tree frogs in the wetlands near our neighborhood, and the sights of hundreds of robins, mockingbirds, cardinals, and other winged creatures flittering about while trying to "get" the proverbial worm.

I really had to enjoy this chance for a springtime weekday morning outing, because it's the last one I'm going to get all year.  You see, come Monday we will have switched to daylight savings time, whereupon the hour of 7 AM will transpire in predawn darkness.  Not until April 25 will the hour of 7 occur a half hour past daybreak, as it did today.  By April 25th, Durham has already made its transition to the mugginess of summer.

Why?  Why must I -- why must everyone -- forgo these morning pleasantries?  In the name of "daylight savings."  A policy conceived in the depths of world war, with the goal of reducing fuel consumption.  A policy expanded by Congress a few years ago, promoted with promises of environmental benefits.  Well, guess what.  Daylight Savings Time doesn't save energy.  Yes, we don't have to burn as much whale oil, or use whatever light source we've developed to replace 1914-era technology, but we end up air conditioning our homes while spending our extra hour of daylight doing the same thing we would otherwise do at the same hour every evening -- sitting in our houses and watching TV.  Daylight savings time has been promoted as reducing traffic fatalities, but a note published in the New England Journal of Medicine notes that the risk of traffic accidents will be 9% higher -- not lower -- this coming Monday, relative to this week.

There is a more basic argument here.  In a democracy, there is a constant balance to be struck between independent initiative and collective regulation.  We believe that people should be left to their own devices, unless they want to start doing something that harms other people.  With this thought in mind, let's think about the rationale for government regulation of time.  Yes, it makes sense for government to coordinate people's clocks.  I really appreciate not having to ask someone what time it is in their own personal time zone before I schedule an appointment with them.  Sure, it would be fun to have my own personal time zone, but just think of the harm I'd do to other people by telling them I'd meet them for dinner right after work, at 4:17 AM JVT?  Standardized time zones are the way to go.

But what's the rationale for using the power of government to make everybody wake up earlier?  Because we want to conserve energy?  Well, there is this small matter that DST doesn't save energy.  Moreover, even if it did, why can't we rely on people's own instinct of thrift to influence behavior?  Everybody knows the old "early to bed, early to rise" maxim -- if people realize personal benefits from waking up early, they'll do it on their own, without annual prompting from the government.  Because we want people to drive home in daylight rather than darkness?  Again, presuming that most people would do almost anything to avoid being in a car accident, and that many employers are quite happy to have people go home early if they also show up early, why can't we trust people to do the right thing on their own account?

For fourteen years in my youth, I lived in the great state of Indiana, which until very recently was one of only a few enclaves throughout the nation that did not observe DST.  I feel confident in asserting that I have experienced no long-term ill effects of this experience.  Sadly, the Hoosier state recently succumbed to peer pressure and adopted the practice.  Perhaps one day we will all rise up and cast off the shackles of tyranny, returning to an era where a sundial could really tell you the accurate time all year round, and a 7 AM jog on March 12th was just as pleasant as a 7 AM jog on March 15th.

The discipline gap and the test score gap

I know the blog has been dormant for a long time... there have been many occasions where I've been moved to write something, just not moved enough (it's been a crazy academic year!).  Anyway, I was finally pushed over the edge today by news that education secretary Arne Duncan is getting upset about racial disparities in school discipline and dropout rates, among other things.

Secretary Duncan almost certainly hasn't read work by University of Rochester economist (and former student of mine) Joshua Kinsler, who investigated school discipline gaps in his dissertation.  If he had, he'd have known the following:

• Black and white students who attend the same school receive equal punishments for equal offenses.  This may come as a surprise to some, but it turns out that school administrators who choose to work at racially integrated schools actually don't tend to be racists.
• Students of all races are punished more severely at schools where a higher percentage of students are black.  So yes, there is a school discipline gap, but it is entirely rooted in school segregation and the systematic application of different standards in different schools, not by any individual person applying different standards to students attending the same school.
• Here's the kicker.  Principals in schools with higher-risk students (who, yes, tend to be poorer and nonwhite) adopt tougher disciplinary standards because it raises test scores.  Strict discipline accomplishes two things.  First, it has a deterrent effect: the threat of discipline keeps students' behavior in line.  Second, when a student does misbehave, strict discipline takes that student out of the classroom so that other students can learn.  The punished student does miss out on some instructional time, but Josh shows that the consequences for these "bad seeds" are minimal, since they are not likely to have paid attention in class in the first place.  Josh's results indicate that enacting even harsher discipline in high-risk schools would raise test scores even further.  Political pushback, such as that exhibited by secretary Duncan, keeps discipline below the level that would be required to produce the highest possible test scores.

Put all this together, and what do you get?  Well, if secretary Duncan's goal is just to ensure that whites and blacks receive equal treatment when they attend the same school, he can hold a second press conference tomorrow to say "mission accomplished."  If he wants to ensure that all schools apply the same discipline, that's fine, but he needs to realize that this regulation will widen the black-white test score gap.

Here's another thing that most of the world doesn't know yet (but will, as soon as Charles Clotfelter, Helen Ladd, and I finish up some research on the subject): suppose you have two third graders, one black and one white, who have equal third-grade math and reading scores.  Which one is more likely to drop out?  The white student.  Yes, blacks and Hispanics have high dropout rates.  But their dropout problems can all be traced back to one simple fact: even as younger children, they were less proficient.  If we were to close the black-white test score gap in 3rd grade, we'd not only eliminate the racial gaps in dropout rates, we'd reverse them.

Bottom line for secretary Duncan, then: focusing on all these other problems is all well and good, but if you really want to promote educational equality, put the focus where it belongs.  In early childhood.