A majority of the more
than 1,385 high school students, 3,600 parents and 520 teachers of all grade levels who returned a questionnaire after this change was piloted
in Palo Alto said, «If I
controlled the school calendar, I would want first -
semester finals to occur before winter break»; this included more
than 85 percent of the high school students, according to Challenge Success.
His results were striking: after one
semester, students who were randomly assigned to experience the intervention achieved a significantly higher GPA
than students
in the
control group.