Not knowing the real reason, I suspect it's so that parents can drive their children to school before starting their commutes to work. What proportion of kids do you reckon walk/bike/transit to school in your country?
Honestly (Aus), relatively few. Drop-offs would traditionally be from about 8:00 am onwards (so kids had up to an hour before hand waiting for classes to start). Not everyone arrived from 8:00, but getting there well before that was exceptional.
We don't generally have "dedicated" buses for school, though there are some schools that have dedicated routes at certain times of the days usually contracted out to bus companies, otherwise its on the parents or the public transport system to get children to and from schools.
When I was younger (sub-12 years old, both parents working), parents dropped me off on the way to work, then we had a kind of neighbourhood arrangement with other parents at the school where we'd be picked up by them (car-pooling i guess) and go and spend the afternoon at their place before my parents picked us up from their place on the way home.
For high-schoolers, its a bit "well, they're capable of getting themselves to and from school by now...", with obvious exceptions if you live out in the sticks or miles away from the school (then the question would be, why are you going to that school without a way to get there?) and no real stigma to it if you can sync up with parents or after-school activities.
You know, i'm much older now, so its possible I'm out of touch, but I doubt I'm THAT out of touch to make a 7:00 starting time seem vaguely sane...
Edit: I've looked into it and I'm not that out of touch. State recommendations where I live are from 8:30 onwards, with most starting at 9:00.
The part about this logic that confuses me is starting early enough to early morning commutes (7ish) puts kids out of school long before parents are home (2-3ish). I remember briefly running with a crowd's whose daily ritual was, after being dismissed at I think 2:40, was to go home and smoke pot for a few hours before everyone's parents were home. Unless kids are in school for 9+ hours, I don't see how parental commute is a reasonable argument. Similarly, there's no reason there couldn't be early classes for kids who absolutely couldn't get to school otherwise.
Another perspective from Australia. When I was in high school virtually everyone took the bus to school except a few of the yr 12s who could drive themselves. The only problem was the nearest bus stop was an hours walk away from my house so I still had to get driven to the bus stop.
We don't generally have "dedicated" buses for school, though there are some schools that have dedicated routes at certain times of the days usually contracted out to bus companies, otherwise its on the parents or the public transport system to get children to and from schools.
When I was younger (sub-12 years old, both parents working), parents dropped me off on the way to work, then we had a kind of neighbourhood arrangement with other parents at the school where we'd be picked up by them (car-pooling i guess) and go and spend the afternoon at their place before my parents picked us up from their place on the way home.
For high-schoolers, its a bit "well, they're capable of getting themselves to and from school by now...", with obvious exceptions if you live out in the sticks or miles away from the school (then the question would be, why are you going to that school without a way to get there?) and no real stigma to it if you can sync up with parents or after-school activities.
You know, i'm much older now, so its possible I'm out of touch, but I doubt I'm THAT out of touch to make a 7:00 starting time seem vaguely sane...
Edit: I've looked into it and I'm not that out of touch. State recommendations where I live are from 8:30 onwards, with most starting at 9:00.