The school start-date dilemma

It's been widely reported (including today's Dallas Morning News) that the recent legislative special session produced not only new tax schemes and spending/sharing formulas, but also a statewide mandated school-start date.

I'm conflicted about this:

1) I've always thought it ridiculous that schools around here started so early. August 12th or thereabouts for LISD each year. August 1st or thereabouts for Keller, and a couple of days later for Plano. The summers are sooo short this way, and I don't buy the argument that the kids do better with all the extra break-time inside the school year. My son goes to a big summer camp, (Camp Stewart, down in the Texas Hill Country. That takes up most of July. Combine that with a family vacation and VBS and/or Scout Camp in June, and that's pretty much the whole summer. I've always felt that August should also be a month off too, at least until the end of the month.

2) As much as I'm happy with the end-result (a later start-of-school date, no earlier than the last Monday in August), I'm not happy the state legislator took this decision out of the hands of the local school boards. In the multi-layered government we have in this country, there's a strong principle that the best decisions are made by those governments closest to the people (town, ISD in our case). Why is it that the state felt it neceesary to create a single start-date? Well, we all know why that is, because our state tourism industry is a very strong lobby in Austin, and they persuaded the legislators to vote for the later start date in order to extend the summer travel season (longer summer = more business). Even my beloved Camp Stewart (it was my camp growing up, too) has been a big force in lobbying for this statewide law.

I've kept my mouth shut so far. I'm happy about the end result, but I don't like the means used to achieve the end.

What do you think?