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Lockdown, distance learning likely to increase social class achievement gap

234 points by infodocket 5y ago

Shadonototra 5y ago
It's always the people not affected by it who comes with such arguments They do not see how negatively it affects public workers, nobody care about them anymore since they became invisible, you don't get to see them when you work from home We are heading toward a soulless society, full of inequalities, and nobody will be able to do shit because gatherings will be looked down because people are scared
chasd00 5y ago
my wife is a teacher, when her school closed some of her kids ended up in CPS and others simply vanished and haven't returned. Elementary schools in low income areas are basically social safety nets for kids. Now that her school re-opened a sizable portion of the student body is still missing.
willcipriano 5y ago
When the lockdowns and the masking up in daycare started, I presumed this would be the case and took steps to ensure my 2.5 year old received sufficient social interaction. I took her out more, talked with her more, and attempted to find like minded parents. As things opened back up the differences between kids of parents who did that and not is striking. My daughter is social and rarely shy, other kids we see seem so scared and withdrawn. Sample size of one but I'm glad I did it.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  >other kids we see seem so scared and withdrawn. It would be interesting to know how many of those other parents also told their kids if they go outside without a mask or socialized with other kids they would get sick and die. That would be enough to cause any kid to be scared and withdrawn.
  - henrikschroder 5y ago
    The weird obsession in the US with masking toddlers and children is absolutely baffling to me.
    - robhunter 5y ago
      Who is downvoting this? Why?
      - henrikschroder 5y ago
        People who are myopically obsessed with how the pandemic is being handled in their immediate vicinity, without knowing what it looks like in other parts of the world, I'm guessing. Throughout most of Europe, you would be viewed as an extreme child-abusing weirdo if you suggest masking toddlers or small children is a good thing.
    - NineStarPoint 5y ago
      Are children less likely to spread the disease than adults? You don’t wear masks to protect yourself, they’re generally bad at that, you wear them to not spread disease to others.
      - henrikschroder 5y ago
        > Are children less likely to spread the disease than adults? Yes, because you have to be infected in the first place, which kids are less likely to be, and if you are infected, your contagiousness is proportional to how sick you are, and since kids are often less sick and often asymptomatic, they also spread it less.
- blitzar 5y ago
  Yeah, sadly those steps put you in the top 1%.
qsort 5y ago
This is something I did a complete 180 about. I used to think closing schools wouldn't hurt anybody and that performance would at worst remain stationary. My reasoning was that so much time is wasted at school that it doesn't really make a difference where the learning happens, but I severely underestimated effects I thought were second-order like the familiarity with technology, the digital divide, or even just having access to a quiet, private space where one can focus. The data really speaks for itself, it's been a disaster.
- goalieca 5y ago
  I know people who have special needs and others who have terrible internet where the parents and kids can’t video at the same time. Remote learning is just one problem, we need the full spectrum of school activities and programs too! All of those little things that communities have built over the last few decades really really matter!
- z3t4 5y ago
  Another reason why accessibility is so important. Someone might be doing their homework/research from a smarttv or hacked kindle.
- aardvarkr 5y ago
  Don’t forget those who had to work during the pandemic. Many many high school students whose families were in a bad position financially had to work and would frequently be listening to zoom class while working a cash register for example. How effectively do you think they could listen and participate, or even care?
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    I'm not convinced this was a common thing. Source?
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  My SO is an elementary school teacher in a post-industrial urban school. Her students (mostly poor, and crucially almost all with parents who were working in-person through the lockdown) were effectively remote-only from March 2020 until earlier this month, and it's had some substantial visible effects on them. Among other things: - Missing that in-person school time meant losing a lot of "leaving home" practice for a large chunk of kids. Current second graders were in-person for 6 months of kindergarten, and remote from there. This means there are a lot of mechanical and social things they haven't had to do (sit quietly next to each other, tie their shoes, ask to go to the bathroom). - The "summer slide" has been much more severe than usual. A large chunk of the students didn't get much education out of being remote for first grade, so a much-larger-than-usual chunk of the cohort are substantially behind grade level for basic skills, especially reading. - Related to above, there has been a huge backlog of students who need to be evaluated for various special education and disability needs who just haven't been able to be accommodated and who, due to the process difficulties for the last year, probably won't be able to be evaluated based on their data from last year (leaving them severely under-supported for another year while the data is collected).
tbihl 5y ago
Basically, beneficial environments are anything but guaranteed. Plus, quiet is an underappreciated luxury good (and an underappreciated aspect of public libraries); seriously, poverty is so loud.
- beckman466 5y ago
  > quiet is an underappreciated luxury good (and an underappreciated aspect of public libraries); seriously, poverty is so loud. this is one of the most compassionate things i've read today. thank you
  - geebee 5y ago
    Agreed, thank you for this. I think we should do more to defend quiet spaces.I work for a library, and much of the emphasis is on creating "collaborative" spaces. Those are important too, and I fully understand the irritation librarians have with the "shhhhh!" meme. But public silent spaces are rare, and may be a truly under appreciated resource by people who have the means to access quite private spaces.
    - beckman466 5y ago
      The compassionate part I was talking about was the acknowledgement that kids today don't have the equal opportunities in schools that many claim they do. Environmental context (rich family or not) matters. "quiet is a luxury good" + "seriously, poverty is so loud" Having said that, I do agree with your point about the need for quiet spaces.
- tombert 5y ago
  Agreed. When I started doing online school, I figured I would work on my bed, next to my wife, and have the TV on playing "King of the Hill" or something else I've seen a million times and thus could tune out. That was definitely not the case; I found that trying this just made me worse at studying and worse at watching TV. Eventually I cleaned my basement (which I'm lucky to have), put a desk down there, and made that my "don't bother Tom cuz he's studying" zone, and it was much easier as a result. I cannot imagine that I would have completed school if I were living in a one-bedroom apartment.
refurb 5y ago
I notice this in SF. The well off parents had private tutors pretty quickly after school closed and even middle class parents would split the bill across 5 kids. They didn’t miss a beat at all. While the lower income families struggle with virtual classes while the parents tried to make ends meet.
- PerkinWarwick 5y ago
  So what happens if high/middle class parents discover that the results are superior for this solution? Do you force them to send their kids to public school in order to bring up the lower income children?
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    What? Private schooling and home schooling have always been a thing. Why would they be forced?
    - wyager 5y ago
      People are constantly trying to ban private and home schooling. Commonly stated justifications for mandatory public schooling include reducing class divide, fighting extremism, etc. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/private-schools-are-indefensible/618078/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/private... https://taipd.org/node/307 https://taipd.org/node/307 https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/law-school-professor-says-there-may-be-a-dark-side-of-homeschooling/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/law-school-pr... https://www.ncregister.com/news/french-government-seeks-to-ban-home-schooling https://www.ncregister.com/news/french-government-seeks-to-b...
      - endisneigh 5y ago
        People have been trying to do a lot of things - hasn’t been successful.
      - _-david-_ 5y ago
BrianOnHN 5y ago
There's no substitute for socialization. But, before the lockdown we were at one far end of the spectrum where all edu was in the same social environment. Lockdown swung us to the other side of the spectrum. The catch is that the ideal balance varies per child and is dependent on more factors than we can control.
- PerkinWarwick 5y ago
  >There's no substitute for socialization. The odd thing about 'socialization' is that it really means 'age segregated groups in a highly organized situation'. Really, it's a thing that never existed until the last 100-150 years or so.
  - beckman466 5y ago
    > The odd thing about 'socialization' is that it really means 'age segregated groups in a highly organized situation'. Are you campaigning for self-directed learning like in the Sudbury Valley model?
    - missinfo 5y ago
      They could be referring to the Montessori method or the SpaceX school too. They have mixed age ranges and are less organized, understanding that kids learn at different paces and have different interests.
      - beckman466 5y ago
        > They have mixed age ranges and are less organized, understanding that kids learn at different paces and have different interests. Yep, those are the same qualities of Sudbury Valley schools! https://www.reimaginedonline.org/2013/06/why-i-started-my-own-sudbury-school/ https://www.reimaginedonline.org/2013/06/why-i-started-my-ow...
    - PerkinWarwick 5y ago
      I'm not campaigning for anything, just pointing out that 'socialization' in the sense of a modern school never existed for 99.99% of human history. Is it desirable? I don't know. I suppose it's well suited to producing certain types of workers.
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renewiltord 5y ago
I believe the trend toward a peaceful society has led to an imbalance of power based on age. When life was violent, it stabilized wealth concentration issues by periodically resetting the power of entrenched interests. Today, the old disproportionately control power and they direct that power towards their own protection. This is true of 80 yr olds. But it is also true of 50 yr olds. And even 30 yr olds. The COVID crisis response is one such example. Overbearing responses were put into place primarily because the danger was to old people. Concerns over this very outcome were handwaved away with low likelihood counterfactuals. Alternatives exist in some other cultures. We are familiar with the Fukushima Skilled Veteran Corps https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13598607 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13598607 but there are people who have a similar perspective who occupy this world. My parents are surgeons in their sixties and they continue to practise during this crisis and do not advocate for the degree of total lockdown that is so popular. They do not advocate for closed schools. I would rather be them than be like risk-averse 70 yr olds saying that life should pause (but not their pensions). I’m going to go ahead and say it: intransigent old people might be the greatest threat to humanity’s long term survival through their normalcy bias, grip on power, and fear of change. I hope that as I grow older I, too, manage to prioritize the next generation over myself.
- notyourday 5y ago
  > Overbearing responses were put into place primarily because the danger was to old people. Not only that - but these responses were put in place by the old people to protect the old people at the expense of the young people
- opheliate 5y ago
  Do you believe that, if the numbers had been reversed, and COVID was much more fatal to children and young people than it was to the old, lockdowns wouldn’t have happened? That seems to be the implication of your post, but I find it difficult to imagine that being the result.
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baremetal 5y ago
I would never send my kids to public school. There is no way they could get a better education than they could get from me. This distance learning thing just makes the decision even easier.
- masterof0 5y ago
  My sister is in the same boat with you,and she is raising a couple of Q soldiers for sure. You really can't teach your kids what they need to know, and also, kids need interaction with other kids to develop social skills, etc.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    > You really can't teach your kids what they need to know You clearly haven't interacted with K-12 public school teachers, it's not hard to come up with a better lesson plan. Anecdotally, it seems the people who go into teaching nowadays are the bottom of the barrel. You can still socialize homeschooled kids, enroll them in sports, extra-curriculars, etc. School of choice and group homeschooling are growing more popular and I'm glad.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> First, we review research showing that social class is associated with unequal access to digital tools, unequal familiarity with digital skills and unequal uses of such tools for learning purposes I have several friends who are elementary and middle school teachers. This echoes what they’ve been saying: The pandemic response among parents has been starkly divided across class lines. Families with stay-at-home parents are, obviously, the least impacted. However, many of their children from less well-off households simply disappear completely during quarantine periods. The problem is so bad that they have scheduled time each afternoon to try to call all of the parents whose children didn’t log on to the remote learning session (with their school-provided computers with school-provided cellular connections). If they can reach the parents at all they often indicate they don’t even care that their kids were absent because they don’t believe in the distance learning. The indifference is mind-boggling as a parent, but it’s real. That said, leaving schools fully opened at all times wasn’t really a viable option. Kids may not be as vulnerable to COVID as adults, but put 20-30 of them in enclosed rooms and the virus will spread. Local school districts here tried to stay open as long as possible but they quickly ran into a lack of teachers as the teachers became ill (multiple times in several cases) or simply quit because they couldn’t risk it for themselves or their families at home.
- deleted 5y ago
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- retrac 5y ago
  > The indifference is mind-boggling as a parent Imagine you were raised by parents who had unpleasant experiences with formal education and/or by parents who had an attitude themselves of "my kid isn't getting any use out of those six hours" anyway. That's often the mindset behind the attitude, not so much as that parents don't love their kids and want what they see is the best for them. (Of course there's plenty of abuse and full-on neglect motivating such absenteeism, too.)
- whoknowswhat11 5y ago
  I can talk a bit about private schools. Many of them adapted quickly. Outdoor classrooms, meeting at parks. Tons of flexibility from teachers / staff. Very quick remodels of spaces - ie, take a wall out of a classroom so it open straight outside with a rolling door etc, very high levels of ventilation. Some doing weekly testing - test on Thursday, turn in Friday, results by Sunday to make decisions on stay at home / come in. Vaccine mandates for all adult staff. In other words, for parents of private school students, the value of in-person learning is clear, and the schools are delivering it. The risk in an outdoor classroom, students and teachers masked, teachers vaccinated, is relatively minimal. Student viral load in terms of spread is not so high either from what I've heard. Even inside, with in and out fans running, significant ventilation I'm not sure risk is as terrible as its made out to be. We'll see how this all plays out. From what I've seen, those kids are doing great (and yes, camping trips replaced sleepovers etc in these families - but their kids remaining socially engaged with friends etc).
hirako2000 5y ago
Entirely fed up with these articles. The debate is whether these things should be mandated or let to the appreciation of the people. Let me keep my kids at home, or get them to a school, or socialise, or wear a mask, or get vaccinated. Enough. Enough of this non sensical noise about whether x or y is better. Let people be. Stop coercing people to follow the potential idiocy of some group sitting in an office think will be wiser for society. The scandal isn't that deprived kids suffer social distancing most, the scandal is that governments around the globe have been telling people to cover their face wherever they go, to not meet their friends, to find themselves a other job because their industry is shut, to get infected or be banned from travels and other public places if they don't. Let people be. We don't care what you think is better for people. They know better.
- kingkawn 5y ago
  This strain of opinion is why the US still has >2,000 deaths per day from COVID, and has the highest death toll of any wealthy country.
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  - Fellshard 5y ago
    That is malign use of data, undifferentiated by vastly different locales and policies across the nation, and not even accounting for per-capita.
    - bena 5y ago
      I don't think differentiating is going to help your argument any. We're approaching two very different situations in the U.S. Health outcomes with regards to COVID are following political leanings. And it is not looking good for one of them.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        > We're approaching two very different situations in the U.S. Health outcomes with regards to COVID are following political leanings Which group do you think is doing worse? Whatever that opinion is, it's not supported by the data: Highest covid deaths per 100,000 are in Mississippi at 317 but New Jersey is #2 at 308. Alabama is high at 286 but NY is right there at 284. Arkansas is terrible at 252, but Massachussets is worse at 269. Texas at 221 is better than Connecticut at 238 and much better than Rhode Island at 266, but worse than Illinois at 215, which itself is worse than Ohio at 187. Given the disparities in poverty and obesity and how both of these lead to much higher mortality rates, the red states are doing much better than the blue states on a wealth/obesity adjusted basis, and are the same on an absolute basis. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi... I suspect the mistake you are making is the same kind of observational bias that is common in these culture wars -- e.g. bad things happening to your side are a terrible tragedy whereas bad things happening to the other side is proof of their misguided policies. But the facts don't show any meaningful difference in total deaths, even though deaths in any given week swing wildly as the disease burns through some states before others. E.g. NY was hit hardest in the beginning, and then it spread to other states when NY was already recovering, then those states recovered and it spread to others, etc. It would be extremely foolish to look at only a snapshot in time rather than cumulative deaths since 2019.
spoonjim 5y ago
When my kid was in lockdown I taught him math and science and now he does algebra at 5. Other kids his age were in lockdown getting beaten by their stepdads. I think the achievement gaps will be massive and that the lengths of these school lockdowns were a crime against a generation of kids. A society with restaurants open for sit down dining but schools closed has its priorities completely upside down.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  > A society with restaurants open for sit down dining but schools closed has its priorities completely upside down. Be careful: that's analogous to asking "why is Narcan free for drug addicts but insulin so expensive for diabetics?". The fact that restaurants are open isn't relevant, and mentioning it like that will just make people suggest that they be closed, instead of addressing the real problem.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    Not sure what your point is. Restaurants are a Lower priority than schools. If Covid is out of control, close the restaurants and open the schools (assuming both are disease vectors). If the disease is too dangerous then of course there can be circumstances where both must remain closed (especially if it was a disease targeting young people like H1N1)
- WhereIsSweden 5y ago
  Indeed, if restaurants are open - school should be open too.
busymom0 5y ago
I commented about this easily and obviously noticeable change based on anecdotal observations on HN late last year. Even simply observations of politicians getting away with not practicing their own guidelines and sending their own kids to private tutors while locking down everyone else should have woken up people. I got a lot of negative comments ranging from how I was advocating for putting kids and their elderly parents at risk and what not. It’s like everyone has completely forgotten about all the other side effects and have tunnel vision of covid only. Last week, CDC came out showing how the obesity rates in youth has doubled during the pandemic. All these decisions will have long term consequences which people get silenced over.
- srl 5y ago
  > Last week, CDC came out showing how the obesity rates in youth has doubled during the pandemic. Do you have a link to the CDC saying that? I found [0], which claims the rate went from 19% to 22% --- far from doubling. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/17/1038211236/weight-gain-obesity-children-teens-pandemic https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0...
  - ghoward 5y ago
    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm That's the one referred to.
    - busymom0 5y ago
      Yep, this is the one I was referencing. Thanks.
  - anthonypasq 5y ago
    i think the person meant to say that the rate of increase doubled
- masterof0 5y ago
  I also got down-voted for suggesting the same, a year or so ago, it turns out the people who suffers the most with a lock-down, are not hanging out here in HN, go figure.
nemo44x 5y ago
Where I live the public school shut down all of last year and only started in-classroom again this year after lots of frustration and fighting from parents and the teachers union. Many of these kids will be behind, some nearly an entire year. Especially ones where the parents had to go to work all year and they were without much supervision. The private school near me, which charges about $50k/year stayed open all year last year and increased their enrollment from parents frustrated with the public system. Students from the private school are already about 1.5-2 years ahead of the public schools during normal times (according to testing and testimonials from students that have attended both schools) and now with Covid and the effects of that, they are likely 2.5 years or more ahead. So yes, the working and poor classes are the biggest victims in all of this in my opinion. If you had money you either sent your kids to private school or you were able to arrange "pods" where parents each chipped in $10k or more for the year to have a version of group home schooling by professionals.
kaesar14 5y ago
I feel there was a very strong brand of thinking in this country, particularly among the gung-ho pro-lockdown (mostly) liberal wing of society, that distance education wouldn't harm children's development at all, or at least that the benefits of lockdown would outweigh the drawbacks. No studies done on the matter, and any disagreement to the contrary of this opinion was treated the same as saying END ALL LOCKDOWNS. Sad to see the consequences of this will mostly be laid upon the children and mostly the poor.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  Pretty sure at this point any disagreement automatically means you're a right-wing anti-vaccine protester who it is now socially acceptable to wish death upon and cough on hoping they get COVID-19. At least that is the impression I get from r/Portland and r/VancouverWA where these new left-wing terrorist communities are being bred.
  - bosswipe 5y ago
    Wow. As a more left-wing person I've been shadow banned on HN for much less than this. HN used to be one of the few places where intelligent debate accros political spectrum was allowed. If you look at this whole comment thread all you see is one POV.
    - eli_gottlieb 5y ago
      I'm quite left-wing myself (check out my downvoted comments against capitalism, lol), but it's a simple fact that local civil-society has combined with local activism in much of the developed world to generate a nasty sequel to 60s-70s-style ultraleftism. Are they some second coming of Stalin? Hell no, but are they going to go to every single planning board meeting, run for school board, and screech nasty names at you when you disagree with their most obviously self-serving, power-grabbing hot-takes? Oh yeah, they've been doing that at least five years now, if not longer.
    - kongin 5y ago
      The irony burns: people saying that anti-anti-vaxxers are a cult hell bent on controlling the lives of everyone regardless of what health advice is. Top comment complaining they haven't been banned fast enough for that heresy.
paulcnichols 5y ago
I will actively do everything within my power to give my kids an “unequal” advantage. Sorry not sorry.
josephcsible 5y ago
IMO, public school should be mandatory for the children of anyone who has authority over how public schools are run (e.g., I object to Newsom, who closed the public schools, sending his children to private school), but I have no problem with anyone else choosing private school or homeschooling for their children.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Why should the children have to do something just because their parents have a particular job? It isn’t their decision what their parents do.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    You phrase that as if children would get to decide for themselves where to go to school, when in fact it's their parents who decide for them.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      That’s the point - impacts them but never their decision. Shouldn’t impose a restriction on someone based on their parents’ jobs.
- supperburg 5y ago
  This is already how it works. The people have control over public schools. They elect the officials who oversee it. If everybody wanted public schools to do X, public schools would do X and there wouldn’t be anything anyone could do about it. We can amend the fucking constitution. The problem isn’t a lack of power for the people, it’s that people collectively aren’t very smart. There’s no civil solution to that.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  This is one of those cute ideas that's a pretty blatant equal protection violation.
  - 5y ago
eric_b 5y ago
This is my US-based perspective: Closing schools last year due to COVID was as bad of a policy as putting COVID patients in nursing homes (looking at you MN and NY). We knew by September of last year that kids were less impacted by COVID (they spread it less, they get less ill etc). We learned from Europe that it wasn't killing teachers at an increased rate either (a fear-based argument I heard ad nauseum in my very blue state). There was no good science-based argument to close schools last year in the US, especially when restaurants and hair salons were reopened. But political polarization - exacerbated by the media - ensured we did the worst possible thing for our children. I am continually disgusted with every person I encounter who promoted (and in many cases still promote) remote learning. Rich parents could afford professional tutors and create pods and go to other great lengths to ensure their kids got some education. Meanwhile the poor parents were going to work in-person and leaving their kids to fend for themselves (many of whom, at least where I live, turned to committing crimes) The most disgusting part is the people most in favor of closing schools were rich, left-leaning white collar workers. Nevermind that the very people they purportedly want to help with their policies were the most harmed. As long as you say the right words, who cares about outcomes yeah?
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  I'm confused about HN. Everyone here seems to agree that in person learning is best and not remote, but exactly the other way around when it comes to work and I wonder why. Is learning not happening at work as well, especially when you're at the beginning of your career? For me, as a junior, remote work has pretty much been devastating on the learning side of things as well as being invisible to management when it comes to career prospects. Sure, it benefited the seniors as they could more easily dodge some of the annoying responsibility of tutoring the juniors and leave early when their work was done and they had enough time to rub shoulders with management before the pandemic to have guaranteed career prospects. So, to whit, I'm wonder if the teachers also enjoyed remote teaching more to the detriment of the kids?
  - burnafter182 5y ago
    From my anecdotal experiences, teachers did not like it, unanimously. And my N is about 50, so take it how you may.
say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
Distance learning is being used as a scapegoat. High school kids with elementary-school level reading comprehension skills didn't suddenly forget how to read during the pandemic, nor was their passion for reading extinguished by physical distancing. If the Biden administration were to spend a Billion dollars funding additional school programs, the educational disparity may be even more pronounced in a few years as the children and families who take education seriously use the resources available while the others don't.
harlanji 5y ago
I had achieved a nice middle class life and faced a setback that left me homeless 18 months before pandemic began. Hard worker from ages 14 to 32ish when pandemic hit, even crawling back up from homelessness with labor and service jobs. Now I’ve been forced into an abusive situation that seems terminal. The working class where I come from love to abuse me and refuse to understand how hard I’ve worked in last decades, and the wealthy who I used to be close with largely dismiss me as irrelevant or mentally ill. Due to legal problems created while in my vulnerable state I can’t even expect to pass a background check and get work. Not so much about me, but I just know I’m far from alone in sinking into terrible circumstances. I anticipate a sharp rise in domestic violence and similar boil overs as winter closes in and the ability to retreat is compromised (mouse bites cat only when cornered).
eawze 5y ago
DEATH TO ALL MASKERS! I hope you vaxxers get ran over by a bus. The only good fascist is a dead one! I wish death on every single vaxxer/masker here. FUCK YOU!
dnprock 5y ago
Closing schools and lockdown exacerbate the inequality that has already been in place. Instead of seriously looking at how to address the problems, we blame it on lockdowns. We're taught to think that opening schools will fix the problems. The US government printed 16k per individuals. Each person gets 1.4k. The rest goes into "recovery". We just want to find convenient ways to bury the real problems.
hgial 5y ago
Everyone here seems to be certain the pandemic will have huge and lasting effects on educational outcomes for kids. I would instead bet that while there will be effects in the short term, these effects will mostly fade within a few years (preexisting gaps will remain, but they won't get much bigger). This post reviews some of the existing evidence on the effect of missing school: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/kids-can-recover-from-missing-even https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/kids-can-recover-from-... And generally finds that kids can catch up quite quickly. I think my one caveat is that there may be a group of at-risk kids for whom school was keeping them from getting into serious trouble with the law. Those effects could conceivably be both large and lasting (e.g., if you carjack someone and kill them in the process and spend the next 15 years in prison it's going to have a big effect on your life!).
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  I agree - primary school is an interesting exercise but maybe over-stressed. Anecdata: my brother-in-law grew up in rural Oklahoma. "How were the schools?" "Oh, terrible. No AP courses; not a lot of math. I had to spend an extra year starting college, to be ready for regular college courses." "So", I asked, "your entire primary education could be recapitulated in 1 year once you were 18? Why then do we put kids through all that?" He had no answer. Of course, since he is a High School teacher, he didn't want to think that was true. But I wonder.

234 points by infodocket 5y ago

It's always the people not affected by it who comes with such arguments They do not see how negatively it affects public workers, nobody care about them anymore since they became invisible, you don't get to see them when you work from home We are heading toward a soulless society, full of inequalities, and nobody will be able to do shit because gatherings will be looked down because people are scared

chasd00 5y ago

my wife is a teacher, when her school closed some of her kids ended up in CPS and others simply vanished and haven't returned. Elementary schools in low income areas are basically social safety nets for kids. Now that her school re-opened a sizable portion of the student body is still missing.

willcipriano 5y ago

When the lockdowns and the masking up in daycare started, I presumed this would be the case and took steps to ensure my 2.5 year old received sufficient social interaction. I took her out more, talked with her more, and attempted to find like minded parents. As things opened back up the differences between kids of parents who did that and not is striking. My daughter is social and rarely shy, other kids we see seem so scared and withdrawn. Sample size of one but I'm glad I did it.

_-david-_ 5y ago
>other kids we see seem so scared and withdrawn. It would be interesting to know how many of those other parents also told their kids if they go outside without a mask or socialized with other kids they would get sick and die. That would be enough to cause any kid to be scared and withdrawn.
- henrikschroder 5y ago
  The weird obsession in the US with masking toddlers and children is absolutely baffling to me.
  - robhunter 5y ago
    Who is downvoting this? Why?
    - henrikschroder 5y ago
      People who are myopically obsessed with how the pandemic is being handled in their immediate vicinity, without knowing what it looks like in other parts of the world, I'm guessing. Throughout most of Europe, you would be viewed as an extreme child-abusing weirdo if you suggest masking toddlers or small children is a good thing.
  - NineStarPoint 5y ago
    Are children less likely to spread the disease than adults? You don’t wear masks to protect yourself, they’re generally bad at that, you wear them to not spread disease to others.
    - henrikschroder 5y ago
      > Are children less likely to spread the disease than adults? Yes, because you have to be infected in the first place, which kids are less likely to be, and if you are infected, your contagiousness is proportional to how sick you are, and since kids are often less sick and often asymptomatic, they also spread it less.
blitzar 5y ago
Yeah, sadly those steps put you in the top 1%.

qsort 5y ago

This is something I did a complete 180 about. I used to think closing schools wouldn't hurt anybody and that performance would at worst remain stationary. My reasoning was that so much time is wasted at school that it doesn't really make a difference where the learning happens, but I severely underestimated effects I thought were second-order like the familiarity with technology, the digital divide, or even just having access to a quiet, private space where one can focus. The data really speaks for itself, it's been a disaster.

goalieca 5y ago
I know people who have special needs and others who have terrible internet where the parents and kids can’t video at the same time. Remote learning is just one problem, we need the full spectrum of school activities and programs too! All of those little things that communities have built over the last few decades really really matter!
z3t4 5y ago
Another reason why accessibility is so important. Someone might be doing their homework/research from a smarttv or hacked kindle.
aardvarkr 5y ago
Don’t forget those who had to work during the pandemic. Many many high school students whose families were in a bad position financially had to work and would frequently be listening to zoom class while working a cash register for example. How effectively do you think they could listen and participate, or even care?
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  I'm not convinced this was a common thing. Source?
InitialLastName 5y ago
My SO is an elementary school teacher in a post-industrial urban school. Her students (mostly poor, and crucially almost all with parents who were working in-person through the lockdown) were effectively remote-only from March 2020 until earlier this month, and it's had some substantial visible effects on them. Among other things: - Missing that in-person school time meant losing a lot of "leaving home" practice for a large chunk of kids. Current second graders were in-person for 6 months of kindergarten, and remote from there. This means there are a lot of mechanical and social things they haven't had to do (sit quietly next to each other, tie their shoes, ask to go to the bathroom). - The "summer slide" has been much more severe than usual. A large chunk of the students didn't get much education out of being remote for first grade, so a much-larger-than-usual chunk of the cohort are substantially behind grade level for basic skills, especially reading. - Related to above, there has been a huge backlog of students who need to be evaluated for various special education and disability needs who just haven't been able to be accommodated and who, due to the process difficulties for the last year, probably won't be able to be evaluated based on their data from last year (leaving them severely under-supported for another year while the data is collected).

tbihl 5y ago

Basically, beneficial environments are anything but guaranteed. Plus, quiet is an underappreciated luxury good (and an underappreciated aspect of public libraries); seriously, poverty is so loud.

beckman466 5y ago
> quiet is an underappreciated luxury good (and an underappreciated aspect of public libraries); seriously, poverty is so loud. this is one of the most compassionate things i've read today. thank you
- geebee 5y ago
  Agreed, thank you for this. I think we should do more to defend quiet spaces.I work for a library, and much of the emphasis is on creating "collaborative" spaces. Those are important too, and I fully understand the irritation librarians have with the "shhhhh!" meme. But public silent spaces are rare, and may be a truly under appreciated resource by people who have the means to access quite private spaces.
  - beckman466 5y ago
    The compassionate part I was talking about was the acknowledgement that kids today don't have the equal opportunities in schools that many claim they do. Environmental context (rich family or not) matters. "quiet is a luxury good" + "seriously, poverty is so loud" Having said that, I do agree with your point about the need for quiet spaces.
tombert 5y ago
Agreed. When I started doing online school, I figured I would work on my bed, next to my wife, and have the TV on playing "King of the Hill" or something else I've seen a million times and thus could tune out. That was definitely not the case; I found that trying this just made me worse at studying and worse at watching TV. Eventually I cleaned my basement (which I'm lucky to have), put a desk down there, and made that my "don't bother Tom cuz he's studying" zone, and it was much easier as a result. I cannot imagine that I would have completed school if I were living in a one-bedroom apartment.

refurb 5y ago

I notice this in SF. The well off parents had private tutors pretty quickly after school closed and even middle class parents would split the bill across 5 kids. They didn’t miss a beat at all. While the lower income families struggle with virtual classes while the parents tried to make ends meet.

PerkinWarwick 5y ago
So what happens if high/middle class parents discover that the results are superior for this solution? Do you force them to send their kids to public school in order to bring up the lower income children?
- endisneigh 5y ago
  What? Private schooling and home schooling have always been a thing. Why would they be forced?
  - wyager 5y ago
    People are constantly trying to ban private and home schooling. Commonly stated justifications for mandatory public schooling include reducing class divide, fighting extremism, etc. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/private-schools-are-indefensible/618078/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/private... https://taipd.org/node/307 https://taipd.org/node/307 https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/law-school-professor-says-there-may-be-a-dark-side-of-homeschooling/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/law-school-pr... https://www.ncregister.com/news/french-government-seeks-to-ban-home-schooling https://www.ncregister.com/news/french-government-seeks-to-b...
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      People have been trying to do a lot of things - hasn’t been successful.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago

BrianOnHN 5y ago

There's no substitute for socialization. But, before the lockdown we were at one far end of the spectrum where all edu was in the same social environment. Lockdown swung us to the other side of the spectrum. The catch is that the ideal balance varies per child and is dependent on more factors than we can control.

PerkinWarwick 5y ago
>There's no substitute for socialization. The odd thing about 'socialization' is that it really means 'age segregated groups in a highly organized situation'. Really, it's a thing that never existed until the last 100-150 years or so.
- beckman466 5y ago
  > The odd thing about 'socialization' is that it really means 'age segregated groups in a highly organized situation'. Are you campaigning for self-directed learning like in the Sudbury Valley model?
  - missinfo 5y ago
    They could be referring to the Montessori method or the SpaceX school too. They have mixed age ranges and are less organized, understanding that kids learn at different paces and have different interests.
    - beckman466 5y ago
      > They have mixed age ranges and are less organized, understanding that kids learn at different paces and have different interests. Yep, those are the same qualities of Sudbury Valley schools! https://www.reimaginedonline.org/2013/06/why-i-started-my-own-sudbury-school/ https://www.reimaginedonline.org/2013/06/why-i-started-my-ow...
  - PerkinWarwick 5y ago
    I'm not campaigning for anything, just pointing out that 'socialization' in the sense of a modern school never existed for 99.99% of human history. Is it desirable? I don't know. I suppose it's well suited to producing certain types of workers.

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renewiltord 5y ago

I believe the trend toward a peaceful society has led to an imbalance of power based on age. When life was violent, it stabilized wealth concentration issues by periodically resetting the power of entrenched interests. Today, the old disproportionately control power and they direct that power towards their own protection. This is true of 80 yr olds. But it is also true of 50 yr olds. And even 30 yr olds. The COVID crisis response is one such example. Overbearing responses were put into place primarily because the danger was to old people. Concerns over this very outcome were handwaved away with low likelihood counterfactuals. Alternatives exist in some other cultures. We are familiar with the Fukushima Skilled Veteran Corps https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13598607 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13598607 but there are people who have a similar perspective who occupy this world. My parents are surgeons in their sixties and they continue to practise during this crisis and do not advocate for the degree of total lockdown that is so popular. They do not advocate for closed schools. I would rather be them than be like risk-averse 70 yr olds saying that life should pause (but not their pensions). I’m going to go ahead and say it: intransigent old people might be the greatest threat to humanity’s long term survival through their normalcy bias, grip on power, and fear of change. I hope that as I grow older I, too, manage to prioritize the next generation over myself.

notyourday 5y ago
> Overbearing responses were put into place primarily because the danger was to old people. Not only that - but these responses were put in place by the old people to protect the old people at the expense of the young people
opheliate 5y ago
Do you believe that, if the numbers had been reversed, and COVID was much more fatal to children and young people than it was to the old, lockdowns wouldn’t have happened? That seems to be the implication of your post, but I find it difficult to imagine that being the result.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

baremetal 5y ago

I would never send my kids to public school. There is no way they could get a better education than they could get from me. This distance learning thing just makes the decision even easier.

masterof0 5y ago
My sister is in the same boat with you,and she is raising a couple of Q soldiers for sure. You really can't teach your kids what they need to know, and also, kids need interaction with other kids to develop social skills, etc.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  > You really can't teach your kids what they need to know You clearly haven't interacted with K-12 public school teachers, it's not hard to come up with a better lesson plan. Anecdotally, it seems the people who go into teaching nowadays are the bottom of the barrel. You can still socialize homeschooled kids, enroll them in sports, extra-curriculars, etc. School of choice and group homeschooling are growing more popular and I'm glad.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> First, we review research showing that social class is associated with unequal access to digital tools, unequal familiarity with digital skills and unequal uses of such tools for learning purposes I have several friends who are elementary and middle school teachers. This echoes what they’ve been saying: The pandemic response among parents has been starkly divided across class lines. Families with stay-at-home parents are, obviously, the least impacted. However, many of their children from less well-off households simply disappear completely during quarantine periods. The problem is so bad that they have scheduled time each afternoon to try to call all of the parents whose children didn’t log on to the remote learning session (with their school-provided computers with school-provided cellular connections). If they can reach the parents at all they often indicate they don’t even care that their kids were absent because they don’t believe in the distance learning. The indifference is mind-boggling as a parent, but it’s real. That said, leaving schools fully opened at all times wasn’t really a viable option. Kids may not be as vulnerable to COVID as adults, but put 20-30 of them in enclosed rooms and the virus will spread. Local school districts here tried to stay open as long as possible but they quickly ran into a lack of teachers as the teachers became ill (multiple times in several cases) or simply quit because they couldn’t risk it for themselves or their families at home.

deleted 5y ago
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retrac 5y ago
> The indifference is mind-boggling as a parent Imagine you were raised by parents who had unpleasant experiences with formal education and/or by parents who had an attitude themselves of "my kid isn't getting any use out of those six hours" anyway. That's often the mindset behind the attitude, not so much as that parents don't love their kids and want what they see is the best for them. (Of course there's plenty of abuse and full-on neglect motivating such absenteeism, too.)
whoknowswhat11 5y ago
I can talk a bit about private schools. Many of them adapted quickly. Outdoor classrooms, meeting at parks. Tons of flexibility from teachers / staff. Very quick remodels of spaces - ie, take a wall out of a classroom so it open straight outside with a rolling door etc, very high levels of ventilation. Some doing weekly testing - test on Thursday, turn in Friday, results by Sunday to make decisions on stay at home / come in. Vaccine mandates for all adult staff. In other words, for parents of private school students, the value of in-person learning is clear, and the schools are delivering it. The risk in an outdoor classroom, students and teachers masked, teachers vaccinated, is relatively minimal. Student viral load in terms of spread is not so high either from what I've heard. Even inside, with in and out fans running, significant ventilation I'm not sure risk is as terrible as its made out to be. We'll see how this all plays out. From what I've seen, those kids are doing great (and yes, camping trips replaced sleepovers etc in these families - but their kids remaining socially engaged with friends etc).

hirako2000 5y ago

Entirely fed up with these articles. The debate is whether these things should be mandated or let to the appreciation of the people. Let me keep my kids at home, or get them to a school, or socialise, or wear a mask, or get vaccinated. Enough. Enough of this non sensical noise about whether x or y is better. Let people be. Stop coercing people to follow the potential idiocy of some group sitting in an office think will be wiser for society. The scandal isn't that deprived kids suffer social distancing most, the scandal is that governments around the globe have been telling people to cover their face wherever they go, to not meet their friends, to find themselves a other job because their industry is shut, to get infected or be banned from travels and other public places if they don't. Let people be. We don't care what you think is better for people. They know better.

kingkawn 5y ago
This strain of opinion is why the US still has >2,000 deaths per day from COVID, and has the highest death toll of any wealthy country.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Fellshard 5y ago
  That is malign use of data, undifferentiated by vastly different locales and policies across the nation, and not even accounting for per-capita.
  - bena 5y ago
    I don't think differentiating is going to help your argument any. We're approaching two very different situations in the U.S. Health outcomes with regards to COVID are following political leanings. And it is not looking good for one of them.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      > We're approaching two very different situations in the U.S. Health outcomes with regards to COVID are following political leanings Which group do you think is doing worse? Whatever that opinion is, it's not supported by the data: Highest covid deaths per 100,000 are in Mississippi at 317 but New Jersey is #2 at 308. Alabama is high at 286 but NY is right there at 284. Arkansas is terrible at 252, but Massachussets is worse at 269. Texas at 221 is better than Connecticut at 238 and much better than Rhode Island at 266, but worse than Illinois at 215, which itself is worse than Ohio at 187. Given the disparities in poverty and obesity and how both of these lead to much higher mortality rates, the red states are doing much better than the blue states on a wealth/obesity adjusted basis, and are the same on an absolute basis. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi... I suspect the mistake you are making is the same kind of observational bias that is common in these culture wars -- e.g. bad things happening to your side are a terrible tragedy whereas bad things happening to the other side is proof of their misguided policies. But the facts don't show any meaningful difference in total deaths, even though deaths in any given week swing wildly as the disease burns through some states before others. E.g. NY was hit hardest in the beginning, and then it spread to other states when NY was already recovering, then those states recovered and it spread to others, etc. It would be extremely foolish to look at only a snapshot in time rather than cumulative deaths since 2019.

spoonjim 5y ago

When my kid was in lockdown I taught him math and science and now he does algebra at 5. Other kids his age were in lockdown getting beaten by their stepdads. I think the achievement gaps will be massive and that the lengths of these school lockdowns were a crime against a generation of kids. A society with restaurants open for sit down dining but schools closed has its priorities completely upside down.

josephcsible 5y ago
> A society with restaurants open for sit down dining but schools closed has its priorities completely upside down. Be careful: that's analogous to asking "why is Narcan free for drug addicts but insulin so expensive for diabetics?". The fact that restaurants are open isn't relevant, and mentioning it like that will just make people suggest that they be closed, instead of addressing the real problem.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Not sure what your point is. Restaurants are a Lower priority than schools. If Covid is out of control, close the restaurants and open the schools (assuming both are disease vectors). If the disease is too dangerous then of course there can be circumstances where both must remain closed (especially if it was a disease targeting young people like H1N1)
WhereIsSweden 5y ago
Indeed, if restaurants are open - school should be open too.

busymom0 5y ago

I commented about this easily and obviously noticeable change based on anecdotal observations on HN late last year. Even simply observations of politicians getting away with not practicing their own guidelines and sending their own kids to private tutors while locking down everyone else should have woken up people. I got a lot of negative comments ranging from how I was advocating for putting kids and their elderly parents at risk and what not. It’s like everyone has completely forgotten about all the other side effects and have tunnel vision of covid only. Last week, CDC came out showing how the obesity rates in youth has doubled during the pandemic. All these decisions will have long term consequences which people get silenced over.

srl 5y ago
> Last week, CDC came out showing how the obesity rates in youth has doubled during the pandemic. Do you have a link to the CDC saying that? I found [0], which claims the rate went from 19% to 22% --- far from doubling. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/17/1038211236/weight-gain-obesity-children-teens-pandemic https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0...
- ghoward 5y ago
  https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm That's the one referred to.
  - busymom0 5y ago
    Yep, this is the one I was referencing. Thanks.
- anthonypasq 5y ago
  i think the person meant to say that the rate of increase doubled
masterof0 5y ago
I also got down-voted for suggesting the same, a year or so ago, it turns out the people who suffers the most with a lock-down, are not hanging out here in HN, go figure.

nemo44x 5y ago

Where I live the public school shut down all of last year and only started in-classroom again this year after lots of frustration and fighting from parents and the teachers union. Many of these kids will be behind, some nearly an entire year. Especially ones where the parents had to go to work all year and they were without much supervision. The private school near me, which charges about $50k/year stayed open all year last year and increased their enrollment from parents frustrated with the public system. Students from the private school are already about 1.5-2 years ahead of the public schools during normal times (according to testing and testimonials from students that have attended both schools) and now with Covid and the effects of that, they are likely 2.5 years or more ahead. So yes, the working and poor classes are the biggest victims in all of this in my opinion. If you had money you either sent your kids to private school or you were able to arrange "pods" where parents each chipped in $10k or more for the year to have a version of group home schooling by professionals.

kaesar14 5y ago

I feel there was a very strong brand of thinking in this country, particularly among the gung-ho pro-lockdown (mostly) liberal wing of society, that distance education wouldn't harm children's development at all, or at least that the benefits of lockdown would outweigh the drawbacks. No studies done on the matter, and any disagreement to the contrary of this opinion was treated the same as saying END ALL LOCKDOWNS. Sad to see the consequences of this will mostly be laid upon the children and mostly the poor.

encryptluks2 5y ago
Pretty sure at this point any disagreement automatically means you're a right-wing anti-vaccine protester who it is now socially acceptable to wish death upon and cough on hoping they get COVID-19. At least that is the impression I get from r/Portland and r/VancouverWA where these new left-wing terrorist communities are being bred.
- bosswipe 5y ago
  Wow. As a more left-wing person I've been shadow banned on HN for much less than this. HN used to be one of the few places where intelligent debate accros political spectrum was allowed. If you look at this whole comment thread all you see is one POV.
  - eli_gottlieb 5y ago
    I'm quite left-wing myself (check out my downvoted comments against capitalism, lol), but it's a simple fact that local civil-society has combined with local activism in much of the developed world to generate a nasty sequel to 60s-70s-style ultraleftism. Are they some second coming of Stalin? Hell no, but are they going to go to every single planning board meeting, run for school board, and screech nasty names at you when you disagree with their most obviously self-serving, power-grabbing hot-takes? Oh yeah, they've been doing that at least five years now, if not longer.
  - kongin 5y ago
    The irony burns: people saying that anti-anti-vaxxers are a cult hell bent on controlling the lives of everyone regardless of what health advice is. Top comment complaining they haven't been banned fast enough for that heresy.

paulcnichols 5y ago

I will actively do everything within my power to give my kids an “unequal” advantage. Sorry not sorry.

josephcsible 5y ago

IMO, public school should be mandatory for the children of anyone who has authority over how public schools are run (e.g., I object to Newsom, who closed the public schools, sending his children to private school), but I have no problem with anyone else choosing private school or homeschooling for their children.

chrisseaton 5y ago
Why should the children have to do something just because their parents have a particular job? It isn’t their decision what their parents do.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  You phrase that as if children would get to decide for themselves where to go to school, when in fact it's their parents who decide for them.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    That’s the point - impacts them but never their decision. Shouldn’t impose a restriction on someone based on their parents’ jobs.
supperburg 5y ago
This is already how it works. The people have control over public schools. They elect the officials who oversee it. If everybody wanted public schools to do X, public schools would do X and there wouldn’t be anything anyone could do about it. We can amend the fucking constitution. The problem isn’t a lack of power for the people, it’s that people collectively aren’t very smart. There’s no civil solution to that.
dehrmann 5y ago
This is one of those cute ideas that's a pretty blatant equal protection violation.
- 5y ago

eric_b 5y ago

This is my US-based perspective: Closing schools last year due to COVID was as bad of a policy as putting COVID patients in nursing homes (looking at you MN and NY). We knew by September of last year that kids were less impacted by COVID (they spread it less, they get less ill etc). We learned from Europe that it wasn't killing teachers at an increased rate either (a fear-based argument I heard ad nauseum in my very blue state). There was no good science-based argument to close schools last year in the US, especially when restaurants and hair salons were reopened. But political polarization - exacerbated by the media - ensured we did the worst possible thing for our children. I am continually disgusted with every person I encounter who promoted (and in many cases still promote) remote learning. Rich parents could afford professional tutors and create pods and go to other great lengths to ensure their kids got some education. Meanwhile the poor parents were going to work in-person and leaving their kids to fend for themselves (many of whom, at least where I live, turned to committing crimes) The most disgusting part is the people most in favor of closing schools were rich, left-leaning white collar workers. Nevermind that the very people they purportedly want to help with their policies were the most harmed. As long as you say the right words, who cares about outcomes yeah?

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
I'm confused about HN. Everyone here seems to agree that in person learning is best and not remote, but exactly the other way around when it comes to work and I wonder why. Is learning not happening at work as well, especially when you're at the beginning of your career? For me, as a junior, remote work has pretty much been devastating on the learning side of things as well as being invisible to management when it comes to career prospects. Sure, it benefited the seniors as they could more easily dodge some of the annoying responsibility of tutoring the juniors and leave early when their work was done and they had enough time to rub shoulders with management before the pandemic to have guaranteed career prospects. So, to whit, I'm wonder if the teachers also enjoyed remote teaching more to the detriment of the kids?
- burnafter182 5y ago
  From my anecdotal experiences, teachers did not like it, unanimously. And my N is about 50, so take it how you may.

say_it_as_it_is 5y ago

Distance learning is being used as a scapegoat. High school kids with elementary-school level reading comprehension skills didn't suddenly forget how to read during the pandemic, nor was their passion for reading extinguished by physical distancing. If the Biden administration were to spend a Billion dollars funding additional school programs, the educational disparity may be even more pronounced in a few years as the children and families who take education seriously use the resources available while the others don't.

harlanji 5y ago

I had achieved a nice middle class life and faced a setback that left me homeless 18 months before pandemic began. Hard worker from ages 14 to 32ish when pandemic hit, even crawling back up from homelessness with labor and service jobs. Now I’ve been forced into an abusive situation that seems terminal. The working class where I come from love to abuse me and refuse to understand how hard I’ve worked in last decades, and the wealthy who I used to be close with largely dismiss me as irrelevant or mentally ill. Due to legal problems created while in my vulnerable state I can’t even expect to pass a background check and get work. Not so much about me, but I just know I’m far from alone in sinking into terrible circumstances. I anticipate a sharp rise in domestic violence and similar boil overs as winter closes in and the ability to retreat is compromised (mouse bites cat only when cornered).

eawze 5y ago

DEATH TO ALL MASKERS! I hope you vaxxers get ran over by a bus. The only good fascist is a dead one! I wish death on every single vaxxer/masker here. FUCK YOU!

dnprock 5y ago

Closing schools and lockdown exacerbate the inequality that has already been in place. Instead of seriously looking at how to address the problems, we blame it on lockdowns. We're taught to think that opening schools will fix the problems. The US government printed 16k per individuals. Each person gets 1.4k. The rest goes into "recovery". We just want to find convenient ways to bury the real problems.

hgial 5y ago

Everyone here seems to be certain the pandemic will have huge and lasting effects on educational outcomes for kids. I would instead bet that while there will be effects in the short term, these effects will mostly fade within a few years (preexisting gaps will remain, but they won't get much bigger). This post reviews some of the existing evidence on the effect of missing school: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/kids-can-recover-from-missing-even https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/kids-can-recover-from-... And generally finds that kids can catch up quite quickly. I think my one caveat is that there may be a group of at-risk kids for whom school was keeping them from getting into serious trouble with the law. Those effects could conceivably be both large and lasting (e.g., if you carjack someone and kill them in the process and spend the next 15 years in prison it's going to have a big effect on your life!).

JoeAltmaier 5y ago
I agree - primary school is an interesting exercise but maybe over-stressed. Anecdata: my brother-in-law grew up in rural Oklahoma. "How were the schools?" "Oh, terrible. No AP courses; not a lot of math. I had to spend an extra year starting college, to be ready for regular college courses." "So", I asked, "your entire primary education could be recapitulated in 1 year once you were 18? Why then do we put kids through all that?" He had no answer. Of course, since he is a High School teacher, he didn't want to think that was true. But I wonder.