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Education

Virtual Classes Are Now Permanent Offerings at Some US Schools (wsj.com) 60

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Districts in Texas, California and New York are creating full-time remote learning this fall for the first time. From a report: Fourth-graders at the iLearn Virtual School in Dallas began class Thursday morning with an icebreaker. Their teacher Sumala Paidi asked them, "What superpower would you choose for yourself, if you could pick any?" The dozen children in the class responded with wishes for super speed or the ability to fly. One girl chose invisibility, so she could "take a cake, and eat it all myself." It could be a scene from a school classroom anywhere in the U.S. Except these students, unlike nearly every student learning at this juncture of the pandemic, were piping in via Zoom, and Ms. Paidi was teaching them from a remote office, with a camera and laptop. School districts in Texas, New York and California are creating permanent, full-time virtual schools for the first time ever this year, in a nationwide movement that has gained steam since the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 prompted schools to back and forth between in-person and remote learning.

A 2021 survey of 291 U.S. school districts by Rand found a surge in the number that offered virtual schools for students after the height of the pandemic. Roughly 26% of the 291 districts were offering remote lessons as a full-time option last year, compared with 3% before the pandemic, according to the Santa Monica, Calif., research organization. Superintendents say virtual schools are a niche product meant to enroll a minority of students for whom remote classes make more sense than going to school. Less than 6% of students chose virtual classes among the districts that had them in 2021, according to Rand. The virtual option might be appropriate for about 4% of students in Dallas, according to a study commissioned by officials there last year. The city's iLearn Academy, which opened Aug. 15 with the start of classes, enrolls about 120 students in grades three through eight. The iLearn Virtual School is a fit for students who might experience social anxiety or whose families might be moving, said principal Monica Morris. Classes of roughly 20 students meet via Zoom at 8:30 a.m. and participate in live and prerecorded lessons until 2:30 p.m. each school day, Ms. Morris said, in a schedule that mirrors that of a typical in-person school.
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Virtual Classes Are Now Permanent Offerings at Some US Schools More

Virtual Classes Are Now Permanent Offerings at Some US Schools

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  • Virtual classes (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Monday August 29, 2022 @11:44AM (#62833009)

    ...will get you a virtual job.
    You never have to leave the house.
    Welcome to Solaria, just the robots still suck.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      ... will also get you a life-long prescription for anti-depressants because you will fail to develop natural means of regulating your mood during puberty.

      • And thanks to global warming we won't be able to harvest pearls to clutch.

        • If that becomes a problem, we'll learn how to farm them in huge aquariums, not just for pearls, but for food, along with other endangered of yummy molluscs. And that brings up another question: does anybody know how ocean acidification is affecting shellfish?

          • Coastal area near me is known for farmed and wild oysters and farmed clams... the big issues are high water temps and red tide (bacterial bloom, nasty stuff)

      • ... will also get you a life-long prescription for anti-depressants because you will fail to develop natural means of regulating your mood during puberty.

        A semi-permanent revenue stream created by physical and psychological addiction?

        I'm sorry, what exactly is the "problem" here? I don't see any at all.

        - Big Pharma

      • "... will also get you a life-long prescription for anti-depressants because you will fail to develop natural means of regulating your mood during puberty."

        These are woke students, single kids from older parents.

        They have warnings on the old testament that it contains genocide, slavery, murder and ritual killings, so that the little darlings don't get excited.

    • My daughter is a college professor, she is bummed that she has one class that meets on campus, the rest are virtual. She got spoiled during Covid, she wishes they were all virtual. My son manages a law office, he works from home most days. Home is wherever his phone is.
  • Virtual classes fail to socialize children - ability to get along with other people as part of society - and will result in anxious shut-in adults.
    • Fuck it. Maybe work will be better
      No one cares if you are good, they care if you have kissed there ass enough.
      Skills and values mean nothing.

    • All things in moderation. Remote learning should gradually increase in percent as the student gets older, because the average future office will probably be partially remote, and students need to get used to it.

      Office space is expensive* and commutes waste time and fuel and green air. There will be "collaboration days" with physical meetings, and "get work done" days remote.

      * It's relatively cheap now because offices were over-built. Excess will be burned off and prices will rise again.

      • ^^^ We need more walkable neighborhoods and transit (preferably powered by electricity generated using clean nuclear power), not more exurban development shitpits where people sit isolated in their homes. SAVE OUR CITIES! SAVE OUR TRAINS!

        • Why? These trains seem worth saving to you?

          https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]

          • The trains were being taken over by the homeless due to lack of use and shelters being closed during COVID. I can't speak to BART, but I for one love the NYC subway and find riding it to be relaxing. I hope that I never have to live somewhere bereft of trains.
          • See that's the real problem with homeless people. them having places that they try to go to survive. We shouldn't focus on say the systematic issues that may be causing people to become homeless. Or even focus on actually trying to add enough shelters to handle the amount of homeless there are. The solution is making sure that all train stations, Parks, bridges etc... are gone or as inhospitable as possible. Because that's the real root of homelessness, is that it's too comfortable and easy to be homeless,

            • Because that's the real root of homelessness, is that it's too comfortable and easy to be homeless, that's why homeless people are recognizable by their trademark huge smiles.

              Indeed. See San Francisco for an extreme example. There's a reason why the rest of the nation's drug bums head to SF, and it's not just because other cities give them bus tickets.

              Not everyone wants help. Many don't. You see them on the streets gladly living in a dug-fueled squalor.

      • ^^^ Translation: pig-bosses in will cheap the hell out in the future and pawn office costs off onto their employees. Their employees will be stuck in their shitty little boxes of ticky-tacky in some exurban rathole with no community, isolated from everyone except a family that likely annoys them. Yay for a dystopian future.
    • School obviously isn't the only place to socialize with others. There's sports clubs, musical groups, scouting, hobbies, etc. In fact, the most efficient and effective learning is 1-on-1 learning with an expert; but that is really expensive, which is why the classroom model was developed. Social skills can also be taught.

  • ... to raising a generation that's anxious, isolated, and poorly socialized. Yeah, parents can make "pods", but the pods will probably be composed of people in their own socioeconomic stratum. Bully for a more stratified society.

    If anything, in-person public school should be mandatory; private schools, religious schools, and homeschooling should be severely restricted if not banned outright.

  • Sooner or later, the austerians will realize that homestuck education (even with buying students a $100 Chromebook) is cheaper than maintaining a building, hiring teachers with a proper student:teacher ratio, and running extracurricular activities. In-person education will become a privilege for the wealthy or well-connected.

    Isaac Asimov predicted this in "The Fun They Had..." in 1951:

    http://web1.nbed.nb.ca/sites/A... [nbed.nb.ca]

    • In-person education will become a privilege for the wealthy or well-connected

      They're called charter schools and are being pushed heavily by Republicans.
      • For now, public schools are also mostly in person, so the choice isn't between in-person and online. But yeah, grouchers also a problem. We should improve public education, not steal money away from it.

        • We should improve public education, not steal money away from it.

          I submit that it's a bit more nuanced than this. Suppose, for example, that it costs School 1 $10,000/student/year to educate that student. If, instead, that student is going to School 2, then School 1 isn't incurring the expense of educating that student.

          I don't think it's unreasonable for a parent to prefer that at least some of the money go to School 2, and I submit that it's no more stealing money away from School 1 when that school isn't responsible for educating the student, any more than it is steali

          • School 2 should at least be another public school, ideally within walking/biking distance for environmental reasons.

            • School 2 should at least be another public school, ideally within walking/biking distance for environmental reasons.

              It seems it's nearly impossible to have a rational conversation on this topic. Odds are good that the school within walking/biking distance is School 1, the taxpayer funded school that the parents would prefer their children didn't attend for whatever reason.

              There's a case you are making here that's vaguely decent, and that's the idea of giving parents the ability to send kids to schools in adjacent districts if they'd like. However, this fails to avoid the "stealing money away" problem, it just shifts it a

          • Okay, private schools can have public money with some conditions:

            -They have to provide the same level of services to all students (private schools generally do not take students with severe disabilities because they are too expensive to educate for private schools).

            -They must be free for anyone who wants in.

            -They must be subject to the same oversight as public schools.

  • But exams ought to be at authorized test centers or with an in-home proctor (for disabled).

    • School is more than classes. Kids should interact with others of their age (not just family) from different socioeconomic strata in school. If anything, make the exams at home, but make the actual teaching in person.

      • Uh, that is very important but can be done in the playground, meetups, and neighborhoods. Who says school is.the optimal setting for that. I would say some of my best friends I met in my neighborhood, not school. We could have required group activities or something like that. Exams at home is dumb because one of the criteria to graduate or go to a top college is exam performance. We should not enable a huge gap between cheaters and non-cheaters.

        • Public school is forced interaction between socioeconomic strata. Without that kind of forced interaction, parents will likely limit whom their kids can interact with. Public school being a melting pot is a feature, not a bug.

          • Or really? https://scholar.harvard.edu/jl... [harvard.edu] Also, you don't think that leads to clique formation, bullying, and even more tribalism? In spite of public schools, socioeconomic stratification is getting worse. With virtual classes, even a poor kid living in the inner city could have access to the world's best teaching.

            • Solution is forced integration, redraw district lines under state guidance, and ban private education. Also allow gifted HS juniors and seniors to attend public uni classes in person.

              • Wait, what? Pretty sure you'd have to murder a lot of people to be able to do forced "education" and social experimentation. Also, banning of private schools has not worked anywhere. Aside from the fact that it is both evil and immoral, you know that some countries have tried that and it hasn't worked. Private schools save the government tens of billions of dollars that can go into public education instead. What happened in countries that have banned private education is that the kids of politicians and ric

                • Finland murdered a lot of people in order to enforce public education? Are you high?

                  • Huh? When did i say that? Do you have problems with reading comprehension?

                    • I don't get how you jumped from enforcing public education to mass death. How does one cause the other?

                    • You weren't talking about "enforcing public education." First, the USA is not Finland .. there are many cultural differences. Plus, Finland never took away the right to education at private schools; which is what you are talking about. Second, you were talking about taking away the right of people to choose any aspects of their kids education --such as who teaches them and where they learn. If you take that right away from people .. you will need the military and cops you defunded to enforce it. There are m

                    • You mentioned Finland before I did. Are you really arguing for the right of bigoted parents to send their kids to private schools to avoid them being around people of the wrong shade of skin color?

                    • Are you really arguing for the right of bigoted parents to send their kids to private schools to avoid them being around people of the wrong shade of skin color?

                      Parents want the right to choose who their kids can be around, and how. Yes. And many would die to protect that right. Do you think YOU somehow have the right to decide those things? If a parent wants to teach their kid that it is OK to eat meat. That's their right. There are certain rights that a parent has, that are inviolable regardless of society's beliefs and needs. You don't get to decide what somebody else teaches their own kid. If a parent wants his kid to go to a school that has extra math focus th

                    • Raising one's kid to be a racist is child abuse. Parents don't have the right to abuse their children. DYFS should get involved.

                    • So is raising them to eat meat. Get DYFS on that too.

                    • You think the only reason to put a kid in private school is to make them racist? There are many reasons, besides racism to want your kid to go to private school. I bet most racists went to public school. If private school is racist how do you explain the fact that every race puts their kids in private school? Heck Obama went to private school in Hawaii. Oh wait, you didn't know that there are black kids in private school? You are a racist to think black people don't want to go to private school. By the way,

              • Do you want your kid to ride a bus 1 hour each way? Do you want to have to drive 30-40 minutes for every school activity, after school event, parties, concerts, etc.? No, of course not. The solution has to be desegregating neighborhoods, but that's really hard.
                • There should be government standards for a certain number of schools per radius containing a certain population. Something like one high school for 20,000 people, two middle schools, five grade schools. Don't have money to build them? Take the money from military, cop, or jail funding. The money is there, just not the will. Americans would much rather waste money on killing people or putting them in cages than educating them.
          • U.S. Schools remain highly segregated, unfortunately: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14... [npr.org]

  • WTF (Score:3)

    by NagrothAgain ( 4130865 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @12:16PM (#62833139)
    What the pandemic showed us is that especially for primary and secondary education, remote learning is an abject failure. Even for classes which might easily transition to remote instruction, the Education system is still completely unprepared and has yet to develop any sort of Effective curriculum or strategy. And that's completely ignoring issues such as technology divides, socialization, or how to get an Art classroom or Chemistry lab into the hands of students.
    • It's not a question of preparation. It's that humans have generally evolved to interact best in person. Outside of an emergency, why fight it?

    • What the pandemic showed us is how primitive our schools are, hanging on to outdated and ineffective methods because, "that's how we've always done it, and we don't know any better." The experience failed because the whole public education system has never progressed beyond the 19th century.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        What the pandemic showed us is how primitive our schools are, hanging on to outdated and ineffective methods because, "that's how we've always done it, and we don't know any better." The experience failed because the whole public education system has never progressed beyond the 19th century.

        If that were true then the job applicants I see would be able to handle complicated mathematics like addition and division. The 19th century was miles ahead of us in terms of education as far as I can see in everything except reach.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bejai ( 1803600 )
      I have taught on zoom. Even with highly-motivated, well-prepared college students who wanted to be there, leading discussion sessions was hard. Keeping the conversation moving took so much more energy than in the classroom, and those great "aha!" moments, when things click for all the students together and the conversation takes off, just never seemed to happen. Those are the moments when the most learning happens the fastest. Yea, we got through the material, but the joy was gone...and so was a good chunk
      • Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! Humans evolved to interact in person ... interacting in a group over Zoom is like making love with a Hefty garbage bag over the relevant organs. It may work, but it's far from pleasant or natural.

    • What the pandemic also showed us is that sending kids to school during a pandemic so that half of the class is absent at any given time is also an abject failure.

  • Great for Some (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dostert ( 761476 ) on Monday August 29, 2022 @01:18PM (#62833425)
    Much like anything in education, it's useful for some and not so much for others. I taught in a virtual engineering program whose intent was to give strong STEM students access to classes that their school couldn't offer. It was staffed by teachers who were typically far more knowledgeable than a typical high school teacher and the students earned between 40 and 50 college credits (picture Calc I/II/Linear Algebra, Python, C++, SolidWorks, etc). Some students were all virtual while some went to school, took some classes there (stuff like art and foreign language), then logged in with us for part of the day. We had a robust Discord channel where students could ask questions or just sit around an bullshit. It was full of different interactions and nobody got away with being an anxious shut-in. This CAN work with the right faculty, students, and staff.
    • Sitting on Discord and BS'ing is sort of being an obnoxious shut-in, unless combined with in-person interaction.
  • There are children with ADHD or just who are very active and need to run around every 2 hours or so, or they won't learn properly. Some of those kids have good parents able to stay at home. But some of them don't. And of the disruptive children who will now be permitted or even required to stay at home, I wonder what percentage had poor parenting as the primary cause of that, who will now not even have teachers for positive role models and listeners and huggers and the other things kids need. Those children

  • Without exposing as many young children to the horrors of public elementary and middle schools a whole lot of therapists are going to be out of work!

  • Hands up, who started to read the title and thought this was about C++ or some other programming language?

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