Quoted in "Expert cautions learning pods could worsen Madison's achievement gap" (Wisconsin State Journal).
You can see from the headline that public school officials and proponents are worried about the least-privileged children falling behind, but every parent is going to be most concerned about his or her own children, and this isn't even a situation where taking less for your child will leave more for someone else's child. Why would anyone be deterred from setting up a learning pod for the benefit of their own child? What good could it do to hold more children back?
How privileged are learning pods anyway? What if someone with almost no money to spend wanted a great learning pod for his or her child? How is that done? Googling, I did not find it easy to see how to set up a learning pod without spending much money. I assume the experts in education want to keep people focused on public schools, not on showing that it's easy to set up an alternative.
The schools themselves are working on their alternative — on line instruction by public school teachers. But if you've got parents like Mike who are seriously unsatisfied with that option, then I would expect the "learning pods" alternative to be something the public school proponents would want to make hard to figure out.
But if it's hard to figure out, then the least privileged families — the ones the experts are supposedly so concerned about — will be impaired in doing what they might be able to do on their own to close the achievement gap. The experts are working hard to drive home the message that you can't do it, that your kids are losing out, that you need the public schools, and that those other people over there — the privileged people — are taking advantage again and their advantage is your disadvantage.
IN THE COMMENTS: ellie said:
I am a homeschool mom who normally utilizes a cooperative. We cannot meet in our building this year due to covid. I've set up a "pod" in my home. It was easy. All the moms got together and talked over what our kids needed for the year, then we divided the classes. Each mom took what they were good at or could reasonably handle. No money involved at all for us. We set a schedule for 2 days a week, and the other days, work is assigned for home.
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The whole concept of equity, while nice in theory, is riddled with such contradictions. It's nice that people worry about it but, unless they can do better, the disadvantaged might be better off if they didn't.
One of the principal advantages of traditional public school education is captivity. The students are forced to attend and the teachers serve as their keepers. In that circumstance there is at least some hope of learning through osmosis. Online education requires that someone be present to enforce the captivity.
Public school (unionized) teachers are barely qualified to teach in a classroom setting, much less devise and deliver instruction over an internet, conference strategy. I would be surprised if they even know HOW to really operate a computer.
In my experience in my career....dealing with public school teachers....they are among the dumbest people on earth. While trying to explain the simplest concepts of investing, economics, percentages, ratios, what a mutual fund is, how their 403B works...MATH!!! it is soooooo hard!!!...they would give me deer in the headlights looks. They think with their emotions and are blinded by their political biases. And make stupid personal decisions. (not all though some of the STEM types are able)
Not only dumb in real world concepts, many of them don't even know jackshit about the topics they are teaching. My daughter had to argue with her social studies teacher that Houston was NOT the Capital of Texas. A fifth grader knows more than that teacher!!!
I'd rather have my children educated by the Apes in the Tarzan books. They would learn more than students in public schools today.
As of 28 Just 2020
Stop and think about that for a min. In Chicago 179 MORE people died from homicide YTD than Covid-19. (Great city there ). That's right, we can be certain more people under the age of 55 are will die from homicides than Covid-19 in Chicago. This of course is something we will NEVER hear from teachers unions or the media.
Also from our stats guy:
•fourteen kids under 18 have died in Chicago shootings this year;
•four of the dead were under age 10;
•COVID deaths for those under 18? Two, as in one, two. That's it.
Get these kids back in school
I am a homeschool mom who normally utilizes a cooperative. We cannot meet in our building this year due to covid. I've set up a "pod" in my home. It was easy. All the moms got together and talked over what our kids needed for the year, then we divided the classes. Each mom took what they were good at or could reasonably handle. No money involved at all for us.We set a schedule for 2 days a week, and the other days, work is assigned for home.
Apparently something like 30 to 50% of kids disappear during on line learning. Presumably parents are busy working, don't care, or can't manage to force their kid to sit in front of a computer and do school work. These kids are probably the ones who need schooling the most.
The school systems currently have no plans to bring them back into the fold, this is what they should be working on if they're serious about the distance learning option. Most school systems won't even talk about the kids that are just not showing or not completing any work, let alone how they plan to handle it. Also of some concern is there are apparently some teachers who have done the same no show thing...
This has become a recurring theme- Disruption is an opportunity, yet some desperately cling to the old models. It's hard to give up what once worked, be it investing in the public school system or relying on the New York Times.
Desperate clinging is not the way to go...
White kids should just play video games until blacks catch up. We’ll have no problem getting high-skill, professional work done, as long as we have enough Jews and Asians.
the Democrats and the teachers unions are not concerned with the education provided in the public schools. They are just concerned about power.
"My daughter had to argue with her social studies teacher that Houston was NOT the Capital of Texas. A fifth grader knows more than that teacher!!!"
When I was a kid in the 70's, my 4th grade english teacher wrote on one of my tests, "'Qwinn' needs help with his gramer."
People don't want to believe it, people don't want to face it, but the reality is that the public schools actively discriminate against white children.
This is how the "progress" in reducing black/white and Hispanic/white racial gaps has been achieved.
Now there is great variation in the schools and circumstances across the United States so there are many counties, especially the rural ones, where this isn't the case.
But if you look at the urban schools and usually the suburban ones nearby, this is what is actually happening. This is what our left-wing, progressive teachers have been doing for decades now.
People who care about their kids' education will find a way. Those who don't, about a third of public school parents, won't. It will be interesting to see a return to then school systems of the past.
Close the public schools and fire the "teachers". Give the taxpayers back their money and let them use it as they see fit.
It's the white vs black thing again. There are nearly equal numbers of blacks and Asians in Madison. It would be much more informative to compare/contrast those two groups instead. What are the achievement differences between them, why do they exist, and what can be done about it?
A friend is setting up a learning pod with fellow parents splitting the (not insignificant) cost of a teacher. As good leftys they offered to include a friend of their kids who is 'disadvantaged' at no cost to the parent.
The offer was refused because the parent didn't want their kid to be a charity case who would be treated differently as a token. Also because they didn't want to have to bring their kid to the learning pod houses on a strict schedule.
These kinds of moments are opening the eyes of some of my friends who have been default left in the past.
"These kids are probably the ones who need schooling the most."
The same ones the districts fret about and cater to and drag along and socially promote no matter what..are going to fall into the abyss. What a surprise.
At least I hope the libertards finally realize their dream of online ed for all has a limited application.
As someone who taught college level courses online for eight years, I can tell you with complete assurance that you cant teach effectively online without 1) extensive training, 2) millions of dollars in software designed specifically for that task, and 3) students with the background and experience to use the technology and learn in that environment.
The idea that 20 something teachers with no training, experience or tools are going to teach anything effectively to grammar school kids online is pure wishful thinking.
I have a theory that all progressive initiatives start with a lie. This is one more.
Many teachers have been furiously masturbating themselves and each other for years now about their Superhero Capes and now that there is some tiny and statistically meaningless personal risk they are throwing all kids under the bus, including the ones who need them the most. Way to show your true colors. You deserve every bit of derision and abandonment that is coming your way.
A friend of mine who still pays attention to social media (I walked away from that) says that the teachers in her district are balking at having to teach online from the actual school building as opposed to from home, because then they would have to find childcare for their kids ..... you know, like the rest of the fucking working population has to do?
Megan McArdle's depressing but likely correct column in the WaPo (thesis: policy is determined by the most neurotic and irrational among us, so, sorry, we're not going back to school until a critical mass of stupid and emotional teachers and parents "feel" safe) was illustrated by a teacher at a protest who had painted on her car, "Don't make me DIE because I love to teach!!"
I don't want someone so stupid, emotional, and innumerate (she's probably not going to get it and if she does she has a 4 in 10,000 chance of dying) teaching my kids anyway so it's a moot point. But she's better than nothing for the kids who otherwise would be sitting at home for the rest of their childhoods (remember, this lasts until the stupidest and most emotional among us decide it's over) being raised by Xbox Live.
Aren’t “learning pods” pretty much how kids learned for the first 150k years of human evolution before the industrialization of schools?
The experts are working hard to drive home the message that you can't do it, that your kids are losing out, that you need the public schools
The kids might not come back.
"Expert cautions learning pods could worsen Madison's achievement gap"
"I would like to focus on the black-white gap. It has special importance in the US. Without it only academics would pay much attention to performance gaps, and newspapers would have to find other ways to sell pantyhose."
Not only dumb in real world concepts, many of them don't even know jackshit about the topics they are teaching. My daughter had to argue with her social studies teacher that Houston was NOT the Capital of Texas. A fifth grader knows more than that teacher!!!
My son came home with a reading assignment that was one page long, and his job was to read it and then answer questions based on the text. I found eight grammar and punctuation errors on the one page.
My daughter had some materials claiming that Native Americans did not have cities. I'm no Howard Zinn or anything but that is patently false.
My teenager, who just took AP World History, had no idea what the Battle of Waterloo was about other than an ABBA song.
I consider this my own failure as a parent that I did not recognize and act on this sooner. I take full responsibility for not knowing how bad it truly is. Better late than never; my younger kids will not spend one moment in any public school, and they won't use any materials that I haven't looked at myself for quality.
Confidential to Gahrie: I know you're one of the good ones. I'm sorry.
For students without at-home support...
It's not about money at all. It's all about the shitty parent(s).
Nobody learns anything in a school, classroom, lecture hall, study hall, lab, collaborative learning space, or pod. A person learns inside his own cranium, only and always. Not every cranium is a good place for that.
It is not a surprise that our public schools are less capable of putting this together than private, parochial, or charter schools. In fact, given that the priority of the public school system is developed by the Teachers Unions, it's no surprise that their incentives do not include 'inventing' new ways to teach. They have two incentives currently: (a) Continue to get paid, and (b) support Democrats in office (who in turn, deny charter schools or school choice). Figuring out a way to teach kids in the classroom, or to help develop pods, or to figure out how to get better at online teaching don't even enter into the conversation. Just- get paid. Elect Democrats.
Once you realize this is who you are dealing with, it should be clear that well before Covid, allowing school choice, charter schools, or home schooling should have been the priority. Now- with covid it's become abundantly clear just how much of a bueaurocratic slug our public school system is. Basically- its a giant grift. The Teachers Unions run the thing. Their priorities have nothing to do with your kids. And the schools have basically become expensive daycare centers.
When you wake up and realize what's been going on, much of what you see around you will make more sense.
Oh and my husband just pointed out, regarding the "risk" to teachers: in our county the cumulative positive test rate is 3%. Infection fatality rate for those under 70 is .04%.
So if we have 1500 teachers (just a guess) in the county and they are all under 70 as they should be, that means maybe 45 of them could theoretically get it and .018 of one teacher could heroically die on duty.
Oh noes!
It is not a surprise that our public schools are less capable of putting this together than private, parochial, or charter schools. In fact, given that the priority of the public school system is developed by the Teachers Unions, it's no surprise that their incentives do not include 'inventing' new ways to teach. They have two incentives currently: (a) Continue to get paid, and (b) support Democrats in office (who in turn, deny charter schools or school choice). Figuring out a way to teach kids in the classroom, or to help develop pods, or to figure out how to get better at online teaching don't even enter into the conversation. Just- get paid. Elect Democrats.
Once you realize this is who you are dealing with, it should be clear that well before Covid, allowing school choice, or charter schools should have been the priority. Now- with covid it's become abundantly clear just how much of a bueaurocratic slug our public school system is. Basically- its a giant grift. The Teachers Unions run the thing. Their priorities have nothing to do with your kids. And the schools have basically become expensive daycare centers.
When you wake up and realize what's been going on, much of what you see around you will make more sense.
Teacher Unions Boycott Classes
Minority’s, At-Risk Students Hardest Hit
Re:ga6
I don't know where you are getting your numbers. Illinois isn't New York, but it's still handled coronavirus exceptionally poorly. There have been 4,800 coronavirus deaths in Cook County, which is mostly just Chicago. And coronavirus deaths continue to rise.
Meanwhile, after spiking to 762/year in the immediate post-Ferguson era, Chicago homicides were below 500 last year. Even with a substantial boost thanks to BLM, Chicago homicides are unlikely to annualise to more than 1,000 -- they're currently on track to meet or exceed their prior high, but I woukd be surprised if homicides outright double between 2019 and 2020.
Agewise, yes, coronavirus deaths are mostly the elderly, while homicide deaths are mostly young people. But deaths are deaths, and coronavirus has killed significantly more
Not only dumb in real world concepts, many of them don't even know jackshit about the topics they are teaching.
My experience back when I was attending school (in the neolithic) was that a some of them hadn't even read the textbook they were teaching from.
Most school systems won't even talk about the kids that are just not showing or not completing any work
No doubt that was happening before the shutdown too.
The purpose of public education is not education. It's to enrich the Democrat party via teachers' unions and to store kids during the day so their parents can go to work. Any education is a happy coincidence, usually only occurring in affluent school districts because the parents have enough political and social clout to insist on it.
"What good could it do to hold more children back?"
Harrison Bergeron smiles wryly.
What if someone with almost no money to spend wanted a great learning pod for his or her child?
The president wants to divert federal money directly to parents so that they too can "get to the pod."
What follows is the president's reaction to the teacher union demands.
"Get me to the Pod... God save me and watch over you all."
If the school systems think that learning pods give kids advantages and that it's too hard for disadvantaged families to organize them, then why aren't the schools helping to organize pods for the families that need help? It's telling that they admit that children who aren't in pods won't learn as well and then offer as a remedy that nobody should have pods. It reveals that their true goal is not to help kids learn, but to keep their public school monopoly model intact whether the kids learn or not.
Hmm... unconventional childcare arrangements, the poor suck at that. Except they don't. I grew up in the projects, day care was in the next apartment over, there were six kids with a stay-at-home mom on public assistance. My parents paid a small amount a week, there was lots of TV. I think privileged folx aren't in-touch with how the poor actual live and get their needs met through informal networks. There are people with low social capital who won't be able to make pods work, but that number is small, if the state actually supported the pod-life, it would be smaller still.
I'd like to understand what exactly are the costs involved in forming a "learning pod" or a homeschool coop (are those two things similar or the same?). My suspicion is that beyond course materials (which presumably are paid for by the state?) it's really more of an issue of organization and logistics between parents and teachers than one of some amount of money that needs to be raised? Unless you're actually paying for the teacher out-of-pocket?
Apparently something like 30 to 50% of kids disappear during on line learning.
I only had about 20% show up. And they were either self directed A students, or students who were failing and trying to pass. Now this was partly due to the fact that the district told the kids that their grades could not go down, only up. So most kids who were passing started summer early. The district has announced that online grades will matter this year.
Presumably parents are busy working, don't care, or can't manage to force their kid to sit in front of a computer and do school work.
When I was teaching middle school, I had a parent tell me that they only finished third grade and they were doing OK.
These kids are probably the ones who need schooling the most.
These kids were being ignored under the old system. They need general education classes and vocational education classes. My district and other local districts have eliminated all general education classes and replaced them with college prep classes. They are also busy eliminating vocational tech classes and replacing them with AP electives.
Most school systems won't even talk about the kids that are just not showing or not completing any work, let alone how they plan to handle it.
They can't handle it. Schools don't even have truancy officers anymore. Any such attempt will involve court rooms and jail sentences for parents, which will never happen. When/if the Democrats get UBI passed (and they are going to try and do it by stealth by never ending the current "pandemic" payments) we will soon have a large, uneducated, unproductive underclass who see no need for education anyway. We could easily reach a time when large spread illiteracy and innumeracy return.
Also of some concern is there are apparently some teachers who have done the same no show thing...
Just like any profession, there are good people and bad people who teach. Many of us (the best of us) actually enjoy teaching and this enforced isolation has been a punishment.
I don't think teachers have thought through the ramifications of showing the world how inessential they are.
The spring NTI period was a terrible experience for our then-2nd-grader and for us, and we're a relatively privileged 2-parent household, both able to work from home and assist with the schoolwork, in the best school district in the state. The nearby city district must have been woeful.
If we couldn't send our child back in person, we would just withdraw him completely and homeschool. "Online learning" in this setting ends up essentially being an independent study, which college kids can usually do, but elementary students? We ended up teaching him everything anyway without any support from his teacher-- support we would have had if we were homeschoolers. I can't see a single advantage to public schools if they're not present in-person.
In the next round of covid 'stimulus' the politicians signaling their empathy to the schools with over $100 billion of your tax dollars.
Where it will be spent is anyone's guess, except those who guess the kids. They'll be wrong...
They're going to be diversity quotas for white learning pods. Of course there's no end game because 100% diversity just means no white people
Daughter will be a high school senior. She will be splitting her day between online work in a digital design program at career center and online college credit courses (math, English, elective) through local state college. The digital design program is highly tech based and they did a great job during shutdown in the spring. Most of the curriculum was easily moved to online format. The college courses were ok. But I think they are moving faster than the high schools to support remote learners. College plans for her are visual communication technology and marketing. We were pretty much done with the high school this year anyhow. May have to buy a Mac a year early to support the at home component. Privilege.
It's petard hoisting season. Universities that don't open in September for in-person learning are helping teach people just how irrelevant college as previously conceived is to success in modern life. Public schools that don't open normally are teaching people that, yes, they can educate their children without the state, undermining years of anti-charter/anti-choice messaging from the teachers unions. And the extended COVID19 manufactured panic, a motivation for which is to introduce mail-in voting where possible, is going to scare a lot of potential voters into not voting in person. Fuck yeah.
Here is a quick list of countries that have reopened their schools:
Denmark
Taiwan
Israel
Germany
Austria
Norway
Finland
France
Japan
Netherlands
Also, sorry, I promise my last comment on this, but: "Learning pods" aren't responsible for worsening the achievement gap. Nice try, though. It's unionized public school teachers and hapless administrations that get to take the blame for that.
Most school systems won't even talk about the kids that are just not showing or not completing any work, let alone how they plan to handle it.
in the olden days; schools got paid according to how many kids showed up
THIS is WHY schools are against hooky and drop outs.... MONEY
in our Brave, New World; HOW are federal funds dispersed?
I'm assuming that Attendance is NOT recorded... Which would mean that:
AS LONG AS School Systems don't even Talk about the kids that are just not showing or not completing any work.... They get Paid, Just The Same
[if kids want schools to care about THEM, they should be paying union dues]
Every man and woman for themselves. I'm sure when people were going down with the Titanic they weren't checking the UL rating of a floating steamer trunk for its suitability and durability as a floatation device. Accreditation from the local education poo bahs is laughably naive at this point.
Good for these parents getting actively involved to figure out how to teach their kids since the state has failed them. I am sure their kids will actually learn things this fall as opposed to the unfortunates attending class via ZOOM while toggling between video games and texting all their friends at home the entire time.
One common elements of those who survived 9/11 in the WTC was they left the building and kept walking after the first plane hit. They didn't wait around until Fireman told them to leave. They kept walking and never looked back. We are really on our own here.
"What good could it do to hold more children back?"
Equality. Justice. The prog dream.
Plus prostration of the people before the power of government. The prog dream.
So wealthy, educated people are going to figure out a way to educate their children, and the poor will lose out. And as we defund and otherwise disable the police, they will hire private security patrols. Again the poor will lose out.
My only question is whether it's all intentional.
My wife and I homeschooled for twenty years. At the time, it was common to homeschool "until high school". When that time came, we looked at each other and said, "We might as well keep going." It wasn't easy, especially the one income thing. But we muddled through. The number one thing people don't realize about homeschooling is how it draws a family very closely together. And our kids are now 26-38 years of age and still hanging out with us. All went to college (and at least one figured out what a con college has become). The number two thing about homeschooling is: it takes a lot less time to do, which frees the kids up to do stuff they really want to do, for hours a day. And no more peer dependency! I could go on.
The creation of learning pods seems to involve a lot of future orientation, time rigidity, and Protestant work ethic, with a dollop of rugged individualism. In short, a blatant manifestation of white culture which must be suppressed.
I saw a segment on Martha McCallum's show last night about booming enrollments at Catholic schools. Parochial schools do not employ unionized teachers and so are planning on opening in the fall. Parents not only want their kids back in school, they are also becoming aware of the dreary leftist brainwashing that passes for education in public schools. I hope it works out well for the Catholic schools, which have been financially strapped for a long time and, despite that, have done wonders educating inner city kids for less than half the cost per pupil of what is spent in public schools. And parochial schools do a far better job of it.
Black parents who want a better education for their children need to be constantly reminded that it is the Democrats who want to trap their kids in shitty public schools. And most of the Dem pols wouldn't dream of sending their own darlings to those same public schools.
If more states offered school choice, the public schools would have to get better or die.
From the article...
"I think one thing every single parent needs to know — and I don't think every parent does — is if you choose to pull your child out of public school, your school loses funding," said Hafner. "That's the worst possible thing you could do for a school district, is to remove that funding at this moment in time when everybody needs funding for education. Understanding that has extreme ramifications financially for a school district."
If you pull your child out of public school, the school should lose funding. Unless, of course, those tax dollars are going to something other than educating your child. In that case, it might be instructive to let taxpayers know what those "non-education" things are, that they're paying for.
As has always been true, the Teachers' Unions promote the solitary interests of teachers, hiding behind children to mask their selfishness.
Note, please, I'm talking about the selfishness of the unions,. As a class, teachers themselves are generally remarkably unselfish. But the union are a different beast. And that's ok. Unions are supposed to advocate for the selfish interests of their members.
But for that very reason, you can't let the unions drive these decisions. As with most large public policy issues, here we as a society must balance multiple competing interests.
For me, I believe strongly that schools SHOULD open for in-person instruction (at least through grade 3 or 4). The data, from the CDC and the American Pediatrics Association, show that kids that age are very unlikely to catch the virus and very unlikely to transmit it. In my own community, there have been a LOT of summer day camps open, and no reports of outbreaks at any of them.
If the teachers are too scared to come to work, despite the science, let the schools open in-person, with any teachers willing to show up. For those that really feel unsafe (either legitimately, due to extensive comorbidities or otherwise), let them teach from home, to a schoolroom full of kids monitored by a paid camp-counselor type or a volunteer parent. Then the kids will suffer less.
In my own community, we're seeing a lot of pop-up "camps," where employees will monitor your children while the kids do work on their own laptops and tablets logged in to their own school's distance learning.
The teachers union in the article are particularly reprehensible for trying to blame the CERTAINTY of increasing educational outcome disparities on parents trying to keep getting an education in spite of the teachers' unscientific fear, rather than accepting it squarely where it belongs. Even if NO "pods" or additional home-schooling came into being this fall, educational disparities will increase. Quite simply, the children of parents who have the time, interest, and ability to read to them will be far more capable of surviving this educational interruption than children from families who cannot or do not. Shutting down in-person education for a month or a semester or a year is guaranteed to increase educational disparities, regardless of what well-to-do parents do or do not do to help their own kids.
"What good could it do to hold more children back?"
The liberal god of equality. The problem is, progressives aren't interested in providing opportunities to raise people up, they prefer to bring down everyone to the same common level. Except themselves, of course.
Also, the Catholic schools have been working on reopening plans since Wuhan flu shut the schools down, because they have every incentive to do so. Meanwhile, I keep hearing from public school "educators" that "we don't have a plan in place yet." Really? What have you been doing since March then? Spending a few hours a day teaching via Zoom and then spending the rest of the day watching Netflix and eating ice cream, while continuing to collect full pay. No wonder they're in no rush to get back to work.
I've tutored minority children in the inner city...not the ghetto but you could see it from there. Kids of single moms, all of said moms former drug addicts and most of them former prostitutes. The kids were the sweetest kids you'd ever meet. They'd had a tough life and this organization was their chance at 'normalcy' if the moms could get their acts together. The common denominator was, they were (understandably) a bit 'wild.' There were no fathers in their lives, and the only men they'd been around were horribly abusive and/or barely there.
"Why would anyone be deterred from setting up a learning pod for the benefit of their own child? What good could it do to hold more children back?"
Equality! You're supposed to sacrifice the education of your child so she doesn't have white privilege.
Student in 2000: Why do I need to learn Algebra?
Teacher in 2000: Because in 20 years or so there's going to be a plague, schools are going to close, and your wife is going to expect you to teach your kids and, by extension, everyone else's she knows.
If you don't want to lose half your money, access to your kids, and find yourself out on the street, you'd damn well better learn to solve for X!
"Expert cautions learning pods could worsen Madison's achievement gap"
The achievement gap is caused by differences in IQ and attitudes towards learning and achievement. Removing classroom structure will impact the lower achievers more, but I suspect that IQ is still the main factor in the gap.
We should probably start vocational training at an earlier age.
, but every parent is going to be most concerned about his or her own children,
So wealthy, educated people are going to figure out a way to educate their children, and the poor will lose out.
This is why the commies are winning. Far too many people think in terms of a collective first and foremost.
Not every parent gives a rats ass about their children, let alone if they get a proper education, and I'd submit more poor people are adamant about their children getting an education and will find a way. Education does not come down to writing a check.
If more states offered school choice, the public schools would have to get better or die.
I'm a public school teacher and I support choice, vouchers and charters for exactly this reason. I believe that public schools can get better (if only going back to what worked in the past) if forced to do so.
When I was young there were home economics, assorted VOCA courses such as auto repair, Electrical, the trades. Helped kids to decide what they wanted to pursue after high school. That’s all gone now and they’re pushed to often useless and expense college degrees. What a waste of time and money.
What they aren't going to mention is that they don't expect minority parents to do anything about educating their own children. That is why they expect an increased achievement gap.
I don't think teachers have thought through the ramifications of showing the world how inessential they are.
I am one. And they haven't. They dismiss me when I bring it up. I used to say "by 2050 most people will go to school online, and education in person will be seen as an affection of the rich, and it will be". That was pre-COVID. If school re-opening goes the way I think it will, this could be true in five years. The change is going to be sudden and drastic, as most revolutions are. The ramifications are going to be much wider than the futures of teachers however.
What have you been doing since March then?
Imitating mushrooms. (kept in the dark and fed a diet of bullshit)
On Friday March 13, during fifth period our administrator made an announcement to the students telling them to take their textbooks and lap tops home with them. That was the first inkling we had that the schools would close on Monday and stay closed the rest of the year. We were not told the plan for re-opening until two weeks ago (we were supposed to open next week) and that plan has been radically altered since then. I still don't know what classes I'm teaching or if I'm teaching online all year, or online the first quarter and then we'll see. (The two options we are offering students and parents) It's hard to plan when you don't know what you are planning for.
"Quoted in "Expert cautions learning pods could worsen Madison's achievement gap" (Wisconsin State Journal)."
No shit? You needed an expert to recognize that the White middle-class are more motivated to ensure that their kids get an education? That keeping the schools closed handicaps poorer kids with inferior resources and supervision?
Our public schools are open for those who want in-person school. They gave all teachers the option of taking the year off (without pay).
The ramifications are going to be much wider than the futures of teachers however.
Yep. One of the reasons public schooling was invented was to standardize what was being taught so that the ideology of the ruling class was perpetuated. In Germany it is illegal to home school your children and the specific reason for that is the state's desire to educate the children into a "common culture." What happens when parents are free to reject A Peoples History of the United States and the 1619 Project? What happens when some parents don't?
The measure of educational success is not the learning achieved by the least of the students, it is the learning accomplished by the highest achievers. Holding everyone to some minimum standards of reading, writing, math, and so on is fine and dandy, but even then some special needs students will NOT accomplish that low level of mastery. There must be an achievement gap, because people aren't equally endowed mentally, nor are their learning environments all the same. The idea should be to have as many students as possible, as close to the pinnacle of ultimate achievement as possible.
If a teacher says some children are learning too much, fire that idiot, right damn fast.
"We should probably start vocational training at an earlier age."
I've always believed in this idea...apparently it is quite common in advanced countries like Germany.
I was the first in my family to graduate college. My degree was in a field that I went on to pursue as a vocation. It was also one in which some sort of specialized 'trade school' (although my filed was white collar) would have been appropriate.
There are so many jobs that don't require degrees or the costs associated with attending college. Some very large companies are starting to come around to that notion...think programmers.
"When I was young there were home economics, assorted VOCA courses such as auto repair, Electrical, the trades."
I am where I am because of shop classes in junior high and high school. College didn't do shit for me. People need to at least listen to Mike Rowe, and think about his message.
I’m trying to figure out what the problem is. Tony Evers was Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction from July 2009 until January 2019. During that Wisconsin became notorious as having the worst black-white achievement gap in the country, beating out even Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. The Democrat Party rewarded him by nominating him for Governor, and the citizens elected him to that office. From that I deduce that a large and widening black-white achievement gap is a feature of the Wisconsin educational system, and much desired by the residents of the state.
Freeman: With open schools, are you seeing a freakout from or on behalf of teachers? Where I am, I know a few who are anxious to go back in person and the Christian school down the road is already back in session (presumably with teachers who are willing and happy to be there) but the vast majority of reactions to the current plan for the public schools--optional distance learning for those who want it; in-person starting after Labor Day--from both teachers and parents is that being in class at all or expecting teachers to teach in person is condemning them to death. It's a genuine mass hysteria.
The people complaining that these "pods" will increase educational gaps would probably also gnash their teeth to learn my parents read to me regularly as a child and drilled me in arithmetic and basic algebra. There's a lot of stuff that will increase educational gaps -- the point of public education is to help the children who don't enjoy advantages like "being Asian" or "being rich" nevertheless attain a minimum level of education. If the public educators don't want to do their job or can't do it because of the pandemic, well, the result is forseeable, unfortunately.
Tom said...
Aren’t “learning pods” pretty much how kids learned for the first 150k years of human evolution before the industrialization of schools?
In the US; yes, at least up until the late Nineteenth Century you were responsible for educating your children by either hiring a governess to do it, or sending them to an existing school that you probably paid a hefty tuition to, or forming your own local school along with other families in the area.
Great comments. Regarding the present mess (and how we got here), I recommend Thomas Sowell’s new book, “Charter Schools And Their Enemies.” Regarding the future that is coming at us like a freight train, I recommend Glenn Reynolds’ long essay/short book, “The New School.” I think traditional schooling is in big trouble and the teachers unions are likely to accelerate their collapse, as parents realize they are getting very little value and a lot of miseducation. Colleges likewise: way overpriced and poorly focused. The future will be “life-Kong learning” with much self-direction and affinity group support, acquiring incremental credentialing for fun and profit. The money will flow to superior online education programs, personal tutoring, pods/boot camps/study groups, credentialing organizations.
What good could it do to hold more children back?
I can't believe you even ask the question. If all kids are held back then those with little ability cannot be identified as easily. This is known as "equity".
My law partner (and my wife) is a first-rate law professor, and it is clear that very few of her fellow professors have any interest in spending the time to learn how to teach online. It's a very different experience than in the classroom. No matter how sophisticated the learning management system, all most of them do is post droning videos of their lectures and related powerpoints. Testing is usually multiple choice with automatic grading. If required to conduct live zoom class sessions, they are a nightmare that you can only squint at sideways.
It actually takes a lot of work to do it right, and only a very small percentage of teachers make the slightest effort to do it even half well.
- Krumhorn
“Life-long learning.”
Apologies to King Kong.
We were homeschoolers to begin with, so this has been nominally disruptive for us. Like Ellie, we also have a preexisting homeschool community that we work within to provide cooperative learning.
This is more difficult for families who weren't already set up to educate at home, particularly those who can't easily be home to oversee "distance" learning. I have several friends who are working within their neighborhoods to set up pods of similar aged children overseen by families that have a parent available to monitor the online classes. No money is exchanging hands other that possibly pooling resources for any supplies they need. It is simply neighbors doing their best to help each other get through this. Mind you, it's in a pretty conservative area, so we're probably still awful and selfish, per the Krugman's of the world.
@ellie
"no money" involved, except the money brought in by other family members which gives you the time to do this. A single mom who still has to go to work at a grocery store doesn't have the time (money) to do this
I assume the experts in education want to keep people focused on public schools, not on showing that it's easy to set up an alternative.
The schools themselves are working on their alternative — on line instruction by public school teachers. But if you've got parents like Mike who are seriously unsatisfied with that option, then I would expect the "learning pods" alternative to be something the public school proponents would want to make hard to figure out.
How can you realize this "without evidence," but not see that Antifa and the riots are something that Antifa, the media and the Ds would want to make hard to figure out?
It's hard to plan when you don't know what you are planning for.
7/28/20, 9:48 AM
Gahrie, I didn't mean to slam all teachers. I feel for the dedicated and talented ones who really do wish to teach. The administrators, by and large, seem to be a useless bunch at all levels of education.
One of the things that is being overlooked is that we have a universal franchise. Even back when the franchise was extremely limited, public education was pushed as a means to produce an informed electorate.
The Left appeals to fear and emotionalism now... what happens when we have a large, uneducated, unproductive underclass that still has the vote?
Bread and Circuses.
While son 2 finishes his senior year at UW Engineering, we’ve already made the decision to withdraw son 3 from freshman year at another UW campus due to all of his classes being slated as online. He will instead work on his private pilot license, work his pt job and take an online course, most likely through another Univ.
Apparently there are some who will pay for their kids to attend with only online learning available.
That’s insane, IMO.
"Freeman: With open schools, are you seeing a freakout from or on behalf of teachers?"
Yes.
Also, lots of parents saying, "I don't like any of the options! [Virtual, part-time, or full-time. They get to choose individually.] Waaahhhhh!" I don't know what more they want. Sheesh. It's a pandemic. Suck it up and adapt until it's over.
Think of the bureaucracy!
The whole concept of equity, while nice in theory, is riddled with such contradictions.
Diversity (i.e. class-based taxonomic system, processes, beliefs) dogma. There is a Pro-Choice religion to avoid, ignore reconciliation.
Gahrie, I didn't mean to slam all teachers. I feel for the dedicated and talented ones who really do wish to teach. The administrators, by and large, seem to be a useless bunch at all levels of education.
My son had teachers like that. Then the school district replaced a highly competent principal with a Latina, and she promptly pushed them out the door. But only every single one of them. The teachers' union did not lift a finger to protect them.
All the moms got together and talked over what our kids needed for the year, then we divided the classes. Each mom took what they were good at or could reasonably handle.
Yes, the intelligence is there, the skills may be latent, the organization is organic, the materials (e.g. books, plans) are available, too, the interest and commitment are clear, and a world to observe, explore, and comprehend. Personal initiative and a productive response.
Madison mother of 2 here. I had a kindergartner and a 5th grader last spring. My kids teachers did as well as they could. My 5th grader actually learned a bit and got a bit out of remote learning. My kids kindergarten team did everything they could--they made lots of videos, new presentations every day, etc. But sadly it was pretty much a bust, except for learning phonics through Lexia, which is the online literacy program that MMSD was already using in the classroom, pre-pandemic.
I'm right in the middle of trying to figure out this "pod" thing. I need to balance chilcare with working from home for my job.
Here's the problem: 1) my kids are in dual language instruction (Spanish/English). So we can't just pod up with any old family, we need a family that's getting the same Spanish/English instruction. And every family has kids of different ages. So in fact, I will need two "pods": one for my soon-to-be middle schooler, and another for my rising 1st grader.
My middle schooler will be somewhat independent. He doesn't need a babysitter. I'm arranging to share the responsibility of overseeing his schoolwork with the mom of one of his friends. Some days my kid will go over to her apartment, some days her kid will come to She's a single mom and he's an only child, so she isn't trying to figure out childcare for another kid too. We speak Spanish at home so I think she sees the benefit of it for her kid. Oh yeah--did I mention they are black?
That leaves my first grader. He is my needy one. He was super lonesome for someone to play with that wasn't his mean older brother. So I either need to pay for a babysitter ($$$$) or figure out how to split childcare costs or time. I also need to find another first grader family who hasn't already "podded up" with another family due having older/younger kids. I have reached out to two families: 1) the white family that lives on Madison's west side and who has an only child. 2) The latino family that lives on Madison's south side (like me) but has a bunch of other kids--I don't know what their other arrangements are.
I'm not sure what will happen with either, but I can tell you it will be a lot easier for the white family with only one kid to figure out childcare arrangements and to be flexible on where/how such arrangements will occur, than it will be for the latino family with multiple kids.
I did think it would be interesting if MMSD decided to help parents arrange some kind of childcare arrangements. For example, high school students could be paired up with elementary students. You could try and pair up families that don't have vehicles, with families that do. The problem is, what if you end up with a high schooler who is horrible at watching kids? Then you're stuck with supervising the high schooler too.
We're trying to work up a Distance Learning program for our museum for the election of 2020, discussing how voting has changed in PA, from colony to commonwealth. It's virtually impossible because of the amount of knowledge required to understand even the basics of colonial government and it's relationship to the Crown and English government entities. Try discussing the Board of Trade or Navigation Acts with students. They have no comprehension, not to mention the Secretary of State for the Southern Department. Maybe a dedicated AP History class, but that's about it. All the rest is 'eyes glaze over'.
Somebody notify the Handicapper General!
A single mom who still has to go to work at a grocery store doesn't have the time (money) to do this
I'll grant the premise - although assuming this single mom has nothing to contribute to the group is astoundingly condescending. How is this a reason for others not to do so?
“Blogger I'm Full of Soup said...
If more states offered school choice, the public schools would have to get better or die.”
That is what makes it an uphill battle. Public school teachers (and their union) are a big Dem bloc.
“Blogger Kevin said...
Student in 2000: Why do I need to learn Algebra?“
Teacher in 2000: You don’t ... if you plan on flipping burgers at McDonald's for the ret of your life. But if you would like to be an engineer, a physicist, or a practitioner of any other hard science you’ll find that it comes in real handy. So shut up, sit down, strap in and let’s learn some algebra.
The problem is, what if you end up with a high schooler who is horrible at watching kids? Then you're stuck with supervising the high schooler too.
Not to mention the liability questions if the school district plays any part in arranging time spent together outside of school.
And boy you ain't kidding about the complications with large families. My kids are 18, 16, 14, 10, 4, and 2. The eldest heads back to her sophomore year in college; the second starts her senior year and has her own car; the third will be a freshman in high school and is super self-reliant. If it were just those three it'd be quite manageable. It's the moderate amount of shepherding that those three combined with my much more high-maintenance younger three that are the problem. The rising fifth grader has a host of learning disabilities and in the spring it took all day to do 2 hours worth of distance learning work ("work"). That was all day where my attention was focused on him and withheld from all the tasks necessary to keep a household of eight running smoothly, and withheld from his toddler sisters. Now that we've had four months of this nightmare under our belts, my two babies are much clingier (forbidding all of their outside activities will do that) and with my husband working sixty hours a week trying to do his job as well as that of furloughed colleagues, and with me doing things around the house we outsourced before his salary was reduced for economic conditions, there is that much less of me to go around. The reason I didn't homeschool my son in the first place was his two younger sisters and their needs, and now that their preschool opening looks dubious thanks to the hysterical women in my community, I am not sure how I can manage him + his sisters, and also take on another child in a supervision-swap kind of scenario.
The problem is, what if you end up with a high schooler who is horrible at watching kids? Then you're stuck with supervising the high schooler too.
Not to mention the liability questions if the school district plays any part in arranging time spent together outside of school.
And boy you ain't kidding about the complications with large families. My kids are 18, 16, 14, 10, 4, and 2. The eldest heads back to her sophomore year in college; the second starts her senior year and has her own car; the third will be a freshman in high school and is super self-reliant. If it were just those three it'd be quite manageable. It's the moderate amount of shepherding that those three combined with my much more high-maintenance younger three that are the problem. The rising fifth grader has a host of learning disabilities and in the spring it took all day to do 2 hours worth of distance learning work ("work"). That was all day where my attention was focused on him and withheld from all the tasks necessary to keep a household of eight running smoothly, and withheld from his toddler sisters. Now that we've had four months of this nightmare under our belts, my two babies are much clingier (forbidding all of their outside activities will do that) and with my husband working sixty hours a week trying to do his job as well as that of furloughed colleagues, and with me doing things around the house we outsourced before his salary was reduced for economic conditions, there is that much less of me to go around. The reason I didn't homeschool my son in the first place was his two younger sisters and their needs, and now that their preschool opening looks dubious thanks to the hysterical women in my community, I am not sure how I can manage him + his sisters, and also take on another child in a supervision-swap kind of scenario.
todd, having things like that available for inclusion into a curriculum is one of the most seductive things about homeschooling.
"I don't know where you are getting your numbers." I was using City of Chicago numbers, not Cook County, not Illinois, not US.
If it were allowed I would embed graphic from the City of Chicago covid website which on 27 July 2020 showed 238 Covid deaths in the city of Chicago.
HeyJackass.com uses CPD stats and is updated daily; as of this writing it shows total homicides 438, of those 395 were shot and killed. Total shot 2241.
My statement stands.
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/ scroll down for graphics
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-302zqwyG-JE/Xx-GQMYnXmI/AAAAAAAAIB0/eZNCzXeo7mouIglItbjKeO2TCmxzTQKlACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/COVID%2BDaily%2BSummary.jpg
I'd try doing your search again with Duck Duck Go instead of Google. I saw a a lot of helpful low cost options as well as the articles deploring privelege in the MSM. Also some states pay for home schooling alternatives.
"Expert cautions learning pods could worsen Madison's achievement gap"
Learning can be bad for those who don't learn.
Why did we rescue those who didn't go down with the Titanic? It made those who did die look even worse.
Francisco D,
I think the IQ thing may be both better and worse than you think. My father ran my grandfather's lumberyard. Even though I have no mechanical aptitude, I grew up participating in doing projects around the house. My own fix-it-ups range from unsightly to inelegant, but they tend to work because if they don't I fuss with them till they do.
A lot of standardized testing, starting with IQ testing, is about pattern recognition and understanding the more common models for problem solving. Which makes me worry: What if part of being a problem solver is seeing problem solving modeled so that 1) you know things to try and 2) you have the idea that when you have a problem you experiment with solutions you understand till you find something that works?
This is not saying that every kid could be a genius with the right environment in early childhood. But it is saying that even a child of middling innate capacity is likely to show up as rather less intelligent if not raised in an environment that stimulates investigation of the world and the formation of some extra neural connections while the brain is at maximum plasticity. I'd point to the mess when children were raised without language input in an effort to find out the true natural language only, instead, they evidenced little language ability at all.
@I Have Misplaced My Pants. Oh boy. I feel for you. I am so sorry.
Is there any chance that you can enlist you high schoolers to shower your 4 year old and 2 year old with attention, take them for walks, give them hugs, etc? Maybe they can tag team and each take one to be the substitute "parent."
I have finally been able to cajole the mean older brother to sit down and help his younger read a book for 10 minutes a day. It helps. It's just one more thing off my list.
Here's what I want to say. Crushing this pandemic so that kids can return to in-person school should have been the goal all along. We should have been restricting people in indoor bars, restaurants, and fitness clubs, so that the case numbers were low enough so that opening schools is less likely to result in an outbreak. I'm not worried about the kids getting sick--they are likely to do fine. I AM worried about kids taking it home to grandparents, immune-suppressed parents, etc.
ga6: That graphic only selected out only people 49 years and younger for COVID-19 deaths, which is an odd way to measure COVID-19 deaths. I guess people who are older than 49 don't count?
City of Chicago Covid website shows 2765 deaths as of today.
https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/covid-19/home/latest-data.html
HeyJackass website shows 442 homicides as of today. https://heyjackass.com/
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