"Conservatives have argued for years that liberals don't actually care about science and only pretend to when it's convenient for the advancement of their political agenda. It appears that they had a point."
A commenter named Jadon writes, at "School Closures Have Failed America’s Children As many as three million children have gotten no education for nearly a year" by Nicholas Kristof (NYT).
Posts
195 comments:
As of Jan. 29, almost 10 percent fewer high school seniors had submitted FAFSA financial aid forms, a sign that some are losing the chance to attend college.
Or it could mean that people are putting off college until things get back to normal?
A lot of science isn't exactly science.
You get internal agreements in different fields what constitutes adult peer review. Those in a different field may think therefore it's not a real science because their stuff is reviewed by morons.
We get to see what concentrated stomach acid can do to a paper napkin but not what it can do to a white lab coat. #science
Maybe number one on the list of hypocritical action of the Dems. And they have no remorse.
Think of the parents in CA and Chicago watching the Catholic schools remain open the entire time. Frankly, I’m surprised there haven’t been parent riots.
My nephew is a freshman at Nebraska. His brother graduated last year from Iowa State. They missed a lot.
My son graduated from law school last year. No ceremony. My oldest graduated from architectural school. A ridiculous virtual ceremony.
I will never forgive the CCP, Dems and Fake News for this disaster. China owes us about $5 trillion and Joe won’t do a thing.
Liberals only pretend to care about a lot of things. Education of other people's children is one of those things. My Governor's children go to private schools, which are open. My Governor is Newsom.
No instruction since last year?
Oddly enough, my child finally rounded the corner on writing during all this and has been working regularly with her English teacher to edit and finalize her stories.
I guess I should let her teacher know that never happened.
Drop in financial aid forms for college could be recognition that the overall value of college is decreasing. Even with some aid, the loans needed to supplement are painfully high, and work to delay people’s life journey.
They reject science more often than that. They only use science when it is something they can use it for to ram something through. This is why we laugh at them.
My grandkids have done very well over the year of shutdowns.
We’ve got three in the house, which has been quite a blessing. The kids always have playmates.
This change to a virtual world was and is inevitable. The virus was like a bomb that blew up the old world.
I’m happy with my grandkids’ development over the past year. Of course, we’ve got three adults (Mom, Dad, Grandpa) who simply enjoy working and playing with the kids. They do miss their friends, but we sneak them in from time to time.
They’ve become remarkably computer literate for 5 and 7 year old kids. This is good. If you don’t remember how difficult it was to use a computer 35 years ago, you don’t know what a huge evolutionary shift this represents.
This shift to the virtual world is permanent. No way to go back.
I am shocked, shocked to learn that liberals are hypocrites.
Mark-
The plural of anecdote is not data.
Imagine a plot of education attained vs income. Before the pandemic it sloped up. Since the pandemic started it has shifted down because the quality of everyone’s education has decreased. It has also steepened because the poor have fewer resources to deal with the consequent hurdles of remote learning and thus lose more than wealthier students.
I guess I should let her teacher know that never happened.
What you should do is let those 3 million kids know that they’re actually doing great based on your sample set of one privileged kid.
People aren't completing their FAFSA because they don't intend to borrow tens of thousands of dollars to go to college online.
I am a public school teacher. I was literally locked out of my classroom on March 16, 2020. To go into my classroom now, I have to sign up a week in advance.
I've been doing the best I can, but I am nowhere as effective as I was in the classroom. I am 55, overweight, pre-diabetic and I have an open ulcer on my leg. I've been ready to go back into my room since March 16, 2020.
I believe public education has shifted permanently. Online schooling will be a major factor from now on. It'll be used by three different types of families.
The first type will be introverted students/ Asperger's types who do better online. These students are actually thriving.
The second group are the apathetic, the ones who don't attend regularly or do their work anyway. Their parents will sign them up for online schools just to avoid the phone calls from attendance.
The last group will be those "gaming" the system to graduate early, or avoid unpleasant requirements in the local schools.
Someone is going to get rich by setting up a national online school that rejects Common Core, and goes back to what worked, drill and kill.
I'd be shocked if public school enrollment doesn't drop by at least 50%.
Our son is a senior in HS. He has been accepted to four good universities. He is is going to a JC if they start out online next year.
China sees fucked up American kids as a feature not a flaw. Read a little Sun Tzu for background. Wise Up.
The Art of War. They've been at it for Millenia. They are patient.
The Democrats have always championed underprivileged people. The underprivileged student, the kids whose parents won't feed them on the weekends, the restaurant workers and grocery workers who work full time jobs and will never be rich from those jobs.
But COVID has tossed those people out the window, with nary a mention.
The current Dem party doesn't even *notice* the kids who are being lost in the home schooling, who are in terrible situations. They don't notice the people who can't work. They don't notice the people who continue to work without complaint.
The current Dem party is the party of illegal immigrants, of teachers unions, and of upper middle class work-from-homers who haven't lost a pay check and worry about social justice for trans people and want to hate themselves for being white.
No they don't care about actual science. look at Gov Whitless in Mi, she's shutting down a major energy pipeline with an impeccable safety record (of course it was after the election and delayed until spring) because of why? Why exactly? Energy prices in Michigan continue to climb. Petrol is up .80 since inauguration day. We might not have the NG capacity, or be able to afford to heat our homes this coming winter 21/22 the way things are going because SCIENCE!
If your kid is thriving, thank God for that. But kids who don't have access at home to a dedicated computer AND playmates, as one commenter above noted, are in a world of hurt.
Plus the teenager problem - for adolescents, social connection is super high-value, and they're setting in place habits that will not serve them well throughout their lives: minimal face-to-face interaction with anyone but your family, no eye contact, no physical contact, bad posture, an emphasis on tweet-length communications with poor writing not penalized because that's just how you communicate via Zoom chat... Interviewers in coming years will have their work cut out for them if, as that same commenter said, "virtual learning" is here to stay: they'll have to try to judge whether a young person with few social skills and many bad habits can possibly grow into a customer-facing role.
This is to say nothing of the non-education-related school experiences that virtual students are missing. My daughter graduated last year - no prom, no parties, no "senior trip," weird commencement. Because I'm a nerd, I wasn't too unhappy about her missing the parties, but I have to say that the ones I attended in high school do constitute a body of memory that informs my life now.
Dem's also care not for the poor. They care not about the impact that higher energy prices have on the poor. If they cared about the poor, they would do everything they could to keep energy prices low.
The kids who are motivated to succeed in school because of sports are also being hurt. Kids who have worked their whole lives to get where they are, only to have governors decide for whatever reason that their sport doesn't need to be played.
They tout SCIENCE! (tm) but then try to tell us that Bruce Jenner really, really, really is a "woman"
In England people are going to jail for not pretending to believe that.
We're not far behind.
I have no problem with Jenner pretending to be a woman. His body, his choice. I am assuming he even believes he is. Again, no problem for me.
My problem is that people call this "science" . And demand that I accept it.
As a degreed scientist (see? I have standing) I object to that.
John Henry
And....? What, exactly? Democrats/Liberals/Progressives are disingenuous and use words and 'causes' only to further access or consolidate their power? Who'd a thunk it?
Why would it be maddening?
Isn't it par for the course?
Executive summary: “Blind squirrel finds acorn”.
The other thing this has done is fully exposed the rot at the core of our public school system, run by the Teachers Unions who have NEVER held up educating children as their reason for being, and employed by teachers who are- and I'm treading on dangerous ground here- not typically the best and the brightest. This is who we have handed our kids minds to.
Parents all over the country have been given a look at the quality of the teachers and the Union leaders. Both are disasters. And given the cost of Universities these days (it costs a lot to have layers of administrators and Diversity Directors), smart kids and parents might consider a trade school for their kid. Someone is going to need to be able to handle electrical work, plumbing, mechanics, etc. in the coming years. The avalanche of Gender and Ethnic Studies grads won't have a clue how to keep things running. Those with the demanded skills will always be working and have the ability to make a good living without having to be part-time activists.
It's been true for...forever, probably...that the left uses science in exactly the same way the right does--they shout about it when it supports what they were going to do anyway and they ignore it when it doesn't. The only real difference is that the left shouts "science!" just as much when they are ignoring it as when they are following it. The right, in general, has the decency to not pretend science says what they want it to when they're ignoring it.
I'd like to know what subsequent NYT commenters had to say about Jadon's comment.
It’s frickin’ hilarious to get lectured on “science” by people who can’t assess risk at all — either for themselves or for groups — and live in fear 24x7 as if there was never any risk to them before March 2020. What a bunch of maroons ...
Note to those folks: your immune system and basic hygiene are your only real defenses, the ones you control, against the world we live in, and we are surrounded by dangerous viruses and germs everywhere all the time. Always have been.
Congrats for waking up to this reality, but now you’ve gone over to the dark side, believing that extreme isolation is some kind of magic answer to risk management. It is most definitely not that.
Anyone who could watch Obama campaign with Oprah and thought they were watching the "party of science" - or see Marianne Williamson onstage as a party candidate after that - is deeply delusional.
Wilbur said...
I'd like to know what subsequent NYT commenters had to say about Jadon's comment.
Only a few and they're fairly even, pro and con. The reader picks section is top heavy with teachers defending teachers and closures, but even there there is a wide mix of attitudes and tones. There doesn't seem to be any consensus among Times readers, but there is some respect for alternative views.
Teachers unions are evil and should be abolished.
Anyone seen or heard of a covid-19 model that showed a precipitous decline in US cases and deaths beginning in mid January?
"The reluctance of many Republicans to wear masks and practice social distancing is one reason so many Americans are dead." Good thing he mentioned that, huh? Otherwise we might think that Democrats are the bad ones.
Of course, the stats don't show that red areas are disproportionately the source of all those deaths, so while that may be a cause, it is probably not the most important cause. New York, for instance, had a very clear cause for the bulk of its deaths, and it wasn't because of Republicans.
Note also that for nearly a year now the media could have chosen to put out big stories about the risk to children being so low that “essentially no risk” is the right way to categorize it.
Nothing. They chose instead to push dangerous lies and promote policies that damage people forever, for politics.
Why would anyone ever trust them, on anything, ever again?
Public schools have been de-educating kids for decades. Every single standard has been lowered. Colleges have been saying since at least the 70's that incoming freshman had abysmal writing skills. Now they have abysmal reading skills. History? non existent. Civics? Hell no!, But boy are they woke.
As noted by the anecdote above, parents of means and intelligence, are educating the children just fine. But they have parents that have always been involved.
My son will give them a drawing of a project he is considering and has the kids create a materials list, and price it. They are learning to cook. Pick a menu, create shopping list, check against inventory. The parents are getting them involved in household finance. Budgeting, that includes saving for a tropical island vacation. Credit cards, interest, compounding, etc. Trips to state parks, learn the different flora and fauna. Conifers, deciduous, broadleaf vs grass, perennial vs annual. I think the grandkids are in a good spot, more one on one with parents, has calmed them, and taken some of the fighting down a notch or two.
But what about the other 97% if the kids?
Mark said...
2/25/21, 5:30 AM
It's good she's doing well. She must take after her mother.
I'm sure there are many successful students. Does that mean we can ignore the ones where there isn't one computer per child, where there isn't privacy for classes, where there is no longer any escape from neglect or abuse?
It's good that your daughter is interested in a subject that adapts well to online learning. What about the kids who are interested in sciences that require labs? Or ones that want to do theater or band? Oh, well, sucks to be them, I guess.
Some eyes are opening. Shame it was not sooner.
Too many go by "but they talk so nice and reasonably" while completely ignoring their actual actions.
All the teachers are great. The very best among us. True heroes. The gatekeepers of America's future, driven only by the deep seeded love of other people's children. A love that is unrivaled in any aspect of the human experience. That is why they do it for next to nothing. Slaves to the quest of a better future.
If it weren't for that nameless, faceless Teachers Union holding them back, why we'd have the smartest, most well-adjusted high achieving children in all of human history.
The Dems are getting what they've wanted since William Jennings Bryan--free money from the air.
Follow the science has been a canard since the start.
"Conservatives have argued for years that liberals don't actually care about science and only pretend to when it's convenient for the advancement of their political agenda. It appears that they had a point."
OK, the beginning of an insight. In what other areas might conservatives "have a point"? In which other ways are progs spouting BS to advance a "political agenda"? What other things "don't they actually care about"? Why do progs "pretend" in the first place, and what does it say about you that you would fall for it in the first place? Cui bono?
Hint: follow the money.
"Conservatives have argued for years that liberals don't actually care about science and only pretend to when it's convenient for the advancement of their political agenda. It appears that they had a point."
We've been right about science forever. 1) A fetus is a life 2) There are two biological genders 3) Climate Change is a hoax 4) lock downs and masks are bullshit 5) Fauci is a fraud 6) HCQ was and is a safe COVID treatment 7) Teachers Unions and University 'experts', bend science as "studies" to their foregone political conclusions.
That's why liberal social median low level sheep always us "I believe in science", which on its face is one of the dumbest things you can claim. Real science doesn't require beleif.
Our local papers are filled with Corona scare by UPI, perhaps so as to not sully their reputations with all this bullshit. There is only so much one actually can do with a B.A. in English! Gotta shovel the shit.
Thought Problem... Define "Cases".
"As of Jan. 29, almost 10 percent fewer high school seniors had submitted FAFSA financial aid forms..."
Why is the Federal Government involved at all in such a program?
The Iowa legislature has been forced to write legislation to fire administrators that fail to follow the law. The legislature passed a law the required all schools to offer in person learning full time. Several districts have ignored the law. Now the legislature is wanting to fire administrators and removing board members for failing their basic mission statement and ignoring state law. (I think the should fine teachers unions).
Gahrie said…"Someone is going to get rich by setting up a national online school that rejects Common Core, and goes back to what worked, drill and kill. I'd be shocked if public school enrollment doesn't drop by at least 50%."
Oh, God I hope so. Home schooling is just too hard for most people. But if the pandemic becomes the kick-start to a real alternative to the public school system it will actually have been worth it.
That's why liberal social median low level sheep always us "I believe in science", which on its face is one of the dumbest things you can claim. Real science doesn't require beleif.
sciencism
"insisted for months we follow the science"
1) It's been more than months. Goes back to telling us the ice caps would melt by 2013. That was supposedly "science".
2) They NEVER state which "science". Just the political "science", which is basically anything Fauci says.
3) Liberals are disingenuous morons.
Gee maybe conservatives are right about the child-hating teacher unions! Maybe taxes are misused by government. Maybe ejections should be secure. Maybe the law should be applied equally. And maybe just maybe the best way to deal with racial tension is to stop letting government try to “help” any race based on race because said “help” looks a lot like how the unions are “helping” schools right this fucking minute!
The most malleable and changing of all the science is medical science. The most important one to have open debate and professional disagreement for the benefit of each individual patient.
And that’s the one liberals have sacrificed most to our American False Prophet “Dr.” Anthony Fauci.
The ones who intone "I follow the science" are the same ones who scoff at those who watch "faux news". The same ones whose political knowledge is informed by comedians, Maddow, Colbert, et al.
Prior to Cuomo and other Democrat Governors executive orders sending small pox blankets to nursing homes in March of 2020, Asia and Europe has already giving warning and guidelines that elderly facilitates needed special consideration and protection. PROIR to…
That’s why what Andrew Cuomo, Phil Murphy (NJ), and Gretchen Whitmer (MI) did was at a minimum voluntary manslaughter. Gavin Newsome (CA) too, and our Transgendered Assistant Health Secretary (PA) as well. They were given amble scientific warning prior to their evil stupidity and should all be prosecuted for the thousands of elderly people they killed.
Band practice at Wenatchee HS in Washington state.
Sciencism.
Is there a decision on how we use the word "liberal"? Alan Dershowitz made a plea to recover the title for classical liberals recently on his podcast. What is now called liberal was the anti-liberal a century ago when Ludwig von Mises wrote 'Liberalism' (1927). Mises wrote of the parties of special interests.
"The parties of special interests, which see nothing more in politics than the securing of privileges and prerogatives for their own groups, not only make the parliamentary system impossible; they rupture the unity of the state and of society. They lead not merely to the crisis of parliamentarism, but to a general political and social crisis. Society cannot, in the long run, exist if it is divided into sharply defined groups, each intent on wresting special privileges for its own members, continually on the alert to see that it does not suffer any setback, and prepared, at any moment, to sacrifice the most important political institutions for the sake of winning some petty advantage.
"To the parties of special interests, all political questions appear exclusively as problems of political tactics. Their ultimate goal is fixed for them from the start. Their aim is to obtain, at the cost of the rest of the population, the greatest possible advantages and privileges for the groups they represent. The party platform is intended to disguise this objective and give it a certain appearance of justification, but under no circumstances to announce it publicly as the goal of party policy. The members of the party, in any case, know what their goal is; they do not need to have it explained to them. How much of it ought to be imparted to the world is, however, a purely tactical question.
"All antiliberal parties want nothing but to secure special favors for their own members, in complete disregard of the resulting disintegration of the whole structure of society. They cannot withstand for a moment the criticism that liberalism makes of their aims."
Mises, Ludwig von (1927). Liberalism
But that is a pretty good explanation on why school reopening doesn't follow "the science" now that it doesn't support the favored special interest.
As of Jan. 29, almost 10 percent fewer high school seniors had submitted FAFSA financial aid forms, a sign that some are losing the chance to attend college.
@ Kay: Or it could mean that people are putting off college until things get back to normal?
Or "back to normal" may be enrollment declines that started trending pre-COVID.
Fewer Students Are Going To College. Here's Why That Matters
December 16, 2019
Teachers unions will attack online competition as deceptive, unlicensed, sanctuaries for hateful thoughts and unscience-y ideas. They will lean on FB and Amazon and other platforms to shut them down. Chaos ensues.
"That is why they do it for next to nothing."
Again, there's a Dick van Dyke episode that contains a joke about the "underpaid teacher" cliche. That was on in the early Sixties.
Lewis Wetzel said...Anyone seen or heard of a covid-19 model that showed a precipitous decline in US cases and deaths beginning in mid January?
Most epidemiologists expected that cases would peak 2 weeks after the holidays ended. They did not predict the size of the decline, but a decline in mid-January was considered the most likely scenario.
"Or it could mean that people are putting off college until things get back to normal?"
-- Yes, but there are some people who miss that opportunity, especially poorer people, are losing that opportunity forever.
I thought iif you merely yelled out the word 'science!" - you were auto-in the "i'm smart democrat woke science club.
With all the hate for America that schools were teaching, including CRT bullshit, lack of instruction really means a year of lost indoctrination. How do public schools explain private schools operating with no outbreaks? Oh they don’t explain anything? Hmmm.
My (life long Democrat) wife was very leery of the vaccine and schools reopening here when Trump was POTUS. She was concerned that the vaccine was rushed and Big Pharma was just in it for the money.
Now that Trump is exiled, she has had both Pfizer shots and is pressuring me to get vaccinated although I am retired and do not encounter the public much. School is back in session and she has few complaints.
That Joe Biden is a miracle worker. It is shocking that he didn't win by 50 million votes.
https://thenationalpulse.com/news/black-caucus-biden-hud-ccp-trips/
I guess I shouldn't be, but I am amazed at how easily the media has slipped into the meme that teachers can't go back into the classroom until both they and their students are all vaccinated. It is presented as accepted fact. No questions asked or required. In spite of massive evidence to the contrary.
Keep your eyes open and your antenna up for a day or two. You'll see what I mean.
This is what scares me most. The media has become very adept at feeding you what they want you to believe. Not everyone will, but enough will to bend things their way. And of course there are the true believers who define truth as whatever is useful.
But there will be cracks in the dike here and there so the next step is to silence any opposition. That campaign is well underway too.
Welcome to the 21st century, Jadon. Except it's not "liberals" and "conservatives" any more. They're "Left Fascists" and we're "reactionaries".
I am noticing a decreasing number of hikers and bikers wearing masks now that we have Joe Biden selected as POTUS.
We still social distance by moving to the side or the street when others are passing. I do it to be polite, sort of like wearing masks at the grocery store.
I am more concerned about the lack of skilled workers than the lack of college students. The so-called loss of education can be made up quickly by young plastic minds. And Opening schools should be a local choice dependent on vaccination rates that must include teachers, a reasonable request from unions and non-unions.
Somewhat related:
‘Rural districts couldn’t compete:’ Wisconsin’s schools after a decade of Act 10
"The 1,500-student district in rural south central Wisconsin used to have four elementary schools, Wermuth said; it’s considered a declining enrollment district. He arrived in mid-2019, after they’d weathered much of the aftermath of Act 10, the budget cuts that followed, and the ongoing affects of a complex school funding system first put in place in the early 1990s that caps how much funding school districts in Wisconsin can raise, based on student count."
...but it's all the fault of Act 10. Sure.
Follow the populace - it's unclear whether most of us *want* to go back to in-person learning.
When life is, to you,all political, then it makes sense, in a nonsensical way,for science to be political. It's the USSR all over again. What does the party need my truth to be. If the party needs me to falsely confess and be killed, here is my confession.
Step back and observe the last year and you can see every institution in America in which progressives have control being employed to agitate, rile up, frustrate and infuriate the populace. I’ve said for a year that COVID presented an opportunity for the medical/epidemiology community to teach us facts about viral spread, teach the public what to expect and how to navigate it. Instead the voices were silenced except for a tiny number of “experts” who obscured, prevaricated, shaded the truth, evaded simple explanations and greatly exacerbated a bad flu year into a farce of the Black Plague.
Where were the honest and informative pediatricians? Where were the honest and informative Early childhood development PhD’s voices? Where were the honest and informative discussions of why the “two weeks” did NOT “flatten the curve”? Where were the honest and informative Lockdown Leader who actually followed what they were telling the people who elected them?
Chris said: "Dem's also care not for the poor. They care not about the impact that higher energy prices have on the poor. If they cared about the poor, they would do everything they could to keep energy prices low."
The "poor" in SE Michigan have their utility bills either subsidized or wiped clean when costs exceed means. Net result is that those that can afford utilities pay twice: once for themselves and again to cover the subsidizes via taxes or higher utility rates. One exception may be at the fuel pump -- rising prices there are felt directly by all.
"And Opening schools should be a local choice dependent on vaccination rates that must include teachers, a reasonable request from unions and non-unions."
Science be damned!
Public sector unions are a bane on society, and cannot avoid corrupt practices. Eliminate all public sector unions, and this problem goes away, as do sooooo many other problems similar to this, wherein the workers work for the union's benefit, rather than for their own good, or gods forbid, the benefit of their employers - the public.
"Anyone seen or heard of a covid-19 model that showed a precipitous decline in US cases and deaths beginning in mid January?"
Turns out the only ones who were right were the so-called conspiracy theorists who promised the pandemic would conveniently end as soon Biden was inaugurated and the political utility of pandemic-porn was waning.
I guess I shouldn't be, but I am amazed at how easily the media has slipped into the meme that teachers can't go back into the classroom until both they and their students are all vaccinated. It is presented as accepted fact. No questions asked or required. In spite of massive evidence to the contrary.
But that is the essence of this post. The CDC, has looked at all applicable science and determined is is safe to go to full in person learning.
Teachers and administrators are ignoring that science.
There are also thousands of laboratories (schools) across the nation that have been full time since August that offer lots of successful "experiments"
The article itself provides several examples of anti-science techniques, e.g. "we may have inflicted" and "may increase", rather than "did inflict" or "did increase", but this cherry-picking of data was pretty blatant, and funny too (I hopd I'm not the only one who laughed at it!):
"Closures also exacerbate racial inequity. According to McKinsey & Company, fifth graders in schools with mostly students of color mastered only 37 percent of the math that usually would be expected."
His link to support that statement, which also has plenty of "could be", "might" and "may" statements, does NOT mention fifth grade at all, and the only 37% it mentions is reducing suspensions somewhere.
That link does mention that some group only learned 67% of the math they were supposed to; not 37%. The link to support THAT 67% statement does NOT mention 67%, but does mention rather small 6% to 10% increases in the number of kids who are too dumb or too ignorant for their grade level.
Sure whatever
https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/coronavirus/2021/02/24/coronavirus-wear-mask-have-covid-vaccine-health-experts-say/4573078001/
That Joe Biden is a miracle worker. It is shocking that he didn't win by 50 million votes.
He will, or somebody will, next election. It will prove how popular the policies that destroy a country are once and for all.
And from the La Mesa-Spring Valley School Board in sunny California:
"School Board Member Compares School Reopening to Slavery, 'White Supremacist Ideology"
"Chardá Bell-Fontenot, the board vice-president, dismissed the fact that most families who answered a school reopening survey would like to come back to school. She complained that the other school board members allegedly disrespected her, and she repeatedly resorted to accusations of racism."
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/02/24/school-board-member-compares-school-reopening-to-slavery-white-supremacist-ideology-n1428080
rhhardin said...A lot of science isn't exactly science.
Comment of the day. Most of these "scientific" pronouncements have been OPINIONS.
I feel free to ignore random people's opinions.
Most epidemiologists expected that cases would peak 2 weeks after the holidays ended. They did not predict the size of the decline, but a decline in mid-January was considered the most likely scenario.
We are told the "surge" starts at two weeks. Now to match reality it as changed to "peaks" at 2 weeks.
There's a saying in K-12 circles, Fall Behind, Stay Behind which means kids never do fully "catch up" from lost learning. Naturally, the education bureaucracy will use this as a call for Mo Money, but even buckets of $$$$ won't save the lockdown kids.
Tragic in the impact. Furious in the incompetence.
*NOTE: Nowhere does Kristof use the word unions, he probably just forget.
Science bullshit
One of the problems is that "science" is communicated to the public through journalists; a group that couldn't differentiate y = x if their lives depended on it.
Who cares about the kids? We've got to virtue signal that we're superior to Trump and the Covid deniers who want to send their children to school!
Just to be clear, I'm referring to the unscientific statements, or just false statements, made by the nyt scribbler about the harm supposedly being done to kids by their not going to school in person, which harm I think is quite minimal and will remain minimal.
In other news, federal employees are again allowed to use the phrase, "science-based evidence." Or was it "evidence-based science"? I forget. Anyway, I think it means Don't argue.
No shit, Sherlock.
If we're going to do online schools permanently, then do it right.
Go around the country and hire the absolute best, top 100 teachers in America to do online courses.
Pay them an astronomical amount, it doesn't matter how much, it'll be less than paying all the local shitty teachers.
Fire all the local shitty teachers.
Give the savings to parents to spend on supplemental tutoring, etc.
Sell the school lands.
roesch/voltaire said...
I am more concerned about the lack of skilled workers than the lack of college students. The so-called loss of education can be made up quickly by young plastic minds.
Go to hell.
Tired of seeing this notion that children are some 'resilient-can take a punch-will bounce back-abstract commodity weathering a bear market.
Every day of a precious young life is a building block to the life they will as an adult. Every childhood set-back can cause a life-time of consequences.
More importantly, you're talking about someone's child.
"A lot of science isn't exactly science."
A lot of reality isn't exactly reality, either.
Oprah campaigned with Obama for the 2008 election. By then she had flooded the country with almost 30 years of "the paranormal, psychic powers, new age spiritualism, conspiracy theories, quack celebrity diets, past life regression, angels, ghosts, alternative therapies like acupuncture and homeopathy, anti-vaccination, detoxification, vitamin megadosing, and virtually everything that will distract a human being from making useful progress and informed decisions in life" and everybody missed it because he's a black socialist.
Now we're paying for that oversight, and we're missing that, too.
"Science" is a thing. "The science", not so much. When somebody says "the science", you're about to hear "the bullshit."
iowan2 said...We are told the "surge" starts at two weeks. Now to match reality it as changed to "peaks" at 2 weeks.
No. That would roughly be the case if the holiday were a single day. This was a holiday period--multiple holidays spread out over a few months. The surge started about 2 weeks after the holiday period started and it ended about 2 weeks after the holiday period ended.
Andrew Breitbart told you - politics lives downstream from culture - yet you guys talk about politics, endlessly, as the culture kicks the nation in the ass.
Part of the same delusion
https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/16/the-second-set-of-books/
"I will never forgive the CCP, Dems and Fake News for this disaster. China owes us about $5 trillion and Joe won’t do a thing."
China bought Joe for millions, works out to far less than pennies on the dollar. Man, what an investment!
gahrie said..."I believe public education has shifted permanently. Online schooling will be a major factor from now on."
During the pandemic I stumbled onto some posts about homeschooling on another blog. I picked up a link to this online curriculum, ixl com. Browsing through the skill sets I thought it looked pretty good and if I was a young parent interesting in online home schooling I might give it a try. I thought the skill sets matched up really well with the curriculum I went through in Atlanta Public Schools in the late 50s and early 60s. You might be interested in having a look at it.
This is Danny Brown. He's got more "reach" than all your politicians put together and y'all can't even tell what he says.
THAT'S the political world we're in.
The NYT published that comment?
And the Dems and the media are going after Cuomo with a vengeance.
Cats and dogs living together!
School? Pffff. The left would run kids through wood chippers if it helped their cause.
Can you translate
https://beckernews.com/2-president-joe-bidens-state-of-the-union-address-suddenly-appears-to-be-off-for-now-37114/
And they have no remorse.
Being a Democrat means never having to say you’re sorry — unless the woke mob can edit something you wrote some years ago to suggest wrongthink.
If I were an employer, I don't know that I'd be too eager to hire 2020 or 2021 graduates.
Francisco D: “my Democrat wife”
No wonder you drink.
What we are doing to children is so deep and pervasive and cruel. My wife listened to our kids principal speak to the parents last night. One issue that has recieved way too little attention is that some of these childeren locked out of school are also coping with the loss of parents, family members or caretakers.
Loss of parent has got to be one of the worst, most tramatic experience for a child. And on top of that we are denying them the basic comfort of community.
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
MartyH, I'm so stealing this.
Is it worse to keep them away
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jodi-shaw-smith-college-bari-weiss-rapping-librarian-1132010/amp/
I am going to put together an online curriculum to teach the fundamentals of computer science and an online portal.
I am going to set up a digital camera set for these purposes. Colab or Jupyter notebook provide a solid workspace. There will be no reason to sort by age.
It will be interesting to see how classrooms evolve once we get rid of the public education system gatekeepers.
The cameras will be angled to make me look taller.
Echoing what Mike MJB Wolf said at 8:26 ...
This whole exercise has been a lesson for us in how awful our leadership class is, how when they have a chance to educate us to encourage (and inventivize) the behavior they want, they instead resort to the worst choice, power and mandates and laws. And about how little they care about dealing with the reality of the situation (the "facts" and "science", LOL like that means anything any more), again instead choosing to coerce people under threat of imprisonment.
These are not good people. Use of force is all they know. Trusting them is a bad idea.
@Mark, good on your daughter’s writing skills.
How’s she doing in math and science?
In Madison today:
MADISON — Madison public school teachers are planning a “sick-in” to protest against Madison Metropolitan School District’s plan to resume in-person learning after nearly a year of failed virtual education.
The work action appears to have the tacit, if not official, approval of the teachers union.
Empower Wisconsin has obtained an email from Madison Teachers Inc. (MTI) faculty representatives encouraging all MMSD teachers to feign illness and ditch their teaching responsibilities.
The email urged staff to report to the district before 8 a.m. this morning that they had COVID-19 symptoms. A source with knowledge of the situation said there was a change of heart Wednesday, and now it looks like the work stoppage could happen on Monday, the first day teachers are to report to their buildings.
Hey MTI and lackeys.....go fuck yourselves you selfish bastards!
I feel better ; )
What has happened to all those kids that only got a meal when they got to school? That their home life was so poor that school is the only reason they survive?
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls ... science.
Tired of seeing this notion that children are some 'resilient-can take a punch-will bounce back-abstract commodity weathering a bear market
Worse than wishful thinking, this represents the utter ignorance most people have about how “learning” happens and how hard it is to overcome lost teaching time. We have no model for this in the modern world, not the industrialized “first world” countries: no country was ever foolish enough to stop educating in the last hundred years. The only model we have to compare is in Africa. The child soldiers in the Congo (I think, writing from memory here) that were ripped out of school pre-teen and forced to fight in a war. Those situations are the only modern examples we have of wholesale education deprivation. It does not go well. They never catch up.
Now consider that the LA Times informed readers last summer that in some districts in SoCal up to half the students K-12 never logged onto the zoom classes. That’s like 50% absenteeism. And all federal K-12 funding was until 2020 directly tied to attendance: average daily attendance. ADA is used to allocate fed dollars to districts who do the best at filling their seats. That metric is dead and gone. Not only is our kids not learning, to quite W, but the teachers are getting paid full salaries for doing far less work, and to far less success. How long will this disconnect between the law and the actual school operations continue? ADA was the fed way of incentivizing schools to keep kids in class. They sure are not self-motivated. Now what?
grocery store personnel can face hundreds of people (or more) each day - and they are fine.
A union school teacher cannot face 30 pupils?
If someone on Q-annon Maddow MSDNC TV says something about "science!" you can take it to the bank, man.
The "poor" in SE Michigan have their utility bills either subsidized or wiped clean when costs exceed means. Net result is that those that can afford utilities pay twice: once for themselves and again to cover the subsidizes via taxes or higher utility rates.
@R C Belaire, now do the people who work paycheck to paycheck. The people who benefitted from Trump’s policies.
OT:
Hunter Biden was living with his brother Beau’s widow Hallie while sending raunchy texts and FaceTiming in the shower with her married sister as they declared their love and she called him her ‘prince.’
Love!
Only “3 million?” Even when NYT mediaswine begin to open their eyes their bias tempers the criticism of the leftist cabal. “School closures” haven’t failed anybody. Malevolent school boards, administrators and, most of all, teachers have failed the kids and the country. Given that they are Democrats, it is to be expected.
Science? Please. Agenda? Get serious! Remember less than 20 years ago when Dem leaders railed against illegal immigration? Remember when wmarriage was “between a man and a women?” Remember when they voted for the Iraq War before they opposed it?
Democrats are moral relativists whose perception of science and the particulars of their agenda are hypocritical and whimsical, dependent on their impulses of the moment. They have a goal, not an agenda: unbridled power.
That's different because shut up.
Mark wrote: “Oddly enough, my child finally rounded the corner on writing during all this and has been working regularly with her English teacher to edit and finalize her stories. I guess I should let her teacher know that never happened.“
Oh. Thanks for that, Mark. Well reasoned, that is, if only we could find where somebody said “no children were educated” during that time.
Regardless, I will pass that on to my four grandchildren who received no personal attention an are well aware that their education suffered last year. I’m sure they will feel it was worth it since your child finalized his/her stories.
Not awhiff of corruption
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexBerenson
The "poor" in SE Michigan have their utility bills either subsidized or wiped clean when costs exceed means. Net result is that those that can afford utilities pay twice: once for themselves and again to cover the subsidizes via taxes or higher utility rates.
In Wisconsin, it is assumed that if you can afford the privilege of having electric service, dammit all, you can afford up to chip in up to an extra $3.15 a month for a "low-income assistance fee", kwitch your belly-aching.
State low-income assistance fee
That is per meter for residential and farms. Corporate customers pay more,capped at $750 a month.
Worse than wishful thinking, this represents the utter ignorance most people have about how “learning” happens and how hard it is to overcome lost teaching time. We have no model for this in the modern world, not the industrialized “first world” countries: no country was ever foolish enough to stop educating in the last hundred years.
So you don't know anything at all about overcoming lost teaching time, and, for all you know, it might actually be easy to overcome.
Oh, wait, with just 50 minutes of tutoring per day, "participating students learned one to two additional school years of mathematics in a single year."
The only model we have to compare is in Africa. The child soldiers in the Congo (I think, writing from memory here)
LOL.
The "only" other model might be people who lived before the government school systems were invented: "[Benjamin Franklin] learned to read very early and had one year in grammar school and another under a private teacher, but his formal education ended at age 10."
Or, "[Tara Westover] a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University." (or was that fake?)
Blogger roesch/voltaire said...
I am more concerned about the lack of skilled workers than the lack of college students.
Then tell your wife to go back to work.
In this modern area of insane, selfish, hypochondriac educators, public schools and college creates unskilled workers. Worse now than ever.
The tech schools (Waukesha Community Technical College) produces 1) Skilled workers in high demand, 2) at a low cost, 3) and the kids have jobs before the graduate.
Public education is flushing itself down the toilet via the Teachers Unions. Especially the teachers that refuse to go back to the classroom until they are vaccinated and everyone wears five masks. Those type of teachers should quit, and move on for the benefit of everyone. Other people could do their jobs quite well, with enthusiasm, and much less bitching and moaning.
"Public education is flushing itself down the toilet via the Teachers Unions."
I am guessing that teachers used to be one of the most admired and trusted professions.
Not so much anymore.
Democrats
Open the borders.......close the schools.
Here's a lot of the REALLY scientific, reality-grounded ideas the Left has embraced over the years:
homeopathy, acupuncture, osteopathy, naturopathy, Pyramid Power, Gaia, ESP, auras, spoon-bending psychics, feng shui, rolfing, harmonic convergence, "organic" foods, "climate change", re-incarnation, herbalism, telekinesis, aromatherapy, ouija boards, orgone energy, Freudianism, seances, chakras, channeling, GMO's as Frankenfood, wymyn's way of knowing, megavitamins, colonics, and----most of all and especially----the Nostrum of all Nostrums: Scientific Socialism.
(And, funny how progs can jeer at some conservatives for not accepting Darwinism, yet promote a society that gives preferential to people like gays and lesbians, who are overwhelmingly evolutionary dead-ends.)
When we are talking about public school students, we are talking about a population that is much browner & blacker than the US average: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cge.asp
This imbalance has been increasing for decades and will likely be accelerated by the covid shutdown of public schools.
alfromchgo @ 8:33: “..."Chardá Bell-Fontenot, the board vice-president, dismissed the fact that most families who answered a school reopening survey would like to come back to school. She complained that the other school board members allegedly disrespected her,...”
My current working hypothesis is, the more bizarre the chosen name of an individual, the more likely they are to go off like this creature and start venting groundless racism-laced accusations. Also any use of the word “disrespect” is an instant and infallible “tell” of super-thin-skinned offense-mongering. If you meet such people, don’t walk, run.
"And, funny how progs can jeer at some conservatives for not accepting Darwinism…"
Not to get in a tussle, but there are a lot of us who do accept evolution.
Don't look at the baby! The baby will tell us what it is!
Unknown said...Teachers unions are evil and should be abolished.
--
The larger public sector as well.
Up and down, this issue is highlighting the moral hazard of an unscathed ruling class dictating our downfall.
roesch/voltaire said...Opening schools should be a local choice dependent on vaccination rates that must include teachers..
--
Of course. As evidenced by the ongoing slaughter of "essential" day care workers.
Blogger 320Busdriver said...
The email urged staff to report to the district before 8 a.m. this morning that they had COVID-19 symptoms.
--
Red Flu
Original Mike said...
"And, funny how progs can jeer at some conservatives for not accepting Darwinism…"
Not to get in a tussle, but there are a lot of us who do accept evolution.
*********
I was pointing out how the left embraces Darwinism but still see gays as "normal".
And I am myself a Darwinian. Hell, even the Catholic church has no issues with it, considering it the way God works. (though I'd still like to know the cut-off date for human precursors and Adam and Eve.)
I was told for decades by you people librul edamucation was making our childrens dumb snowflake wokesters.
Now, you people bleat that some few are missing some months of this indoctrination is a crisis tragedy of epic proportion.
Make up your fucking minds
Also, April can hardly contain her lust for Hunter. Keep coughing up those hairballs and he will appear one night.
Howard said...
I was told for decades by you people librul edamucation was making our childrens dumb snowflake wokesters.
Now, you people bleat that some few are missing some months of this indoctrination is a crisis tragedy of epic proportion.
Make up your fucking minds
**************
Howard, you are mindlessly assuming that all teachers in all schools are "making our children dumb snowflake wokesters."
You have the reasoning power of a paramecium.
We’re the party of science. We’re also the party that believes sexual dimorphism is entirely a human cultural construct rather than a most basic element of animal evolution for hundreds of millions of years.
Peak liberal stupidity and cruelty right here. High School Band practice in full individual green plastic enclosures. Check out the Tuba Player… It’s hilarious and sad at the same time. You would think its fake…but it’s not.
Journalists and educators are failing our society more than any other groups.
No Ferdinande we do have volumes of data on discreet instances where children were not in school for various reasons, and they rarely ever “catch up” despite your wishful thinking. We do not have a recent example, other than child soldiers, of children who missed entire years of classes in large numbers. This is untrodden territory in the modern world. You are awfully blasé about other people’s lives being damaged. And your reference to Lincoln-era homeschooling would be effective except for the fact you have no idea if those kids who missed school were in fact diligently studying by lamplight. If they were, and using say the Bible and math book from 1900, those children would be getting a superior education to the one denied them by the evil teacher unions and Democrats.
Howard said...I was told for decades by you people librul edamucation was making our childrens dumb snowflake wokesters…Now, you people bleat that some few are missing some months of this indoctrination is a crisis tragedy of epic proportion…Make up your fucking minds.
@Howard you are truly a disingenuous asshole. School closures are harming inner city minority kids more than anyone. You know, the ones you pretend to care about. They only option they have is Public Schools, and assholes like you and the Teachers Unions oppose any Charter expansion, or vouchers to keep the monopoly in place.
So yeah dickhead. We’re pissed they’re locked out of the best option the currently have. We actually give a shit about those kids. You obviously DON'T.
Took a walk through my Madison neighborhood yesterday. Lot of signs in front of homes declaring the occupants belief in "science". Demoralizing when you know they're probably delusional.
Howard,
I think a lot of conservatives would be very happy if they got to fire the public school teachers and the administrators and arrange homeschooling or private schools. Right now they are being force to pay all their salaries without the minimal benefit of baby sitting.
@Gahrie
Someone is going to get rich by setting up a national online school that rejects Common Core, and goes back to what worked, drill and kill.
Maybe. I worked for Pearson in the 2000s. Pearson Publishing is like the FaceBook of K-12. They’re not going to let some upstart cut into their profits, digital or otherwise.
Totally with you on the drill and kill. As a teacher in the 90s I used drill and kill Saxon Math textbooks. Most of my Title 1 kids passed the standardized math tests. The next year the state bought new math books which sucked. I kept using Saxon until they literally came into my classroom during the night and removed the books.
Lets get @Howard, @Voltaire and his wife, and @Fernandinande to play tuba inside one of these stupid fucking plastic enclosures the Teachers think is good for the kids in the band.
Here's my take on this. About 10% of students are doing better virtually.* With less nonsense stuff they are working at their own pace and then going beyond.
20% of students, adjust up or down by socioeconomic status in your community, are learning nothing and will be years in catching up if ever. The rest are muddling along as people tend to do.
And here's my point of perspective.
I help coach a high level robotics program (FIRST) in a blue collar community. We get all kinds, probably with more of the upper 10% but no small number of that lower 20% too. After a virtual stretch where we could not meet and where the competitive season was cancelled we have finally gotten to start in person meetings again. And it was interesting.
100% of the existing team shows up afterschool to work on things and to teach the new recruits, a fair number of whom have found us even before we start recruiting for next year. They are all showing up and working hard even though nothing they are doing will come to fruition for a year and about 1/3 of them won't be there to see it.
We are of course a team coached by non school people and have managed to date with fairly modest support of the educational system. These kids will do fine. And although it is changing for the better now, the traditional education system only gets the scant credit due them for the third part of Lead/Follow/Get Out Of THE WAY.
------------------
* doing better academically of course. The social lives of scholars has always been a bit sparse!
For those looking for a school for kids or grandkids, let me recommend Southern New Hampshire University SNHU.edu
They've been doing distance education since at least the 70s running satellite campuses for the military along with traditional campuses. They were also doing correspondence college courses for deployed military until the mid 90s when they started online courses.
They really know how to do it right.
What I read about other colleges doing online during kung flu isn't a pimple on SNHU 's ass.
Tuition is pretty reasonable too.
I taught for their business school for almost 30 years including a couple online.
Also have an MS from them, 2004.
Achilles, I like your online class idea. I'm interested in learning more.
Email me at johnfajardohenry@gmail.com and let's discuss.
John Henry
Worse than wishful thinking, this represents the utter ignorance most people have about how “learning” happens and how hard it is to overcome lost teaching time. We have no model for this in the modern world, not the industrialized “first world” countries: no country was ever foolish enough to stop educating in the last hundred years.
The one thing that has stayed true from in person to online learning, is a dirty little secret no one is supposed to know.
If you have a student who wants to learn, the teacher doesn't matter. They will still learn even with a bad (or no) teacher.
If you have a student who doesn't want to learn, the teacher doesn't matter, they still won't learn, even with a great teacher.
If a student is willing to learn, then the teacher can make a difference. They can motivate the student and make the material interesting.
This last group is really the only one being hurt right now, and involved parents can assume those duties.
That being said, I have wanted the schools to re-open since March 16, 2020.
Yancey Ward said...I think a lot of conservatives would be very happy if they got to fire the public school teachers and the administrators and arrange homeschooling or private schools. Right now they are being force to pay all their salaries without the minimal benefit of baby sitting.
How about all the local municipal bonds to the tune of $30 Mil to $100 Mil communities passed to update or build new state of the art brick and mortar facilities in the last few years?
Every time these local votes come up, they are backed by Teachers Unions, and the community gives them what they want. In Sussex, WI we passed and $80 Million bond, but we are sane and open thanks to Scott Walker. Dist 205 (Elmhurst, IL) and Dist 45 (Villa Park, IL) did the same and can't get their Teachers on Site.
“I was told for decades by you people librul edamucation was making our childrens dumb snowflake wokesters.
Now, you people bleat that some few are missing some months of this indoctrination is a crisis tragedy of epic proportion.
Make up your fucking minds”
Right? For years we were told by conservatives how an in-person public school education was akin to child abuse. How homeschooling one’s child was much preferable. If anything positive comes out of this it will be to point out how conservatives want children back in brick and mortar public schools.
Gusty said: "How about all the local municipal bonds..."
$350 million over and above the spending cap referendum approved in Madison last year, for anti-science teachers who refuse to go back to the classroom. On the plus side I noticed, it was easy for the parking lots to get repaved with no cars present.
"Conservatives have argued for years that liberals don't actually care about science and only pretend to when it's convenient for the advancement of their political agenda. It appears that they had a point."
100% accurate. But he's just coming to the realization now? As opposed to any other time where this was demonstrably true?
Howie and Ingot,
For decades, Liberals have pretended to be pushing back against "regressive" societal pressures. Schools have become pretty important to lower income/single income parents who can't wrangle home schooling.
Biden admin no fan of that anyway.
Multiple states are moving to attach funding to students.
So..keep it up unions! Keep demonstrating how unnecessary brick and mortar is to your efforts. Will be remembered when that next referendum comes up.
Kids do belong in school (we on the left knew this all along) so how about the community help by not being selfish regarding vaccines for teachers and child care workers? How about helping your community by wearing masks until more people are immunized? Why is this so difficult?
With limited vax and science not supporting its necessity to those folks, look who's being "selfish".
Why is that so hard to understand?
I honestly don't understand what, outside the naked exercise of political power by various teacher's unions, is keeping schools closed. Our public school district is very liberal-leaning, but has always seemed to be grounded in common sense and honors tradition. For instance, they make a big deal in the elementary schools about Veterans Day and invite vets in for an assembly where the kids are singing and presenting.
We've been open all day, every day, since November for the elementary and high school. The middle school does half days in and half virtual, but all three will be back all day M-Th and virtual on Friday starting 3/15. While the original virtual school last spring was as hectic as you can imagine (my 10yo absolutely fell behind), the school board and our teachers moved mountains to make sure they were open as soon as possible last fall.
100% accurate. But he's just coming to the realization now? As opposed to any other time where this was demonstrably true?
Didn't you know? Biden claims there was no stockpile of red pills when Trump left office, so he's only just gotten his.
“Also, April can hardly contain her lust for Hunter. Keep coughing up those hairballs and he will appear one night.”
LOL
“With limited vax and science not supporting its necessity to those folks, look who's being "selfish".
Why is that so hard to understand?”
Because even people in their 20’s and 30’s can get very sick and even die from Covid. I know of a young woman, her husband and her brother who lives with them, all in their 30’s who are VERY sick with Covid right now. The 14 year old daughter who must now be home from school ( they live in Waukesha County, WI) is taking care of all three of them.
New York Post
@nypost
· 2h
Maryland teacher's aide seen masturbating during Zoom lesson with kids https://trib.al/f0NAwBQ
Journalists are good at words, bad at math. Always have been, always will be. I've been telling my friends (many of whom are engineers) that I had trouble taking a 1% risk seriously and I always got crickets. If I say 1 out of 100 though...
Inga,
Are those folks teachers?
Inga: “Kids do belong in school (we on the left knew this all along) so how about the community help by not being selfish regarding vaccines for teachers ....”
We knew you knew, Inga. However, there is the part about giving a shit not only about kids, but about actual high risk folks like the elderly.
Here’s an example: Our County run by Democrats decreed that teachers would be grouped with ages 75 and older, competing with them for vaccines and displacing the ages 65-75. This is of course completely inconsistent with science and decency. Science says teaching is not high risk. Teachers are rarely in the high risk elderly category and absent aggravating factor are likely to recover if they get Coved.
How about you explain how saving lives in accordance with the science on the subject rather than giving in to the cowardice of teachers is “selfish.”
Amoral lefties have been pimping for mediocre teachers for so long that they salivate at the opportunity like Pavlov’s dogs only with less reasoning. Grocery clerks are more essential than teachers.
does NOT mention fifth grade at all
Bzzt! There was a chart (an image) listing grades K-5.
@inga and @howard. Going to school in person isn’t just about the education. It’s about the social experience as well. Your first crush. Your first kiss. First beer, first joint. The first time you ditch. Your first suspension. Friday night lights. Sat night basketball games. Dances. Prom. And like all things, there are surprise experiences and education that happen without planning. But being open showing up is half the battle.
Your support of robbing these kids of so much is selfish and really disgusting. Right up there with @voltaire and his bullshit “My wife and I are gonna die” paranoia…so let’s make the kids suffer.
These teachers that refuse to teach on site should be fired. Let them be janitors at Smith College. But you’re right. Let them fight for $15 per hour at Arby's.
The liberal domination of public and university education is destroying it for everyone, but we all still pay their bills. At this point…fuck’em all.
Vaccination is a red herring as it relates to opening schools. Anyone who whips out the "but yer vaxxx….." card in a discussion about school reopening is a dishonest git. And exceptional stories of sick covidities (with co-morbidities, probably) don't change the overall calculus. Opening schools WITH OR WITHOUT vaccination is safe.
Here's another added benefit for those cowardly teachers and their unions: no flu season this year.
at "School Closures Have Failed America’s Children As many as three million children have gotten no education for nearly a year"
... more children have been deprived of an education in the US for a lot longer than that, thanks to Teachers' Unions.
“@inga and @howard. Going to school in person isn’t just about the education. It’s about the social experience as well. Your first crush. Your first kiss. First beer, first joint. The first time you ditch. Your first suspension. Friday night lights. Sat night basketball games. Dances. Prom. And like all things, there are surprise experiences and education that happen without planning. But being open showing up is half the battle.”
Exactly right, who is disputing this? I WANT kids back in school. I want teachers to be safe too.
“Your support of robbing these kids of so much is selfish and really disgusting. Right up there with @voltaire and his bullshit “My wife and I are gonna die” paranoia…so let’s make the kids suffer.”
Um... no. I’ve said that I am in favor of kids being in an in-person school. Teachers can be quickly immunized. Teachers who already have immunity should be teaching in person. Until teachers are immunized, schools can try to protect their teachers the best way they can. In the meantime get the teachers their shots.
Liberals (i.e. adherents to divergent ideology) are prone to a conflation of logical domains when they deem it be politically congruent.
A lot of science isn't exactly science.
Assumptions, assertions, inference, models parading as evidence, often indulged with liberal license. And, of course, the special and peculiar minority interests that leverage it with a hope and a dream of consolidating capital and control under single/central/monopolistic supervision (e.g. democratic/dictatorial duality).
Blogger The Crack Emcee said...
'"A lot of science isn't exactly science."'
"A lot of reality isn't exactly reality, either."
You're right. It's a movie. Right now it's a sucky one but a movie nevertheless.
Idiot Inga says:
"How homeschooling one’s child was much preferable. If anything positive comes out of this it will be to point out how conservatives want children back in brick and mortar public schools."
>>
now I'm not sure exactly how it played out in Madison or other districts but in my former county of Alameda district, here's exactly what happened, as I actually attended (virtually) the school board meetings:
July 2020: Nice summer vacation. Ya think school will start on time in August? Should we, I dunno, plan to open and talk to parents about it? Nah.
August 2020: Oh, we didn't make up a plan to open. Whoops. Guess we'll stay closed.
September 2020: The state says we can reopen. Will we? Oops. We still don't have a plan.
November 2020: Can't do anything, the Rona is bad. But let's plan to reopen
January 2021: Here's our plan! It says that after the County goes "red," for two full weeks, we will start reopening schools, starting with 4/5 grade, then wait a week, 2/3, then wait a week, K-1, wait a week, then maybe 6-8, then maybe high school. so the earliest POSSIBLE start date as of January 2021 for high school would have been March 8th.
...
February: the GOVERNOR announces that all grade schools can reopen NOW as cases are down to <25/100k
Nope, not gonna do that.
March 2021: the county will be in the red tier, but there's no way High school is coming back. So they have torched MORE THAN ONE-FOURTH of high school for 2700+students just in the district.
You'll also note the bait and switch.
Parents can't just pull their kids in January to home school when it's obvious they won't reopen until fall of 21.
If parents had vouchers, they could send their kids to private/parochial or get support for home schools.
Of course, the Catholic schools have reopened grade schools as allowed.
No outbreaks.
Speaking of math, I am hoping that Karen B and the Resident Idiot can tell us about the death rates from COVID that Karen initially calculated. However, Karen never demonstrated any idea of how rates were calculated. He was just too scared.
You guys know how to Google "rates". If you have trouble understanding the concept, which has clearly been the case with Karen, just ask for help.
Not surprising. The same people that insisted on "Whole Language" over "Phonics" are driving...
Francisco D drunk already today? Tsk tsk, too early to be drunk already.
I don't mind shutting down public schools.
We should also stop funding them as well.
I think we would find out just how useful most public school teachers are to society.
Parents would also have more money to educate their kids. I bet they could do a much better job hiring tutors and online professors/teachers that our public school system.
Inga said...
“I was told for decades by you people librul edamucation was making our childrens dumb snowflake wokesters.
Now, you people bleat that some few are missing some months of this indoctrination is a crisis tragedy of epic proportion.
Make up your fucking minds”
Right? For years we were told by conservatives how an in-person public school education was akin to child abuse. How homeschooling one’s child was much preferable. If anything positive comes out of this it will be to point out how conservatives want children back in brick and mortar public schools.
The only person Inga is smart enough to debate anything with is the imaginary "conservative" in her head.
The worst thing about 2021 is that people are going to start dying of Pneumonia and the Flu and Heart Disease and Lung Cancer again.
I guess those cures were only good for 2020.
Sad.
=(
Kids should go back this year as soon as possible so that each school really knows how many are in first or second or any other grade; and how to handle the mixed outcomes of 2020. In other words, some have done the first grade curriculum and some have not. So, first grade might be a size and a half larger than planned because it includes new first graders and those who never attended first grade in 2020. This should be planned for. Second grade might be the expected size because some have done the curriculum and gone on while some have not. (The second graders who did not virtually learn or even attend would join the first graders who worked successfully.) That's size. Then, besides size, you have to consider that maybe half the class worked successfully virtually; and the other half includes kids who haven't been in school for a year. what will that be like?
Instead of waiting till next September and then being surprised at the problems, wouldn't it be better to open schools now and get a realistic picture of the true problems of class size and 2020 discontinuities in schooling so that schools, parents and kids have the summer to work on the problems? - especially if there are class size mandates because of covid which don't square with class size based on who learned last year and who did not.
Jeff Brokaw said... [hush][hide comment]
Note also that for nearly a year now the media could have chosen to put out big stories about the risk to children being so low that “essentially no risk” is the right way to categorize it.
Nothing. They chose instead to push dangerous lies and promote policies that damage people forever, for politics.
Why would anyone ever trust them, on anything, ever again?
Trust the media to keep fear alive, We got the remedy for your "essentially no risk" right here:
After an increase in COVID-19 cases in early January, doctors are now seeing an increase in another condition in children.
Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome in children, or MIS-C, causes different parts of the body to be inflamed. New state data shows there are 302 reported cases of MIS-C statewide. That’s up from 176 cases in January and 157 in December.
“There have been reports of children dying from it. There have been reports of children having to have their arms or legs amputated, and it can affect the heart very severely,” said Dr. Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Children’s Hospital.
"Sometimes science is more art than science Morty."
If anything positive comes out of this it will be to point out how conservatives want children back in brick and mortar public schools.
No. But if I'm being forced to pay for it, the lazy fuckers should actually be working.
"I don't mind shutting down public schools.
We should also stop funding them as well.
A straightforward two-step plan.
I might also suggest tearing down the school buildings and salting the earth. You could probably get all the parents you need to volunteer for this duty.
Kids should go back this year as soon as possible so that each school really knows how many are in first or second or any other grade; and how to handle the mixed outcomes of 2020. In other words, some have done the first grade curriculum and some have not.
>>
Kids should go back right now so that the true attendance declines are recorded so that the school budgets get absolutely WRECKED for next year, as the money to a district is usually based on average daily attendance.
"We should also stop funding them as well."
Fund the child, not the institution...
True competition is the only way to quickly improve the quality of education.
Achilles said...
"The worst thing about 2021 is that people are going to start dying of Pneumonia and the Flu and Heart Disease and Lung Cancer again.
I guess those cures were only good for 2020."
That's because Trump was president in 2020 and he cured cancer for the year (not like Biden* who only promises a cure) as well as those other serious and sometimes deadly illnesses. But now it's Biden* and soon Harris and as Chinese COVID disappears, Americans will start dying again of other illnesses. And motorcycle accidents. And old age. Will there be a Death-Track-O-Meter for that?
THEOLDMAN
The brother of my longtime and childhood friend won Twitter yesterday. I never paid attention on how to do links on this blog comments so:
Hillary Clinton (linking to a NYTimes story about her "co-writing" (yeahrite) a "political thriller" / "mystery novel") tweeted: My first work of fiction, but drawing from some life experience!
Wayne Camlin replied: Did you get away with it in the book too?
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