The world has evolved dramatically since the public school schedule first took root. When the school day first evolved, millions of children--many as young as 10 years old--worked, and most mothers stayed at home. Today, child labor for the most part is outlawed, and 75 percent of women with school-age children work. But in many ways, schools have not updated their policies to adapt to this changed world, and this means that large numbers of working parents must split their time between being a committed parent and being a committed working professional. This report, then, aims to answer three questions: (1) How misaligned are school and work schedules? (2) What can schools do to support parents as they try to meet their obligations to their employers and to their children? and (3) How can schools and districts pay for this effort? There's a short answer to this last query because 9-to-5 school reform is less expensive than most people believe--and does not require teachers to work more for less pay. To examine these questions, the Center for American Progress analyzed the calendars, schedules, and policies of the largest school districts in the country, which serve almost 6 million students CAP researchers also examined data from the National Center for Education Statistics. The resulting analysis reveals the multitude of ways that U.S. public schools make life unnecessarily harder for working parents.