Plan: The federal government will provide local school districts with incentives to change the starting time of the secondary schools to a time that fits with adolescents’ biological need to sleep. SLEEP DEPRIVATION LOWERS THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF AMERICAN ADOLESCENTS. A. The vast majority of adolescents suffer from sleep deprivation. Mart Carkadon (Prof., Psychiatry, Brown U. Med. Center Jan. 99, 352 “The problem of inadequate sleep affects more segments of our society than adolescents; however, adolescents appear to be particularly vulnerable and face difficult challenges for obtaining sufficient sleep. Even without the pressure of biological changes, if we