Why Does the School Day End Two Hours Before the Workday?
“The economic cost of this problem is tremendous. Private child care is expensive: A report from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, found that out-of-pocket child care costs families an average of $6,600 a year. While an after-school program, according to Afterschool Alliance, is a little cheaper—costing families just more than $4,000 a year, on average—it can still be beyond reach for many families: 48 percent of parents in higher-income households reported cost as a factor in the decision to not enroll children in an after-school program. When parents can’t afford child care, many of them choose to scale back their work or leave the workforce entirely. And in some cases, without a better alternative, they leave their children unsupervised: 3 percent of elementary-school students and 19 percent of middle-school students look after themselves from 3 to 6 p.m. during the school week. On the whole, conflicting school and work schedules cost the U.S. economy $55 billion in lost productivity each year, in large part due to parents (mostly women) who scale back employment and the lost productivity when parents have to take off work during school closures.”