The tragic truth when I’ve worked at schools that start that early is that it was done so that the kids could work/take care of siblings. Even then many kids would leave school early because they would be asked to come into work. It sucked, I had kids that would sleep through my classes because they had worked extremely late.

Most of the shitty things Public schools do are because we have no money, are trying to feed/clothes/protect kids who have literally no one else. The school I worked at had 100% free breakfast and lunch, because the population was so transient/not in the country legally that it wasn’t realistic to expect them to fill out the forms to get free lunch.

The system is such a brutal grind that is also designed to extract as much as possible from optimistic, well meaning folks. There is no money, so most good things come from teachers spending their own money, staying well after contract hours, etc, etc. The burnout rate is insane, my school has already had multiple people leave mid year (and this has happened every where I’ve worked). Alcoholism is rampant among teachers. The stress caused me to develop epilepsy - and I’m not the only person I know this has happened to.

Republicans have been running a war on education for years now, and this is the result. We are forced to do things that we know are bad and ineffective (like the shitty hours, or allowing physically violent students to stay in classroom because we aren’t allowed to suspend them, or teaching to the test) because we have no resources and are expected to be the entire social safety net.