American children need public schools to reopen in the fall. Reading, writing and arithmetic are not even the half of it. Kids need to learn to compete and to cooperate. They need food and friendships; books and basketball courts; time away from family and a safe place to spend it. Parents need public schools, too. They need help raising their children, and they need to work.We've got to get the kids away from their parents. Who knows what decline is setting in as parents dominate the lives of "their" children (our children!)?
In Britain, the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health has warned that leaving schools closed “risks scarring the life chances of a generation of young people.” The organization’s American counterpart, the American Academy of Pediatrics, has urged administrators to begin from “a goal of having students physically present in school.”...Everything's a risk. It also risks making the children better. Wouldn't that be a kick in the head? But we can't do an experiment on a whole generation, suddenly homeschooling them all. What if we found out the kids did better? What if day-long incarceration in school buildings and the schoolteacher-administered compulsory education isn't the best way for the young human being to live? Quick! Get them back in before anyone finds out!
Most of the linked editorial is about all the money that must flow to local school districts. Also, President Trump should wear a mask. And...
He could work to get money to schools. Instead, Mr. Trump has sent tweets, demanding in ALL CAPS that schools reopen — and threatening to cut off existing federal funding.But "money alone is not enough." The school buildings aren't large enough to put enough distance between the students. (They're assuming the kids will stay in the distanced spaces in which they are put.) So the editors promote the idea of doing classes outdoors — in the playground and "give serious consideration to closing streets around schools and hold[] classes there." But what about bathrooms? And what if it rains?
The limits of virtual classrooms were on painful display this spring. While some students thrived, or at least continued to learn, others faded away. Boston reported that roughly 20 percent of enrolled students never logged in. In Los Angeles, one-third of high school students failed to participate. In Washington, D.C., the school system simply gave up and ended the school year three weeks early. Evidence suggests schools particularly struggled to reach lower-income kids, exacerbating performance gaps....This is the worst of it. The students with the best home life might do even better with school out of the picture and the parents left to figure out how to educate and feed and support beneficial play for their children. The children with the worst home life are worse off than ever.
The NYT editors end by knocking Trump for asking "the C.D.C. to relax its public health guidelines for safely reopening schools." But if you want to open the schools, what's the alternative? Here's the answer the editors crafted: "Take the measure of the best available science, implement the necessary safety measures and maximize the amount of time that children can spend in classrooms." I don't know how that gets you anywhere different from what the President said to do. It seems like the editors and Trump are all saying: Let's do the best we can but the kids need to go back to school.
Posts
126 comments:
" In Los Angeles, one-third of high school students failed to participate."
Is that any different from the usual share? How many graduate? How many can read ?
The children with the worst home life are worse off than ever.
It would seem there's a rock bottom. For some students I'm not sure no school is it...
...and the best 'science' confirms young people don't get sick from corona. Damn near zero in the stats, and those deaths were likely incorrectly attributed to covid...
This is the worst of it. The students with the best home life might do even better with school out of the picture and the parents left to figure out how to educate and feed and support beneficial play for their children. The children with the worst home life are worse off than ever.
This is indeed the worst of it. The loudest people in this epidemic have been the middle class people. Stay home! All you have to do is sit on the couch! Homeschooling and working parents are heroes! Teachers rock because they threw this all together!
But as Rand Paul has been saying, that isn't everyone's experience. Democrats usually care a lot about children getting fed at school, getting baby sat at school. They are the ones that push for year round schooling and after school clubs and meals at schools and no vouchers so the poor students won't be left behind. And suddenly poof! Those cares have gone away. Why? Is it acceptable to just let children stay home and lose a year of school? Because that's what's going to happen with I'd guess 1/3 of the students.
Early on Pants on here pointed out to the Just Stay Home! people that some people are in terrible situations at home. And we are still hearing so little about them. We still aren't hearing about them.
The governors need to come up with a way -they can work with Trump- for all of us to live with this thing. If it isn't going away, we have to figure out how to live with it.
Open universities and tell students not to go home, or have COVID tests available if they have to go home.
Open schools and take temperatures and have kids wash their hands.
But no, the governors see Trumps poll numbers going down because he wants us to open up, and Whitmer and Cuomo's numbers remain high because a lot of people died in their states so they can claim they are "keeping us safe". I think my second employer is on the verge of closing for good. No idea when we'll be allowed to open and we are losing members.
I am so glad to see the NYT write this. This should be something Democrats care about a lot.
"But we can't do an experiment on a whole generation, suddenly homeschooling them all. What if we found out the kids did better?" [AA]
That is the crux of it. Most parents do not want, and cannot commit the time, to homeschool. But look at the low quality of education the public school system has produced for TWO generations now. An uneducated republic is not a good candidate to be a lasting republic.
We have got to change the school system. Here's an opportunity. I would love to read of some alternatives to the massive mediocrity we permit now.
The most evil hypothesis is nyt and educators are worried they'll lose control of the political indoctrination of a generation of kids and it will be all over for them.
Homeschool isn’t a realistic option for most families and most families that homeschool associate with other families that homeschool, so there is still socialization and some group activities. Pure homeschooling—your kids, your house, you teach everything—is an extraordinary and extraordinarily rare thing that few will be up to performing adequately.
Not much thought went into the shutdown—China did it, so everybody else did it. Is China really the example we all want to follow? We need a new model that takes into account the knowledge we have gained over the last 6 months and reflects our current situation. It’s past time to just shout “science!” to enforce the same old same old. We need to open the schools and find another way to protect the old and vulnerable.
To do otherwise is selfish, lazy, and shortsighted.
The students with the best home life might do even better with school out of the picture and the parents left to figure out how to educate and feed and support beneficial play for their children. The children with the worst home life are worse off than ever.
The opportunity cost is always higher for those with the greatest ability to take advantage of those opportunities. The actual measurement and study of this phenomenon, complete with verified data to support a controlled long term study of outcomes of self-directed vs. state-directed schooling will never be allowed to happen.
It's about as likely as a Biden-Trump debate, in my mind.
Reading the mush conclusion put out so-called editors of the old gray lady- All I can say is she blinded me with science!
I don't know how that gets you anywhere different from what the President said to do.
New Althouse tag: plagiarizing Trump.
Obvious solution: The Children™ can be Educated by BLM activists yelling at them in shopping center parking lots.
Spent the day yesterday with the Grandkids at the Beach. Swimming, running, beachcombing... gramps can still keep up.
The HS age GD explained they have three options, all of them include basically 1/2-time at school to keep distance. The other half in remote learning mode. Masks of course are required. I didn't ask about bathrooms.
Have no idea what's in store for the elementary school boys. Didn't want to harsh their beach day talking about school.
The corona is inconvenient, but at least in my sample of three, it's kinda nothingburger for kids. No angst, no problem wearing masks. It's you adults who have you're panties in a twist.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
Every February, not just this year, we have a spike in people getting the seasonal flu. It's transmitted the same way covid-19 is. Unlike covid-19, thousands of children get the seasonal flu, and too many of them die. They are spreaders of seasonal flu, and they infect their teachers, their parents, and their grandparents. In spite of available vaccines, many old people die from seasonal flu every year. Whatever plans schools have in place and use for dealing with the seasonal flu every single year is what they should do for covid-19.
"Whatever plans schools have in place and use for dealing with the seasonal flu every single year is what they should do for covid-19."
More likely that the Covid regime of shutdown will be deployed to deal with seasonal flu.
If we are going to experiment, which is what everyone is talking about because we don't know enough yet about Covid, the impact of no school, etc., then let's just go back to full time, full attendance school and see what happens. The alternatives are at least as risky.
Nah, as usual, it's the minorities they're worried about. A bunch never checked in. Or had a hard time with Zoom or Google Classroom.
If they didn't have internet they got packets with their assignments. But you have to pick them up. or do them if they're dropped off.
But a lot never even tried. The ones who don't try in class, either, but at least they're off the streets for awhile.
So Howard also agrees with Trump.
Anyway, schools in Spain are generally on holiday as the school year is very similar to that of the US. Day care centers have been open, generally, since late June-July 1. At this time schools of all sorts are expected to be open in the fall, as usual.
I will ask about France. Going back to Bilbao this Sunday.
If one read any conservative leaning comments sections pre Covid, one would have read that homeschooling was far superior to brick and mortar schools. Now that Trump demands that children go back to schools, the homeschooling is best crowd sound decidedly different. Now we hear how children must go back to school because Homeschooling isn’t the cats meow after all. Interesting but not surprising. If Trump says a thing, his followers nod and follow, mostly.
As far as liberals are concerned I’ve heard two distinct groups, those who want children to go back to a physical school building and those who are horrified at the idea of it, as the children will bring home Covid and infect teachers. Then there are the people who are torn by seeing how their kids miss school, miss their friends, are sick of being at home with their families 24/7. Also children with special needs are missing the in-school classes and socialization. Some parents are now being required to return to work and aren’t being allowed to work from home anymore and need the childcare. And then there are the parents who are so busy working from home that they can’t be full time teachers to their children too.
I think that kids will bring home Covid, but maybe not in the numbers that people fear. In Israel schools opened and then had to close again quickly because of rising Covid infections. In other countries, it’s been reported that there is minimal spread of Covid from school children to parents or teachers. While Covid is spiking the way it is now in southern and western states, I wonder if it's a good idea to send kids back to school full time. It’s all an experiment because the truth is we just don’t know what will happen. Trump certainly doesn’t know what is best and doing anything because he recommends it is foolish. However he may be right in saying children need to be in school, but he wants that to happen because he wants the economy to go back to pre Covid as quickly as possible, because he depends on a good economy to reflect well on him, especially now so close to the election. I doubt he cares what is best for children, his concern is what is best for him.
it's not up to donald, nor the times. it's a state call.
Most districts in Wisconsin run desperately short on subs during cold and flu season, regularly being short staffed.
If teachers are out a few days until COVID tests get back, a lot of this in person teaching will be by subs this year. Not sure students are better served.
Best of all, those kindergarteners who cry when their parents leave will be 'comforted' by someone 6 feet away and behind a mask. I am sure their emotional needs will be well served by that.
We bailed out on local district. Found a well established virtual school (public charter) and enrolled our son.
My district is proposing a hybrid. They propose dividing the students into two groups. On Monday and Tuesday, Group A would be in the classroom and group B would be online. Wed everyone would stay home, school would be online, and the janitors would deep clean the classrooms. On Thursday and Friday, group B would be in the classroom, and group A would attend online. Most of the teachers hate the idea, and are demanding that the schools open completely online instead. The first day of school is supposed to be Aug 7 and nothing has been decided yet.
Two thoughts:
First, I was a college student during the 1968 Hong Kong flu. No shutdowns, not a single missed class, no social distancing, no masks. I can barely remember it. 160,000 people died in the U.S. on a population adjusted basis. Would fewer people have died if we followed the current script? Don't know. Would it have been worth it? I doubt it.
Second, test scores for students in Puerto Rico have still not recovered from shutdowns due to Hurricane Maria two years ago. Some researchers believe they never will, especially for older students. Do you think students in Philadelphia or Chicago will fare any better?
Schools need to open now. Without dumb restrictions.
Michael K beat everyone to the truth.
Without the classroom disruptors, the rest are thriving.
These missing kids are the ones who end up in the vice principles office who the sjw don't want disciplined.
How are sjw going to complain about the disparity in discipline when there's no need for discipline?
The corona is inconvenient, but at least in my sample of three, it's kinda nothingburger for kids. No angst, no problem wearing masks. It's you adults who have you're panties in a twist.
We finally agree on something but you seem to forget which party is full of hysterics.
My school went to online education after Mar 13. In my experience less than 20% of the students contacted me, or made any effort to do the online work. Now this was partly because the district announced that your grade could not go lower than what it was on March 13, only higher. So the kids who were passing just started summer early.
In general, there was an overreaction to the virus, with an underreaction in some specific areas (i.e. nursing homes), combined with obvious lies/pandering to the left, which has led to a complete lack of trust in the government/experts
Early on Pants on here pointed out to the Just Stay Home! people that some people are in terrible situations at home. And we are still hearing so little about them. We still aren't hearing about them.
Hey, don't be so be so quick to end the teachers' vacations ! The biggest opposition to kids going back to school is coming from teachers' unions. "When children pay union dues, I will care about children." A Shanker
"We say the same thing but the Orange Man is bad for saying it, because he doesn't think like us."
Teach your own. If you don’t teach your own, they won’t be your own. If you can’t teach your own, you shouldn’t have your own. It’s the only way.
Women should remain barefoot, available, and taxable. The children should be a cause for progressive taxation and indoctrination, which is severely undermined by homeschooling.
As for the virus formerly from Wuhan (formally SARS-CoV-2), it is likely to have a manual, rather than aerosol primary transmission path. Also, the spikes are likely due to flattening the curve and delaying/shifting its evolution. Even then, without Planned Parent, newly classified infections and deaths have been linear since early April.
NYT asserts TRump asked the CDC to relax its guidelines.
Fact Check: This is a lie. Trump never did this, and there's no evidence he did. He tweeted that he would ask the CDC to see if the guidelines could be *adjusted and clarified* given the situation. The CDC said that wasn't possible, but will provide more "references and guidance".
The NYT can't stop lying about Trump. What else to they lie about, that we don't know about it?
When it comes to stuff you care about, hectoring and indoctrinating the children of deplorables in person, or mass protests to get Biden elected, then well, life comes with risks, but stuff you don’t care about? Like other people trying to make a living, keep their fragile economic lives intact? Well, it’s way too risky for that!
It’s like global warming and nuclear power. If you ask a liberal what they think of global warming, they will say it’s a terrible horrible thing that will end life as we know it, but if you demonstrate to them that the most practical and effective solution to CO2 “pollution” is nuclear power, which limits the risk to small areas of the planet at worst, they will say “Well global warming isn’t that bad."
Holy crap! From Business Insider:
"Research suggests homeschooled children tend to do better on standardized tests, stick around longer in college, and do better once they're enrolled. A 2009 study showed that the proportion of homeschoolers who graduated from college was about 67%, while among public school students it was 59%."
What is amazing is that these kids tend to be poorer because homeschooling families give up a second income.
"This is the worst of it. The students with the best home life might do even better with school out of the picture and the parents left to figure out how to educate and feed and support beneficial play for their children. The children with the worst home life are worse off than ever.”
I never thought that I would live to see Harrison Bergeron become prophecy. Vonnegut knew liberalism because it was his faith. I think that Elizabeth Warren wants to be the “Handicapper General."
Goya Foods Update - Judge Jeanine gets into heated argument with Juan over Goya boycott (links to buy Goya products added)
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2020/07/goya-foods-update-judge-jeanine-gets.html
The CV-19 rate of hospitalization and death for those under 25 is almost zero. For whatever reason, to young people its no worse than the flu. Of course, people still die of the flu, but we take that risk every year, and keep the schools open.
People need to accept the fact that until we get a vaccine - if we ever do - the only protection is herd immunity. CV-19 will have to burn itself out. Life has to go on, we can't all sit in the basement, like Biden, with a mask on.
As for the teachers, the alternative would be to shut down the schools and lay them off without pay. I'm perfectly willing to do that. What say you teachers?
Really Howard? How much "Running" did you do? To the hamburger stand and back?
Come to think of it, the buildings used in the oppressive school-to-prison pipeline are culturally offensive and should be torn down and thrown into the swamp.
No angst, no problem wearing masks. It's you adults who have you're panties in a twist.
Didn’t you know that if you refuse to wear a mask, it proves you would have passed muster at Valley Forge to fight alongside General Washington? No higher love hath a man for his country than to refuse to wear a mask! John Paul Jones even said “I only regret that I have but one errand to run today where I can refuse to wear a mask in the store!”
We need more choice and alternative education opportunities. I would never send my kid to the failing loser modern leftwing indoctrination factory that is our public school system.
Could part of the problem be that many older teachers fear their students because of COVID? The younger cohort get and transmit the virus but suffer few ill effects; the older teachers get the virus and perhaps die. So the teacher's response is "keep paying me to teach but keep me distanced from the little ones."
Covid 19 is being treated as if it were the black death. As Eleanor implied, or perhaps I inferred, it’s the flu. Its affects on kids is minimal. How many Swedish pupils got sick- statistically zero. We have destroyed our economy and damaged our schoolkids’ education for nothing.
The kids will be OK, except for the indoctrination of fear, helplessness and dependence on the government, with a marxist collectivist philosophy behind it, that the teachers' unions will push into all their little heads, forever.
I'm a still a teacher, for now, but God knows how long I'll be able to stick it out with all this nonsense going on. As much as I detest them, I'm glad the NYT took up the cause.
Many of my teacher colleagues are on board the "stay closed, it's not safe to go back yet" train. One of them, the most vocal, has a son with very bad asthma, so I understand completely not wanting to send him back to school. For everyone else, though? It seems ridiculous we're still having this conversation.
I should add, I'm in AZ where cases are skyrocketing like crazy but the death rate and hospitalizations are not. In fact, new COVID hospitalizations seem to be dropping, and that's a good sign. But in spite of that, the Phoenix school district just announced no in-person schooling until October! That's the entire first quarter!
I'm racking my brain trying to figure out how to do all my usual beginning-of-the-year stuff (lab safety, first lab, first engineering design project right out of the gate) if my school goes along and we're online. My classes are all about collaboration and hands-on, and I'm damned if I know how to effectively translate them into an online experience when every student is in his or her own home and at least 60% of them are accessing the curriculum asynchronously (by which I mean, not at a scheduled class time, but whenever they get to it.)
The biggest issue I haven't seen addressed: how is a school supposed to respond to the inevitable when a student, teacher, or other staff member is diagnosed with COVID after being on campus? A 14-day quarantine requirement for asymptomatic cases will wreak havoc on school staffing. (There will never be enough substitute teachers to cover such a requirement.) Can we just go back to, "if you're symptomatic, stay home until you're 24 hours fever free" like we always have been? No one has stepped up to answer this question yet. The fact that kids aren't likely to get COVID and if they do, their cases are likely to be mild should help everyone feel better about going back, but some parents now think their kids should never get sick again. Kids get sick ALL THE TIME until they've contracted the most common bugs, and then they're generally OK until they go into a new environment, then they contract all the most common bugs there. "New school syndrome" -- guess what? EVERYONE is going to have it when we finally go back, because we've been away so long.
You know that expression, "with a heavy heart?" I never really thought too much about it, or if I did, I thought it was just a flowery way to say "sad." But it perfectly describes how I've been feeling since we were sent home in March and not allowed to go back.
Worst. Summer. Ever.
What if day-long incarceration in school buildings and the schoolteacher-administered compulsory education isn't the best way for the young human being to live?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV5s9_11S44
"Boston reported that roughly 20 percent of enrolled students never logged in. In Los Angeles, one-third of high school students failed to participate."
Which means that those kids were just taking up space in the class room when they were attending school. They weren't actually learning anything. But! The school district was collecting money because of their presence.
Remember this song from the ‘60s?
Our fathers died
At Vally Forge
The snow was red with blood
Their faith was warm
Their faith was that nobody could make them wear a goddamn surgical mask in a store just to reduce risks for others!
Wasn’t that a time!
A time to try,
The soul of man
Wasn’t that a terrible time!
Brave men who died
At Gettysburg
They lie in soldiers’ graves
But there they stemmed slavery’s tide
They saved their faith.
Their faith was that nobody could make them wear a goddamn surgical mask in a store just to reduce risks for others!
Wasn’t that a time!
A time to try,
The soul of man
Wasn’t that a terrible time!
The fascist came
With chains and war
To prison us in hate
And many a good man fought and died
To save, the stricken faith
Their faith was that nobody could make them wear a goddamn surgical mask in a store just to reduce risks for others!
Wasn’t that a time!
A time to try,
The soul of man
Wasn’t that a terrible time!
It just stirs something in the soul to think about our forefathers fighting and dying so that we didn’t have go give a the slightest fuck about our fellow Americans. I know that’s why my dad was there at Overlord, and why great Grandpa was there at Antietam, and why great great great great grandpa was there at Ticonderoga. So I could smugly walk around a supermarket feeling superior to people stupid enough to believe that masks somehow reduce the risk of a largely airborne virus or served to contain droplets from a cought or sneeze. What morons! Who are they to decide what risks they are forced to take to get food!
This is why Trump is losing support. This is why seeing Trump supporters makes me gag.
Eleanor... Stop Making Sense! This is essentially natural selection in action. Evolution to better the species.
The teachers union is playing a dangerous game trying to get virtual classes as standard. The NYT knows this and they're trying to stop the suicide.
Atlanta Public Schools just announced that the first nine weeks of school will be online. If they do that in my district, we're homeschooling. If the district starts losing families like ours, they're over.
For the Left, the public schools NEVER have enough money. Here in Omaha, the public schools spend at least twice as much as the private schools and the results are terrible.
There was a large public high school in Omaha called Technical HS or Tech. It closed in the 70's. Now the entire building is the HQ for the staff. There is nothing comparable for the Catholic schools. They are decentralized.
The "schools" always want more money. They should first downsize the administrative staffs. Not the low levels where they always look but the high paid administrators. Too much bloat in schools. I say this as a husband of a former teacher. My wife taught for over 20 yrs, most of it in Junior High.
Maybe start a new tag “blind squirrel finds acorn” — in this case, the NYT stumbling across the right opinion in spite of itself.
The numbers show beyond any doubt that the seasonal flu is muchmore dangerous for kids — so why all the hysteria over this virus? It’s manufactured.
Risk-averse bureaucrats advised by risk-averse lawyers are destroying our country, decision by decision.
About 5000 people come to our store a day and I personally interact with between 100 to 200 a day. I have safely gone to work 5 days a week since the "pandemic" started. Science has shown that children very rarely catch Covid-19. How can it be more dangerous for the teachers to go to work were they interact with the same 20 or so students a day. The teachers are just a bunch of lazy people who want a paycheck without doing any work. Let's be honest most teachers in urban areas are just overpaid babysitters. Only public employees would be able to keep their jobs if they produced the test scores that come out of Milwaukee Public Schools. We would be much better off if we lay off all the teachers and give the $11,750 per student we currently spend to the parents to allow them to choose where and how to educate their children.
"The children with the worst home life are worse off than ever"
Social justice requires us to stem the panic.
We've got to get the kids away from their parents. Who knows what decline is setting in as parents dominate the lives of "their" children (our children!)?
it's time people Face These Facts
WHO is going to teach children to put condoms on bananas?
Some parents 'might', but face it! LOTS of parents are going shirk on their duty tell children that promiscuous sex, with LOTS of partners is expected
LOTS of parents will NOT be teaching children that genital mutilation is NORMAL
LOTS of parents will NOT be teaching children that WHITES ARE EVIL
shit! SOME parents, might Even try slipping Christianity in on these poor kids
we, as a nation, HAVE TO REALIZE that we HAVE to get kids back in school,
so we can continue to fill their heads with the Right Sort of mush
AND, we NEED to stop doing this, where parents can see
Most kids are not inherently interested in most of what they are supposed to learn in school (at least after puberty). They also know that the answer to the question, "When will we ever use this?" is generally "next year in another class" or "not at all".
When they're in the building, they have to somewhat participate. If nothing else, they're interacting with their age-mates. But if they're just logging in to a computer, it's hardly a wonder that so many don't. (Nor is it a wonder that those who do are the more driven/pushed who tend to come from more affluent families.)
Charlie the baker had a son, and he taught him to bake. John the banker also had a son, and he taught him to bank. Much the same happened with the miller’s son. Now their descendants go to school and learn this or that, or nothing, or worse, and few can imagine another way.
We would be much better off if we lay off all the teachers and give the $11,750 per student we currently spend to the parents to allow them to choose where and how to educate their children.
hmmm, that comes to Nearly $144,000 after 12 years; in fact, with 5% interest i think that would come out to $187,026.23 (if my math is right?)
Maybe, we should just give the kids $187k on their 18th birthdays, and see how they do?
could the outcomes BE Any worse
Once your kid has the discipline to download their assignments and turn in their homework, distance learning works just fine. The reason they are forced to attend school at that point is to serve as a role model for the kids who still haven’t matured.
They’re only there to “socialize” the poor performers.
Now we hear how children must go back to school because Homeschooling isn’t the cats meow after all. Interesting but not surprising. If Trump says a thing, his followers nod and follow, mostly.
Here's a test, Inga. Let's do a year of homeschooling and save the cost of all the teachers' salaries and benefits. Is that OK with you ? It is with me.
so why all the hysteria over this virus?
you know who IS in the high risk group? nearly ALL of our elected officials
Have a LOT of THEM died? Have Many of them died? Have ANY of them died?
how is that possible? shouldn't congressmen and senators (and governors) be Dropping like flies?
OR, is this panicdemic just a bunch of overhyped bullshit?
Other than nursing homes where we INTENTIONALLY introduced the virus; WHERE have we had a lot of deaths?
If the high achievers stay home and the low achievers don’t come how will the charade of education be maintained?
It hasn't been discussed by Ann, but there absolutely must be a college football season this year. The Big Ten is just going to have conference games, but still not certain they will happen.
No college football (other than the Ivy League) would be a huge hit to morale. And screw the NFL.
Meanwhile, the number of homeschooling requests by NC parents crashed that state's website.
Let's break the government monopoly on primary education.
And also the break the propaganda efforts of government functionaries.
The biggest issue I haven't seen addressed: how is a school supposed to respond to the inevitable when a student, teacher, or other staff member is diagnosed with COVID after being on campus?
I feel our company handles it just fine. We get a text saying someone at the store tested positive, no name or area worked, and the last day they worked. That's it, no 14-day quarantine requirement, no requirement for everyone to take a test, no panic by the employees. Our store has had 2 people out with covid and both the customers and employees show up everyday. And we are dealing with a much older population than schools are.
"This is why seeing Trump supporters makes me gag."
Are you sure it's the Trump supporters? Maybe it's COVID! Quick, little Timmie, run get tested! Better get tested twice! Then you'll be safe.
tim in vermont: "It just stirs something in the soul to think about our forefathers fighting and dying so that we didn’t have go give a the slightest fuck about our fellow Americans. "
tim in vermont is very very upset that only an estimated 400 to 500 million children globally have been shoved into extraordinary poverty as a result of the global shutdown.
Be of good cheer tim. Probably hundreds of thousands of those children will find an early death with millions more having their future opportunities slammed shut, so you have that going for you.
Also, it's now past 11am EST today. Shouldn't you have already posted your daily "why I left the republican party" announcement? If you are going to catch Max Boot in Total Numbers of Times you've left the party, you have to stay on the ball.
the editors promote the idea of doing classes outdoors — in the playground and "give serious consideration to closing streets around schools and hold[] classes there."
Hoo,boy are these people out of touch with parenting. Are there ANY employees in the editorial circle that have kids in public schools. Wait, sorry, too stupid a question to ask.
So what to do?
"Take the measure of the best available science, implement the necessary safety measures and maximize the amount of time that children can spend in classrooms."
Sounds a lot like a Biden proposal. I'll do it better. I'll be inclusive. I'll listen to the experts.
But no meat on the bones.
Joan: "I should add, I'm in AZ where cases are skyrocketing like crazy but the death rate and hospitalizations are not. In fact, new COVID hospitalizations seem to be dropping, and that's a good sign."
Well, you'd think most would consider that a good sign......
Far more children die in car accidents on their way to and from school than have died from this virus (since the latter number is 0).
Far more children die EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR from the influenza.
For more children die in sports accidents/traumas.
Far more children die at home in swimming pools.
Get a fucking grip.
The same debate is taking place in the UK, with Boris playing the Trump role.
This particular part of the crisis would be so much easier to navigate if the teachers' unions (and many of the teachers in them) weren't so corrupt and incompetent.
For the record, I am not now and have never been part of any union. I've heard there is a teachers union here in AZ, but no one has ever mentioned it to me in the 10+ years I've been teaching!
"A 2009 study showed that the proportion of homeschoolers who graduated from college was about 67%, while among public school students it was 59%."
What is amazing is that these kids tend to be poorer because homeschooling families give up a second income.
This is exactly the correlation... nay, cause and effect relationship, that cannot be tolerated, let alone normalized. There must be another, more expensive, disparate, reason for the poor performance of students in public schools, certain public schools. Perhaps systemic diversity, which is always a politically congruent cause. Now, what exactly happened to the nuclear family of mom, dad, and children, and perhaps grandma and grandpa, too?
How can it be more dangerous for the teachers to go to work were they interact with the same 20 or so students a day.
My DIL is a teacher of second grade students. She is being tasked with the kids maintaining social distancing. Also keeping their masks on correctly. Plus cleaning each desk multiple times per day. And, sort of incidentally, teaching the little rug rats.
She also notes she can not understand many of the kids when they mumble through the masks.
Good luck with that.
Especially for younger kids, missing out on knowledge gained in any given grade has a multiplying effect for later years.
It’s called the Matthew Effect, it’s documented, and people who want to shut down schools but know nothing about this are dangerous to the welfare of those kids they claim to protect.
“it's not up to donald, nor the times. it's a state call.”
That made me laugh out loud. Once Trump staked a position on a politically popular action, the NYT and Blue state governments are sprinting to get in front of him. With all the usual Orange Man Bad disclaimers, natch. But on this topic, they’re not even going to get to do their usual no-then-yes routine. School starts in September, there’s an election in November. No time to dither.
Also comical is the idea that you can meaningfully socially distance in an elementary school, or that little kids can practice any kind of mask discipline that’s worth a shit. Hell, adults can’t even begin to do it. So drop the dumbshow and stop robbing those disadvantaged kids of a sliver of hope.
Check for symptoms at the door with minimal disruption. Advise faculty and students to follow good hygienic practices in context. There is little evidence that a viral load is transmitted by asymptomatic individuals. There is more evidence that it follows manual transmission paths. Wash your hands and control interaction with vulnerable interfaces. The new normal is one degree removed from the old normal.
Ah, but what does it mean to "open"? Texas schools are supposed to open for full time instruction in the fall, but Greg Abbott was interviewed the other day and said that whenever there is ONE case of Covid in a TX public school this fall, that school will be forced to close for FIVE DAYS to be cleaned. The virus doesn't spread well on surfaces, children don't seem to be huge carriers, the hospitalization and death rates for kids are almost 0, and TX isn't currently requiring this of day care centers. But never mind. Everyone has gone mad. Kids will be in school for 1-2 days and then home for 5 all semester - wow, that will be effective.
The (invisible) elephant in the schoolroom is mainstreaming special-needs students, especially those diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD, my favorite acronym) and Emotionally Disturbed. These students are legally entitled to special support and adaptations, A teacher's time is finite; that which I must give to a few takes away from the rest.
The new buzz word is Social-Emotional Learning. Now time will be dedicated to meeting the social and emotional needs of students.
There is a significant difference between homeschooling (parent and co-op) and distance learning (teacher-provided lessons). Parents who homeschool have the instructional materials and supervise their kids; parents of distance learners do not.
If a student is in my classroom, I can ensure he or she learns at least some of the material even if he or she does not complete all the assignments. There is no way I could do this last quarter.
I want to be back in my classroom sans masks and physical distance because enforcing these is going to be a nightmare, and each time there is a lapse, it undermines the entire point.
If online instruction is acceptable, allow communities to purchase professionally produced courses from private companies. The average teacher isn’t qualified to do this. This would be a great way to remove leftist ideology from education and drastically reduce educational costs for taxpayers. If teachers would rather stay home, there is no reason to continue paying them.
"Boston reported that roughly 20 percent of enrolled students never logged in. In Los Angeles, one-third of high school students failed to participate."
Education is correlated with interest. Perhaps they should focus on discerning the latter.
I wonder if this is anything but cover for “union dues must be paid”. I think it’s time for universal vouchers.
Anyone who says kids' educations are permanently harmed by a few months with no classes is bullshitting.
Inga:
“If one read any conservative leaning comments sections pre Covid, one would have read that homeschooling was far superior to brick and mortar schools. Now that Trump demands that children go back to schools, the homeschooling is best crowd sound decidedly different. Now we hear how children must go back to school because Homeschooling isn’t the cats meow after all. Interesting but not surprising. If Trump says a thing, his followers nod and follow, mostly.”
That's a fair cop.
Which means that those kids were just taking up space in the class room when they were attending school. They weren't actually learning anything. But! The school district was collecting money because of their presence.
Worse, they were probably disrupting the education of those who were there to learn.
"Take the measure of the best available science, implement the necessary safety measures and maximize the amount of time that children can spend in classrooms."
That's just a lot of warm fog, expressing concern without taking responsibility and espousing mutually contradictory principles without any indication of where the balance point might be.
Since so many teacher's unions have decided brick and mortar teaching isn't worth it, free up funding to go to whatever home, private or online education parents want.
My, my..don't trample each other running back to school now...
Also,
If "essential" workers are deemed "Heroes", does that make these teachers "zeroes"?
I think Althouse is onto something here in the editorial- the writers seem to understand on some level that if the schools don't reopen, people are going to start questioning the spending on school teachers. In other words, we might start seeing an authentic "Defund the Teachers" movement get started- especially in the cities that spend the most.
If the schools don't reopen this Fall, parents will start to make other, decentralized arrangements for education, and with that will decline all the political power of the teachers' unions.
"Boston reported that roughly 20 percent of enrolled students never logged in. In Los Angeles, one-third of high school students failed to participate."
Education is correlated with interest. Perhaps they should focus on discerning the latter.
Couple this trend with issuing pandemic electronic benefit cards. This program will be extended until made permanent. UBI is here. We will soon have a large, uneducated, unproductive underclass that will have to be dealt with. Bread and circuses are on their way to a big comeback.
"That's a fair cop."
No, it's not. It's typical orthogonal-to-reality bullshit.
What did CT learn from child care centers that stayed open during pandemic?
What Parents Can Learn From Child Care Centers That Stayed Open During Lockdowns
Shorter Howard:
"I am pretending that the rest of you are morons and have forgotten everything I wrote on this subject this year."
Teachers won't be satisfied until they get another year off at full pay. Expect their unions to pile objection upon objection on every proposal until they get their way.
We've got to get the kids away from their parents.
******
I think it more likely that the parents want to get the hell away from their kids! Get these brats outta here. There are shortages of teachers, coaches, day slots and I think school bus drivers. NOBODY wants to deal with these kids.
Echoing what Yancy Ward just posted - I see the problem of bad cops as part of a larger problem: government employees are impossible to fire. Be careful what you wish for - defunding the school system in an attempt to get rid of crappy teachers should be the next project.
Elementary schools can reopen with minimal precautions (except for adults), because children under 12 are very low risk for infection, serious illness or spreading the disease. They also learn the least via remote teaching. Europeans have done it safely, and some are relaxing distancing rules.
Older teens are more likely to get and spread the disease, but very few will get seriously ill. Some will benefit from a two-day-a-week in school schedule, treating it as a preview of college, where they'll have to manage their time and motivate themselves. Others will drift away sooner than they'd otherwise have done.
The 60-year-old teacher with diabetes or a high-risk spouse at home probably will want to work remotely, especially if she's teaching older students. There will be plenty of demand. https://bit.ly/2Cp9NMO
Inga: "If one read any conservative leaning comments sections pre Covid, one would have read that homeschooling was far superior to brick and mortar schools. Now that Trump demands that children go back to schools, the homeschooling is best crowd sound decidedly different."
When one is busy running from her many previous hoax lies its important to establish a new lie to run to.
Good luck with this newest lie Inga!
Oh, wait. Let me guess.
You didn't really mean to write that bit of BS but Steve Bannon made you do it. Right?
cops are the last line of defense after broken families, churches hollowed out of any real faith, and schools who are miseducating
"It’s all an experiment because the truth is we just don’t know what will happen."
The experiment's been done in day cares and retail.
No teens or older/at-risk folks there?
It's already done.
But keep uncertainty alive..because TRRRRUUUUUUMMMPPPPPP!
(Stop rejoicing in sinking death rates. Stop that.)
Blogger Goddess of the Classroom said...
The (invisible) elephant in the schoolroom is mainstreaming special-needs students, especially those diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD, my favorite acronym) and Emotionally Disturbed. These students are legally entitled to special support and adaptations, A teacher's time is finite; that which I must give to a few takes away from the rest.
I know that "mainstreaming" was a big thing in Orange County public schools a few years ago. I know of a 6th grade teacher who was expected to irrigate a student's gastrostomy tube (feeding tube for you laypersons) during class.
When you're designing your curriculum for online schooling, there are parts you need. !. Ways to impart information. 2. Ways for the student to interact with the subject matter. 3. Ways for students to interact with each other. 4. Ways for the student to demonstrate mastery of the subject. And it all has to be able to happen when the teacher isn't physically present. It's that last part that gives regular classroom teachers a struggle. It's not fair to judge online education by the successes or failures of this last school year because it was in the hands of teachers who have little or no experience doing it. It's also unfair to lump online education and homeschooling into the same category because while homeschoolers might use an online resource now and then, for parents it's the difference between being the teacher or a proctor.
I suspect a lot of parents would agree to home school is that $12,000 a year was part of the deal.
No response from Inga yet to my question.
"It just stirs something in the soul to think about our forefathers fighting and dying so that we didn’t have go give a the slightest fuck about our fellow Americans. - Tim the Whiner from Vermont
How many times does it need to be pounded into your head that your health and safety is not my fucking responsibility. It's yours. Period.
Yancey Ward said...
If the schools don't reopen this Fall, parents will start to make other, decentralized arrangements for education, and with that will decline all the political power of the teachers' unions.
7/11/20, 11:11 AM
Asian families will be in the vanguard of this movement, as will quite a few elite "white" liberals. Neither have any interest in seeing their children intellectually crippled no matter what they say in public. Shamefully, the notion that there are "conservative" parents who insist on sending their children to government indoctrination is almost as shameful as the fact they complain about it incessantly. Cut the cord, you damned pansies!
I'm doing my best not to type out multiple screens worth of material, but the fact is that most Americans are absurdly conformist no matter what ideology they preach, and they want tomorrow to be much like today. In the face of BLM and the Second Civil War (brought to you by Bloomberg/ Soros) this is impossible, but damned if they don't keep wanting it. The pleasant part of the coronavirus plague is that it forces the contradictions to a place where they must be addressed. Already the reputation of the public health community has been completely decimated as they call for superfluous national economic shutdown- except of course for their jogger pets rioting in the streets, that's vital to end racism and "shiet." Governor Cuomo's disastrous idiocy has resulted in tens of thousands dying out of proportion to any other state: the President is duty-bound to have him arrested and placed on trial, as there are Confederate officials who were personally responsible for far less carnage. But nowhere are the contradictions of the neoliberal mindset more glaring than in public education. Tell parents they have to spend more than 2 days a week homeschooling, and they will spend ALL days a week outside the public school system. The reason most people went to public school is convenience and conformity: take that away, and the whole rotten system will collapse under its own weight!
Eleanor, accurate assessment is indeed the biggest thorn in online/distance learning. Essentially, you have to make students actually write and explain things, rather than just answering multiple choice questions. It takes longer to grade assessments like that, but they are accurate and by making them "open book," the concept of cheating doesn't apply.
The problem is, it's a lot easier to just toss up multiple choice, auto-graded "assessments" that are easy for the students to game.
Inga said: If one read any conservative leaning comments sections pre Covid, one would have read that homeschooling was far superior to brick and mortar schools. Now that Trump demands that children go back to schools, the homeschooling is best crowd sound decidedly different. Now we hear how children must go back to school because Homeschooling isn’t the cats meow after all. Interesting but not surprising. If Trump says a thing, his followers nod and follow, mostly.
I wonder if Inga believes that this is the most accurate assessment she could make or is it just leftie mindhive? No doubt homeschooling is far superior when diligently done, but conservatives actually care about more than those who are diligent. Our society cannot thrive with a generation of kids who do not have parent or guardians to ensure that kids learn. Returning to school is the only choice...as bad as it is. Even in school, kids without attentive parents or guardians do poorly.
I suspect that the NYT wants to get kids out of the house who have likely been hearing adults react "incorrectly" to the BLM horsehit and the screaming leftie cancel culture and get them into the classroom where kids can be reliably indoctrinated on white privilege and systemic racism by practiced hands of the leftie hivemind. RightThink!
- Krumhorn
I just talked to someone who’s sister works on in assisted care place in So Ca and came down with COVID 19. She was given no treatment. Two of the sisters coworkers died, one was 20, other 40
The lady works as a medical assistant in Radiology for Kaiser, and had not heard of hydroxychloroquine.
That's an awful lot of improbables there Ray...
Top Canadian pediatric hospital: Re-open schools with few restrictions, no masks
L.A. teachers union says schools can't reopen unless charter schools get shut down, police defunded
Inner-city teacher here. Many of us are eager to get back with our kids; we want school to restart as normal. I know how low the risks to kids are, and that they are not major spreaders of the disease. I plan to wear a face shield so the children can see my face, but do not expect my 4 year olds to wear a mask or to “socially distance” (where are the double blind studies to prove that works?). Fortunately our state does not require masks for children under 10. For about an hour each morning and afternoon, the children may choose among 8 centers aligned to reading, math, and oral language objectives. They learn best through discovery, experiences, and interacting with each other. I refuse to interfere with their learning. We will probably spend more time outside at recess, the safest place they can be at school, where I will use the extra time to work in some math and science. The kids love it!
Most of my students come from poverty and Spanish-only households. They don’t have books at home, and have never been to a library or museum. About 40% of these families could never get the technology to work consistently this spring. I finally went to their houses wearing a mask and asked them to pass me their iPads on the front porch. I fixed all the issues I could and then Clorox wiped them. This worked for a few. These children do not have educated parents and would not benefit from being homeschooled.
I hope our parents and teachers don’t freak out over the expected small rise in cases. We now know that the risk to people under 70 is similar to that of the flu. At a virtual meeting our district held to ask teachers what we thought, too many expressed fear about opening at all. There were a few legitimate concerns, from teachers with elderly parents or a cancer patient in their homes. The superintendent said that the district could be flexible: those teachers could stay home and provide virtual lessons for the families who opt for online instruction while the rest of us teach in person classes. We hope to find out later this week what the school year will look like, but it could all change when we see how many families opt for in person school.
I look forward to the pro-mask crowd posting all the scientific journal articles touting the efficacy of using masks for healthy individuals-- published before 2020.
I have read several such articles that are anti-mask. And several that find they are detrimental when worn by the healthy.
I continue to wait.
Blogger VenezolanaMari,
The word is "regressive".
The best way to insure that kids get a real world useful education is to first make the funding follow the child be it a private school, charter school, public school or home school. Second condition any form of welfare or unemployment benefits to completing a standard high school graduation test-GED. Third condition any benefits to the parent contingent
on the child's passing annual standardized proficiency tests. As the expression goes you get a mule's attention with a two by four. Also starting in middle school start offering real vocational education for those who are not inclined to go to college. A good plumber, mechanic, electrician, plumber etc can earn more than the average college graduate.
"Blogger sunsong said...
it's not up to donald, nor the times. it's a state call.
7/11/20, 7:58 AM"
So you agree that all corona deaths are the responsibilities of the individual states and not Trump.
The best way to insure that kids get a real world useful education is to first make the funding follow the child be it a private school, charter school, public school or home school.
Bingo ! The funding follows the child. If the teachers want to stay home give the $11,000 a year to the parents.
For the last 5 yrs, every illness I have had, about 2 a yr, I caught from a school aged Grandchild. I always get a flu shot. This Dec and Jan, I was sick for about a month. I got it from 8 yr old GD. She tested neg for flu and strep. I didn't test but I got whatever she had, except worse. I'm old. My wife didn't get it. I had most of the symptoms of covid-19 except turning blue and dying. Once I couldn't breath lying down and spent the night in a recliner. I treated it like the flu and eventually got better.
This year, before school starts, we are leaving here and going to a location where there are no school-aged kids. Experts are wrong. Public schools and kids spread disease--covid or otherwise.
"Reopening Schools Will Be a Huge Undertaking. It Must Be Done" — say the editors of the NYT.
I'm surprised to see this mainly because it accords with what Trump has been saying — at least at a high level of generality. I'm sure there will be pointed
Of course the NYT thinks the schools should reopen... they want to get the curriculum seeded with the 1619 Project excreta.
Lying, racist, Commie rotters.
VenezolanaMari: You are in the "real world" and you get it. Godspeed to you.
You too, Cubanbob.
Josephbleau (to sunsong): "So you agree that all corona deaths are the responsibilities of the individual states and not Trump."
It's funny when the lefty narratives collide, isn't it?
Eleanor, accurate assessment is indeed the biggest thorn in online/distance learning. Essentially, you have to make students actually write and explain things, rather than just answering multiple choice questions. It takes longer to grade assessments like that, but they are accurate and by making them "open book," the concept of cheating doesn't apply.
The problem is, it's a lot easier to just toss up multiple choice, auto-graded "assessments" that are easy for the students to game.
This applies just as much to in-class teaching. Coming up with good assessments and then grading them is both difficult and time-consuming. Which is why it is not common.
Law school exams are essays and there is a saying among law school professors, "I teach for free. They pay me to grade the exams."
"The NYT editors end by knocking Trump for asking "the C.D.C. to relax its public health guidelines for safely reopening schools." Of course it does! The NYT hates, Hates, HATES Trump. I, however, despise, detest, and distrust the NYT! (The WaPoo, too! And the TV networks.)
Seems like CA makes it really hard to prescribe hydroxychloroquine...
remind health care professionals that inappropriately prescribing or dispensing medications constitutes unprofessional conduct in California.
Per this document
https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/Documents/COVID-19/COVID-19-Drug-Policy-040220-HC-Add.pdf
Now, if Hydroxychloroquine with Zinc works if given early, how many people died due to politics?
Where I live, the public school families have lots of options (1) virtual school, (2) part time on-campus, or (3) full time on-campus. Some are also choosing actual homeschooling.
Are other areas not offering several options?
Freeman,
How in the world are the districts affording that? I certainly don't buy the "poor underpaid teachers" rhetoric, at least not up here in Puget Sound country, but the complaints about workload are pretty valid. Most classroom teachers already don't have enough time to finish all their supposed current tasks--where will they find time to add multi-modal instruction to their day? And the districts certainly don't have money to hire additional teachers (nor are there lots of qualified unemployed ones to hire anyway.)
"the "poor underpaid teachers" rhetoric"
This is used as a funny cliche in a Dick van Dyke episode from 1964.
Our teachers are well paid. They already had a virtual charter school, so they're using that for the virtual school people. (There are actually a great number of off the shelf virtual programs available. Have wondered why other districts don't simply sign up with them for the families that want virtual schooling and use the teachers to online tutor and hound those kids to complete their work.) I assume that the part timers will have work to do but not instruction on the off days.
At our schools a brand new teacher with a BA starts at over $48k.
"They already had a virtual charter school"
Ah, gotcha. You're working with a totally different, and superior, mindset.
Here in WA we do have charter schools but most of the districts (ours included) view the entire charter-school concept as an enemy intrusion.
Ironically my wife taught one year at a pure online high school (Giant Campus) and so has more experience at running remote than most of her peers, but of course when school was abruptly closed here and the district switched to remote learning on a completely make-it-up-as-you-go-along basis, they had nothing like what Giant Campus had had a full 10 years earlier.
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