Its also the basis for why many advocacy groups think that contact in high school sports should be drastically cut back. The developing brain is perhaps a lot more susceptible to injury, which may cause long term deficits, than anyone ever predicted. Youth hockey is moving in this direction, as they've moved the checking age from 11 to 13 (although recent efforts have been mounted to make 14 the cutoff), but youth football has basically been unresponsive. They will come around once the courts start letting athletes sue sports organizations for the irreparable damage they've suffered.
Hell to the yes. There's also some pretty compelling research that indicates pretty drastic circadian rhythm shift: teenagers naturally stay up later and wake up later (while also sleeping more). More than that, if you allow a teenager to go to bed at 2am and wake up at noon or 1 in the afternoon they're a lot less likely to be surly and disconnected. It upsets me a little that we're only now incorporating neuroscience into parenting.
No shit. I hated high school for a lot of reasons, but I'm sure I would have done better if it were in session from noon-7 instead of 7-2. What a bunch of bullshit that is. I spend half my day sleeping in class, and they tell me its my fault. Give me a break. I could learn more in two hours if fully awake than I could in 7 hours of half sleep.
I have to say that I experienced the opposite. Throughout all of my high school years, I woke at 5am but still went to bed at 11pm. This has led me to the point where I feel at my best with a minimum of sleep (sometimes as few as just 3 hours, though usually more like 5). For me, there's a pretty noticeable shift in my bell curve of how much sleep I get compared to how I feel. I seem to see most people feel terrible from 0 - 5 hours of sleep, then great between 6 - 9, then bad (or at least not normal) at 9+. However, I feel bad from 0 - 2, good to great from 3 - 7, then pretty weird from 7+. I don't know if that's normal, or if I'm simply not being thorough with my observations.