Fewer Children Are Attending School, Remotely and In Person (wsj.com) 146
More children have been absent from school this academic year than a year earlier, with attendance declining as the pandemic wears on, new research and data show. From a report: Students attending school in person as well as those learning remotely are struggling with poor attendance, though it is worse among the millions of homebound students who are still learning primarily through a screen. Districts showed a 2.3% decline in average daily attendance nationally from September to November of last year, compared with the same period in 2019, according to data from PowerSchool, which tracks grades and attendance for schools. Attendance fell in 75% of the districts as the year wore on, dropping by 1.5% on average each month, data show. The data covers 2,700 districts that include more than 2.5 million students learning in person and online.
Limited data from some states and districts shows that students learning remotely -- especially students of color, special needs and elementary school students -- were attending school less often compared with their in-school classmates. The data deepens concerns that the lengthy school closures will widen the pre-pandemic academic achievement gaps between poor students and others. About 56% of school districts were exclusively remote as of Dec. 18, according to the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a nonpartisan research group at the University of Washington focused on improving public education in the U.S. The barriers for students learning online continue to include problems with internet connectivity and access to devices.
Limited data from some states and districts shows that students learning remotely -- especially students of color, special needs and elementary school students -- were attending school less often compared with their in-school classmates. The data deepens concerns that the lengthy school closures will widen the pre-pandemic academic achievement gaps between poor students and others. About 56% of school districts were exclusively remote as of Dec. 18, according to the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a nonpartisan research group at the University of Washington focused on improving public education in the U.S. The barriers for students learning online continue to include problems with internet connectivity and access to devices.
Voters! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Voters! (Score:4, Insightful)
You would think the politicians would be less vocal about reopening schools "NOW!" since they do so love the uneducated.
But maybe it really is easier to get the dead to vote for you.
Re:Voters! (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is many voting adults don't really care about school, but just a free to them daycare for their children.
Not to make it seem so pessimistic, but today we normally need a duel income family to maintain a good living standard, and survive any economic problems, if one person gets canned from their job, their SO will probably have one to pay the rent and buy the food.
This creates a new problem around children. Were back in a single income days, there was a parent available to raise the child during the day. Where now a child is something that can get in the way of your career, because we need to care for them.
Pre-Schools - Schools - High Schools are a way to have the child in a safe environment where you can work your professional life.
If they happen to give you children education on many topics, and some good life lessons all the better.
Many Parents today were children on the 1990's and early 2000's thinking of Slashdots catch phrase "New For Nerds Stuff that Matters" as a site of this time period, there was a lot of discrimination towards Smart People and glorification of the Dumb guy and the ditzy girl, as being attractive and popular. So now kids who grew up accepting this culture. Are now voters and parents. Who are now asked to help teach their kids Fractions, Basic Algebra, understanding History and Literature. Where many are still on the mind set, why are they still teaching this crap.
However the irony is, because of these people who tried so hard to not be Nerds in school, are often finding themselves in lower paying jobs, in which they cannot afford to stay home, or have a SO stay home to take care of the kids. So they area saying Open the schools, not because of their child's education, but to get them out of their house and responsibility for 6-8 hours a day.
Re:Voters! (Score:5, Funny)
Kind of ironic that the topic is lack of education but you don't even know the difference between dual and duel.
Re:Voters! (Score:4, Insightful)
I see no irony in it. I have dyslexia, and had to always fight really hard to get a passing grade on any paper I had written, from K - Grad School. Being that I may use the wrong word that isn't caught by the web browser, and with the issue being around vowel sounds in which is a constant struggle for me it really isn't any reflection of my education level. It means that I probably will not be a good editor, but everyone is not good at everything.
My education has taught me methods to minimize many of these mistakes, but I am not perfect at it, also my areas of study tended to focus less around essay writing, where I am spending so much time reviewing and re-reviewing my content.
If you are going to discredit a good idea because of technical language detail, it is really your loss not the person who had made the mistake.
Besides this is just a random internet post, from some guy you probably never met, written while taking a 5 minute break from work, just to refresh my mind. Don't expect perfection.
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"jellomizer"... I remembered your name but I didn't know which detail I needed to remember. This is not the first time you tell me about your dyslexia. I was trying to make fun of your english, not make fun of you. This is like me laughing at a guy in a wheelchair because he can't walk. Believe me when I say I'm ashamed.
If you check my post history, I often make jokes when people write something about their "Duel Core CPUs" for example.
So once again, I de
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The problem is many voting adults don't really care about school, but just a free to them daycare for their children.
Free? HAHAHAHA. Take a look at your itemized property taxes if you think our schools are free (or free to "them"). I paid $9106 last year for our local schools. The is nothing free about that. And I paid thousands for a decade before having kids, and I'll pay hundreds of thousands of dollars after my kids are out of school. No one is looking for free daycare. They are looking for the daycare they are already paying for.
The problem now is we are paying the same for far less service. Before anyone even gets i
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Wait, so putting LESS energy and attention into the next generation is the key to success?
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We are spending sufficient amount of money on schools through taxes to pay for a private tutor for every family in the country.
And that isn't hyperbole. The feds spent ~$15k/child through the thoroughly useless Department of Education and states like NY and CA spend another $20k/child on top of that. This also includes the ~20% of children that do not use funding from the public system (private and home schooled)
For the average family of 2 children, that comes to $70k/teacher which is slightly higher than t
Re:Voters! (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait, so putting LESS energy and attention into the next generation is the key to success?
Claiming we put less energy and attention into our next generation because we now rely more on professions than on parents is no different than claiming we grow less food today per capita than we did back when everyone were farmers. It is nonsensical and simply false.
Today's parents spend more time with their kids than moms and dads did 50 years ago. [uci.edu] About twice as much in fact. It is even more drastic for more educated parents who are more likely to be dual income. I do believe this is completely unrelated to more mothers joining the workforce, however, and is purely because we have been learning the positive impact on good parenting over the past century. Heck the word parenting didn't exist as a word in the English language until the 20th century and didn't become commonly used until the 70s (using parent as a verb also started in the 70s).
As for the life outcomes of kids with dual working households, the research is quite clear it has a positive impact on kids. The most positive impact is on daughters (no surprise there). There are positive aspects to both working and non-working mothers, but to imply working mothers are harmful to their children is not supported by the research.
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Heck the word parenting didn't exist as a word in the English language until the 20th century and didn't become commonly used until the 70s (using parent as a verb also started in the 70s).
Great post, thank you. I wanted to check this uncited but interesting remark, and found good support for it [google.com]!
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The problem is many voting adults don't really care about school, but just a free to them daycare for their children.
Free? HAHAHAHA. Take a look at your itemized property taxes if you think our schools are free (or free to "them").
So really it's "subsidized for them" daycare.
Re:Voters! (Score:5, Insightful)
So really it's "subsidized for them" daycare.
Yes, payment for school is subsidized by society. Those with more money pay more (or more accurately those with more expensive houses pay more), and everyone pays for it in taxes their whole life and not just when their kids are in school. During those years where your kids are in school, the total cost to you is less than if you had to pay the full cost during those 12 years. But it is more like US insurance plans where you pay over your whole working life but most only take benefits for a small portion of that time.
And for those who never have kids, they get the best deal of all. The time and financial investments parents put into creating the future generations who will take care of us all in old age are far more than anyone pays in property taxes to school.
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Subsi
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3.2 million teachers and 1.1 million daycare workers are now doing the work our 23.5 million working moms used to do
Now if there was just some evidence they were doing well...
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Now if there was just some evidence they were doing well...
Pretty much all the research shows children have as good of life outcomes with working mothers as they do with stay at home mothers. Financially speaking children with working mothers do have higher paying careers than those with stay at home mothers, but money isn't everything. Society should be far past thinking parents are harming their children by either working or staying home with them. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and children thrive in both scenarios.
Our schools failing our kids is a
Re: Voters! (Score:2)
The facts are simple. Anyone under the age of 13/14 should not legally be home all day unsupervised. More so for those with any sort of disability like CP or autism. With schools working purely remote, many parents have been forced to leave the workforce. Since the rise of 2 income households employers have used that as a unmentioned excuse to pay employees far less, proportionally, than prior to the 2-income home. This means 2 income is not a lifestyle choice, but for many, barely making ends meet. With 1
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The *marginal* cost to the parent of using the school is zero. For most people this is the definition of "free". The property taxes actually paying for the school have to be paid whether or not they use it.
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The *marginal* cost to the parent of using the school is zero. For most people this is the definition of "free". The property taxes actually paying for the school have to be paid whether or not they use it.
Tell that to to the people who buy houses because of the school district they are in. Almost everyone buying a house in my zip code is consciously buying the school district, not just the house. My taxes would be significantly less just a dozen miles northwest. I could easily save $4-5k a year in property taxes, and get a much bigger house for the same price.
Where I grew up (in a rural area), my parents spend 25% of what I do in property taxes for a house of similar property value. That is why my old high s
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That is a good point. The marginal cost of the school is not zero if you move to access the school and your tax rate changes.
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today we normally need a duel income family to maintain a good living standard, and survive any economic problems, if one person gets canned from their job, their SO will probably have one to pay the rent and buy the food.
This creates a new problem around children. Were back in a single income days, there was a parent available to raise the child during the day. Where now a child is something that can get in the way of your career, because we need to care for them.
Wait are saying that that things like, elimination of the family wage, and increased workforce participation by married women might negatively affect society? I enthusiastically welcome jellomizer's conversion to paleo-conservationism but I am shocked!
Re: Voters! (Score:3)
It wasnt women entering the workforce that did it. It was the employers feeling less compelled to support families as a result that did. It isnt responsible, just related. The fault lies with the employers deciding to keep more money for themselves. The degradation of the family unit was only one of the first steps. Since then pensions vanished, wages stagnate during recessions without a later windfall, as well as a number of other greed related issues.
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Nope false -
The family wage went away with the civil rights act. Once employers had to pay an unmarried woman the same amount as man supporting a family for the same work that was that. There was no way they could afford to pay a family wage to all those employees who did not even have families or were not the primary bread winner so all wages went down.
Than families had to go dual income. Even women who did not really want to work outside the home were increasingly pressured to do so because of economic n
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obviously they could afford it. Thats why the 0.01% top earners on this planet make more than the remaining 99.99% combined. If your company employs 50 people, then you can afford to pay wages to those 50 people. If all 50 people happen to be married men with children in a single income house, they would have paid X amount. Just because that same seat got filled by someone else does not magically make what they can afford to pay go down. It has nothing to do with affordability. It has everything to do with
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But DarkOx makes a valid point: if ( (I'd like to see some data on this, however) employers were paying head of household male employees more than single male employees, then this may have served to support the single family lifestyle.
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the growing wealth divide shows they can afford to pay people more. Instead of the damn companies building ridiculous Archipelago monuments to themselves ( https://www.theverge.com/2021/... [theverge.com] ) as some modern desire to have their own Tyrell Corporation style building, it's possible to to pay employees significantly more. Ironically I am against simply raising minimum wage, as that will actually make the divide even more extreme. Historically when people were paid enough to be single income earners, the cult
Re: Voters! (Score:3)
You make it sound as if parents have a choice. The 2-income issue started in the late 70s but really started hitting full steam in the late 80s. Two things happened. Economic decline was being offset by a second income. Divorce was on the rise to where 50% of kids reported living in a split family that required dual incomes.
Now lets throw in some big recessions here. Every time there is a large recession wages stagnate. When the economy recovers there is no sudden wage hike as a backpay to your suffering.
Most of them want them open immediately (Score:2)
Re:Voters! (Score:5, Insightful)
You would think the politicians would be less vocal about reopening schools "NOW!" since they do so love the uneducated.
Maybe it implies that public school doesn't count as education. At least not in the areas of critical thinking.
What also amuses me is how these conservative guys want schools reopened immediately. But for decades they accused it of being "liberal indoctrination". Are they compromising? They're OK with a little liberal indoctrination as long as kids are at least taking classes in a traditional setting?
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What also amuses me is how these conservative guys want schools reopened immediately. But for decades they accused it of being "liberal indoctrination". Are they compromising? They're OK with a little liberal indoctrination as long as kids are at least taking classes in a traditional setting?
It is not common for conservatives to accuse their local public schools of liberal indoctrination. They may still complain about teacher unions and fight for "school choice", but liberal indoctrination is not a common complaint. That is usually reserved for post-secondary education. They have significant control over their local schools through school boards, local politicians, and the general funding model of local schools. These schools are more likely to be indoctrinating their children in a way they app
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It is not common for conservatives to accuse their local public schools of liberal indoctrination.
My bad. I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh every day for years, but it's been about 10-12 years since I last tuned in. I'm sure the narrative has changed in that time. It's a pity nobody seems to remember these talking points that were hammered on incessantly. Is it some sort of selective amnesia? who knows! At least "liberalism is a mental disorder" mantra has stuck with the dittoheads. I'd hate for them to completely abandon their cult-like gibberings.
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My bad. I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh every day for years, but it's been about 10-12 years since I last tuned in.
Don't get me wrong, there are conservatives who claim liberals are all part of a secret cabal eating babies every weekend. And unfortunately the majority of those who vote Republican right now seem to be closer to those views than they are to traditional conservatism. Just talking about any of this without falling into a No True Scotsman fallacy is difficult.
There are absolutely right wing individuals who claim all public schooling is a liberal scheme to corrupt the youth. My admittedly biased opinion is th
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Just talking about any of this without falling into a No True Scotsman fallacy is difficult.
It is possible to discuss what popular and influential figures say. If they can continue to retain support despite what they say, then it's fair that most of their viewers find it acceptable or maybe even agree with it.
There are absolutely right wing individuals who claim all public schooling is a liberal scheme to corrupt the youth. My admittedly biased opinion is this is not even a fringe part of our society anymore.
She used to be education secretary. These people aren't fringe, they're mainstream and still pull the strings in State and Federal policy. And people who hold these views have broad public support.
You will find very little rational though among those who have these viewpoints, so pointing out any hypocrisy is shooting fish in a barrel.
Just because something is easy doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
But traditional conservatism does have more rational platforms
Who? Now we're slipping closer
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well, the current leadership certainly has the energy, inspiration and cognitive abilities of a dead person....I mean 40 years of being a [say-whatever-gets-me-elected] career politician will do that to a person. Most of you morons championed this buffoon...if shoe fits...
Lets take a brief walk down memory lane.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men and women are created, by the, you know the, you know the thing." - Hair Sniffer 2020, botching up a quote from the Deceleration of Independence
"Trum
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You are missing the point. It's not about keeping people uneducated, it's about keeping them "correctly educated".
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hmmm, then I have a question (Score:2)
Why on Earth would all of those Democrat governors, in concert with the Democrat-aligned teachers' unions be doing it?
A related second question of course would be: Why was Trump fighting to get governors to re-open their schools and why have Republican governors re-opened schools?
Nice, deceptive, trolling (Score:2)
After the press again attacked Trump's supporters as being "poorly educated" (among other things), and after Trump won the 2016 Nevada primary, he made one of his usual long-winded and meandering clearly un-scripted statements which included this bit: “We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.” He clearly added that sentence about loving the poorly educated to needle the press and his opponents for their indirect dis
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Poor hit the hardest. (Score:2)
Re:Poor hit the hardest. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's capitalism at work. Companies are not going to invest in something that will barely pay back the investment. Why should they upgrade the internet infrastructure in poor neighbourhoods if people are only subscribing for the basic speeds and are often late in their payments?
The U.S.A. should put regulations in place to make Internet access a basic modern necessity like water and electricity, and force ISPs to offer minimum speeds with a price ceiling.
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The alternative is for cities that don't feel they're being served well or where outside companies don't want to invest is to create some kind
Re:Poor hit the hardest. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the government can give monopoly rights, they can take those rights away too.
Any other decision is just avoiding dealing directly with the problem.
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Most of the people in government know perfectly well that if they screw the people they gave monopoly rights to, that the next time they need some neat new service, noone would be willing to give it to them...and, contrary to popular belief in some circles, government can't just wave their hands and make something happen....
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Well they did wave their hands to make those monopolies happen, so...
And last time I checked, governments were made to better manage countries, not to suck up to corporations.
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Companies shouldn't have any kind of right to guaranteed business from a customer. Sure a cable franchising agreement
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Because, for the part, residential broadband was used for recreation (gaming, streaming, etc.). It was a luxury that required a bit of work where straight up cable TV providing a wide variety of entertainment with little work.
This has changed. It's now being used for work and school but playing catch-up will be extremely difficult for telecoms.
It's honestly a situation of "make do with what we have" until there's a massive infusion of cash.
Too busy working to notice.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been too busy getting my kids to school every single day to notice.
According to this article it looks like I'm doing something wrong by not noticing other people who are "poor" might be skipping classes and not changing my behavior to keep them from looking bad.
it's okay though they'll probably just fix it by putting more restrictions on hardworking people like us to make things "fair".
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it's okay though they'll probably just fix it by putting more restrictions on hardworking people like us to make things "fair".
What sort of restrictions are you thinking of?
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"It's a trap!" - Admiral Ackbar
Re: Too busy working to notice.... (Score:2)
Bait somebody else with your one-liner.
Re:Too busy working to notice.... (Score:4, Informative)
I know our daughter struggles with getting online for the whole zoom classroom thing. Remote learning basically turned classes into staff meetings, and it's worse because teachers aren't equipped (figuratively or literally) to run them. Microphone feedback, video problems, you name it. And any class that should involve something more than talk is a complete waste of her time (chemistry lab, art class, music class).
That doesn't mean she isn't doing the assignments or learning things, it just means the teacher and classes aren't much help. And yet "seat hours" is still the primary metric schools use for how much education they are providing. What a joke.
Re:Too busy working to notice.... (Score:5, Informative)
The real tragedy is that despite COVID schools still keep equating education with "butts in seats" time, and attendance with learning.
This has been our biggest struggle. We tried working with our school district to follow their curriculum at home but have limited screen time at school since our daughter fundamentally doesn't pay attention over Zoom. They flat out said if she misses Zoom classes she is absent and there will be disciplinary measures (they weren't that harsh in language, but when we pressed them on the consequences that was the central message). So our daughter now wastes hours sitting in classes while my wife and I try to make up for her lack of learning outside of business hours. We have contemplated home schooling, but we both manage large teams and the two days per week she is in school are vital to us keeping up at work.
The complete lack of flexibility and problem solving from our school district make this situation so much worse than it needs to be. And we live in the type of school district parents stretch their budgets to get into, so I cannot imagine how much harder it is in poorer school districts.
You can thank Federal funding guidelines for that (Score:2)
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Dude you need to chill on the Cable News Commentary. They are specially worded in a way to make you so Angry about the opposing side that you...
A. Keep watching Cable News, to be ready for the next outrageous thing that you should have to worry about.
B. Prevent you from watching the competition, because they are portrait as the other who is pushing all the things that make you angry.
C. Having a TV on its channel. Means you will be exposed to its Ads which it then shows to advertisers as a good reason to inv
Pandemic also has an impact on mental health (Score:3)
This is not surprising that more and more students are struggling with poor attendance as there is also a growing recognition that the pandemic and the resulting work-from-home and social isolation are having an increasing impact on the health and mental well-being of the most vulnerable.
Everyone in the same boat (Score:2)
Not everyone... (Score:2)
Students in local school districts are impacted more. Parochial, charter, and private schools are often open when the local public school is closed.
Yes, everyone... (Score:2)
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Not really. I have the desire and the resources to make sure my kids are not falling behind. Family values count right now. I'm giving my kids all of the advantages that I can. When the public school abdicated education to parents I had no choice but to do the right thing for my family.
Everyone in NOT the same boat (Score:2)
Many of the rich and powerful are getting their kids educated in-person in private schools or with paid professional in-person tutors. The elites keeping your kids out of school are making sure their kids will be FAR better educated than yours. This is how oligarchy works - the rich and powerful are making sure the next generation of their families will tower over yours in every way - and then eventually they'll use that power to make sure you cannot say anything about it.
California governor Gavin Newsom [politico.com] is
Not so much the poor, as the poorly motivated (Score:5, Interesting)
Just now I have spoken to a student twice about his missing work. At least he has put away his phone and is now blankly at a wall. There is no reason to believe that this, and the similarly motivated, student will become motivated when there is no accountability.
In fact, when we returned to school this student boasted of having not logged in once and blocking calls from the school and teachers. Another student returned his comment by saying, "ya, and you're now a year behind the rest of us."
Here is a large portion of the American education gap. We keep poorly motivated students in the same schools as all other students and let them pull down our average scores. Not only that, but we let them be the "cool kids" on campus, thus causing the loss of new and impressionable student ts looking for a subculture that will be easy to join.
There is no reason to expect these students, and those that they want to influence, to be motivated and fastidious in their studies as accountability is relaxed.
' Sorry to post as AC, but I think the reader can understand why I have.
Re:Not so much the poor, as the poorly motivated (Score:5, Insightful)
TL;DR "No child left behind" is ultimately a downward spiral where time and effort must be wasted on the idiots who will never learn to better themselves.
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You HAVE to be kidding.
You blame a president from more than a dozen years and 3 administrations ago for the wreckage of our school system resulting from paranoid neurotics cheerfully shutting down everything in morbid victim-fear of a contagious disease that is little more harmful than the average flu?
I guess not all Bush Derangement Syndrome was replace by TDS after all?
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"no child left behind," which was meant to counteract "my child first," doesn't have to mean "all kids slow." Not if it's done right. We can have a system where all kids can achieve their potential, without reducing the potential of the high acheivers. Of course there will be some impact to the high achievers, but that's like if we're crossing a bridge .. we can make sure everyone gets across .. but then it might mean that the fastest runners do have to go a little slow to help pull the ones who couldn't ge
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Don't be too quick to write-off these kids. Many of them have the potential for great success if given the right environment (and this includes school, home, neighborhood, etc.). I have several friends who were as you describe in school, but have now found success later in life because the schools, their parents, and their friends didn't give up on them.
I'm not (Score:2)
I'm not saying OP doesn't have it rough. I'm hoping they're speaking from burnout rather than sincere belief. The solution to education is not to just toss aside anyone who's not sufficiently motivated to learn as OP is implying (whether they know or
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One of which has a doctorate in the subject.
Ah the piled higher and deeper kind. Pedagogy is probably the prime example of an academic fields that is without scientific rigor and hung up entirely on its own strictures with virtually no evidence to back its cannon.
You seem to have put you job off onto that boy. (Score:2)
I'm not a professional educator, so I'm not going to pretend I know exactly what you need to do to motivate those boys further. You might start with figuring out why they're not motivated though. They clearly don't see the point of doing well in sch
How many are undocumented? (Score:2)
"About 3.9 million kindergarten through 12th-grade students in U.S. public and private schools in 2014 – or 7.3% of the total – were children of unauthorized immigrants, according to new Pew Research Center estimates based on government data."
https://www.pewresearch.org/fa... [pewresearch.org]
7% of the total student population isn't a trivial amount. I wonder how many undocumented children comprise the "missing" 2.3%.
Illegal immigrants are already a pretty transient population, moving from state to state, taking
The real problem? Unions (Score:2, Insightful)
There. I said it.
The real problem here are the teachers unions. Science-based medical and health professionals around THE WORLD are saying schools are safe, are needed, and that the best place for kids to be is in school. And yet in the US the largest teachers unions are fighting with every ounce of energy they have AGAINST reopening schools.
Suddenly the same people who early on screamed "but but SCIENCE" are now giving science the middle finger, because they simply don't want to go back to work and yet con
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Here is a good article. School is safe with social distancing, masks. Hmm, my sons High School when in full session is crowded. How about in your area?
https://www.mayoclinic.org/dis... [mayoclinic.org]
Seems to be related to social distancing.
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The social distancing requirements can not be met due to the physical size of the facilities. It simply can not be done. Instead, we are stricter in regard to seating assignments so that we can at least know who may have potentially been exposed.
As far as masks, there is no way to get the students to wear them properly. The only tool we, as teachers, have is the force of personality and grumpiness.
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That is my point to the original poster. Sending the kids to school, all of them, will cause an outbreak. Social distancing in schools at capacity is not possible, my son's school does a split schedule, but we are aware that he/us will still probably be exposed.
And yes, not wearing a mask properly is probably a "cool" thing.
I see college students doing as such in the gyms. Nice to think of everyone else guys.
Just thought I'd bring a little "expert (Mayo)" note to the con
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It is working great here in Lincoln, Neb. Elementary and middle school are 100 percent in-person unless a parent chooses to have their child go remote. High schools are on a split schedule, half are remote half the days and in person the other half.
There have been NO outbreaks in our schools. It has gone extremely well. Yes, masks are required of course and other adjustments were made but both my first grader and my 10th grader are handling it very well.
And in speaking with my next door neighbors, both of w
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Social distancing is rather difficult when a teacher is tasked with educating 30-40 students at a time. A school doesn't have many rooms that can keep 30 kids 6 feet apart. And then (for middle and high school) there's passing period where students share crowded halls to get between classes. And then there's... you know... youth. A lot of us are already barely keeping it together with the greatly reduced physical and social interaction. The kids are suffering worse.
Do we really expect them to stay 6 feet ap
Schools are safe because we close them (Score:2)
Furthermore they barely let the kids interact. This is necessary because they're doing full blown contact tracing. Remember, I said "If one kid tests positive then the entire class is quarantined along with anyone who came in contact with anyone from that class.". If they were
Re:The real problem? Unions (Score:5, Insightful)
"Science-based medical and health professionals around THE WORLD are saying schools are safe..."
They're not, though. They're saying schools are safe under specific conditions which most schools cannot meet. There's nothing magical about a school building that makes it more safe than an office building. There's nothing about kids that make them less likely contract and pass on the COVID-19... they're just less likely to have serious symptoms.
People are pushing incomplete narratives about the scientific safety of restarting in-person instruction because the economies are about to crumble and people need somewhere to put their kids while they go to work and risk getting COVID themselves.
Of course, we wouldn't be approaching a YEAR of lockdown in some places if people would have just stayed home and worn their damn masks as requested in the first place. This whole thing is dragging out and making resuming normal life even more difficult to re-initiate because the coronavirus has now spent enough time in the population to evolve even more virulent variants.
Re: (Score:2)
They go to work, wear their masks, and stay physically distant. Their customers only show up in person if absolutely necessary and do so wearing masks and being physically distant.
Very simple. Not complicated. But also, ignored.
FYI (Score:2)
There's a huge difference between private and public unions.
A union in the private sector is an opposing force across the table from management, One side wants more wages and better conditions and less work, the other side wants lower wages, more work, etc and over a negotiating table some compromise is arrived at somewhere in the middle.
A union in the public sector is a very different beast. Public sector unions fund candidates in elections, perform get-out-the-vote work for those political candidates, "vo
public school failing (Score:5, Interesting)
The public schools where I live are pretty much failing. Put my kids in private school for a couple of years so they can still get an education. Not letting incompetent administrators and teachers unions decide that my children's education is not important right now.
Re: (Score:2)
The public schools where I live are pretty much failing.
The entire public school system has been failing since shortly after it was first instituted, with its obsolescence having become painfully apparent with Internet penetration (where a great education can be had for those motivated enough).
Through the 6th grade, my scores were nearly perfect. From 7th through 12th grade, my scores were the minimum necessary to graduate. The biggest difference was that after the 6th grade, the public school cirriculum took a huge turn for the worse. It went from stuff I neede
They are a relic of the industial era (Score:2)
When the USA was founded, the government had essentially no role in education. As with everything else involving kids, the parents were responsible for it (and of course it was less of a burden because there were few regulations and almost no taxes). Of course, at that time there was little industrial production - most goods were made by craftsmen and they passed those skills (and careers) on through internships and apprenticeships.
With the industrial revolution, industry needed lots of workers who were, es
Fewer doing school? (Score:2)
So, is the problem is that the kids aren't going to school?
I would think that the problem might be that kids aren't learning. Which is NOT the same as "not going to school".
Note that "not learning" is bad, but "learning" is good, whether done in school or out of it.
Of course, the Teachers' Unions might disagree about priorities....
Auto-Promotion (Score:2)
Look at results not words (Score:2)
Withhold Taxpayer Dollars From Shutdown Schools? (Score:2)
Can't do that since the teacher's union owns the democrat party.
https://www.dailywire.com/news... [dailywire.com]
OF COURSE fewer students are engaged... (Score:3)
Most kids don't want to go to school. Most kids don't want to learn math. Most kids don't want to learn to read let along read books.
Most kids want to just have fun... with other kids if at all possible. We use that desire for social interaction along with legal mandates to force kids to learn things that will be useful for them and the greater society in the future.
This is the reality that many people like to ignore when they say, "We should just let kids learn how they want to learn" or "I would have done well with just remote learning."
This is why engaging teachers are remembered and treasured and boring ones are derided.
So we should not be surprised when many kids start to simply... drop out amidst a year of remote learning for which no one was prepared. Ya, some teachers already had their own quality broadband access and laptops. Some had Vlogging experience. But, for the most part, this has been new to everyone.
So what do we do about it? It's quite simple:
1. Stay home (except for essential outings like work, grocery shopping, exercise, etc.), wear your damn mask when you leave the house, and limit your interaction with other people to absolute necessity.
2. Quit bitching about #1. The resistance to #1 is why we're still in this shit.
3. Plan for intensive remediation for a massive proportion of the student population. Some student may need to be held back. It will suck, but we would be doing the students an incredible disfavor if we don't go back and fill the gaps. Social promotion is not a solution-- it's a cop out.
It's going to hard because, again, people couldn't figure out #1. Oh, well. This is what happens when we decide that the quick solution (#1) doesn't fit our egotistical preferences.
Anecdote (Score:2)
In January my 16 year old daughter withdrew from her magnet school sophomore year to homeschool, immediately took her GED*, and has applied to start college in the summer term.
Without the social and extracurricular benefits of physical presence high school there was no reason to delay. She's getting two and a half years of her life back.
* Nevada does not require residency and allows remote testing.
Is there an alternate link without paywall? (Score:2)
Re:And you're surprised because? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Hold up. Do you have a name for this group of individuals? Doctors? Researchers? Epidemiologists? Are they to be blamed for creating "the blighted communities that are now suffering the most"?
Or are you saying that political liberals (who acknowledge the truth of science and thus) have promoted lockdowns AND are to blame for blighted communities? Because last I checked, American liberals are the ones who push improving the lives of the poor.
Re: (Score:2)
Please name just a couple of these areas. I'd like to look into this mystery's groups unfettered multi-decade control of these areas. Especially if they're accountable to no one-- not the police, courts, or voters.
Just in case you're legitimately asking... (Score:2)
Here's a brief link [investors.com] to start you on your quest for knowledge. Yeah, I know, it's from IBD and aimed at investors, but remember that does not make it "right wing" given that many of the richest in America are Democrats (Buffet, Bezos, Gates, etc).
Milwaukee has had Democrat mayors since 1908
Newark has had Democrat mayors since 1933
St. Louis has had Democrat mayors since 1949
Detroit has had Democrat mayors since 1961
Baltimore has had Democratic mayor since 1967
Oakland has had Democrat mayors since 1977
Clevelan
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Awww, orange fan sad and deluded, so out of touch with reality, his BDS is driving him crazy. Your tears are delicious.