8 ms·

I'd love to see an emotionless cost-benefit analysis of different approaches to handling schools in the pandemic. I suspect the cost of closed schools far excee

I'd love to see an emotionless cost-benefit analysis of different approaches to handling schools in the pandemic. I suspect the cost of closed schools far exceeds what we intuitively think, since it's not just the educational loss now, it's the cost of future mitigations due to the problems we're causing, and a large cost of lost productivity by parents. How many person-hours of lost productivity is there for each day a classroom is closed? At least a hundred per classroom, more than a thousand for each day a school is closed. There's a lot of things that cost less than a thousand person-hours that could be done to help schools stay open. I'm not a huge fan of cost-benefit decision processes but they are useful for removing some false dichotomies. Like "we can't afford to do the right thing" when the right thing is actually more cost effective.

crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
First, let's learn to account for emotional, mental, spiritual costs. Then we can talk about the productivity hit.
- gotstad 5y ago
  While those are important costs to consider, there is no way people will agree on how to measure such things in comparable terms.
  - crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
    So don't bother trying?! Nope. That just means it's a moonshot. Besides I don't agree with current education approaches, so why pedestal one over the other. Also, there ARE metrics of subjective wellbeing and we can use them. There's a culture of denial and aversion to real challenges that leads to people to escape it through numbers and dollars. What you're saying sounds like what that culture says.
- ianbicking 5y ago
  Those are all important too, but I think these different indicators all point in the same direction: that we should be putting a lot more effort into keeping schools open
  - crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
    I disagree. We need to stop the nonsense disconnected from reality and nature society of bullshit now, not later. That includes bullshit child care and education and jobs. Essentialism is what's needed here.
- refurb 5y ago
  Ok, how do you measure spiritual costs?
  - adolph 5y ago
    Underrated comment. In the spring of 20 all the talk of what was essential and what wasn’t lead me to believe that just about everything shut down was actually the things that made life worth living for many people.
quadrifoliate 5y ago
> How many person-hours of lost productivity is there for each day a classroom is closed? At least a hundred per classroom, more than a thousand for each day a school is closed. I think I must have missed the point at which classrooms took on a responsibility for parental productivity? If so, does parental productivity also fall drastically during summer when schools have holidays? Stresses by the pandemic itself have likely caused parental productivity to plummet. Remember that "classrooms" are not the sterile abstractions you seem to bucket them into, they are staffed by teachers who are both employees and often parents themselves; with the accompanying stresses. They are required to face Covid, often from students who are imperfectly masked or unmasked. I don't understand the American blind spot that allows people to think of schools being as essential as hospitals; and requires them to both face Covid infections while paying teachers $40k and doctors $400k. Clearly the rates at which teachers are paid indicate that US society doesn't consider them as essential.
- orangecat 5y ago
  I think I must have missed the point at which classrooms took on a responsibility for parental productivity? Because child care has long been part of the value proposition of public schools. It's amusing how "you shouldn't have had kids if one parent wasn't willing to stay at home full time" is now something that the far left and far right agree on.
  - quadrifoliate 5y ago
    > It's amusing how "you shouldn't have had kids if one parent wasn't willing to stay at home full time" is now something that the far left and far right agree on. I consider myself somewhat left wing, and I don't agree with this statement at all. Cooperative babysitting, more flexible work arrangements, larger friend groups, joint families, and more social cohesion in general are a good way to balance childcare. I actually agree that teaching can provide some part of this, but don't understand the fact where everything else runs according to a hyper-capitalist algorithm, but teachers are expected to take on outsize responsibility and risk adverse healthcare outcomes because "Think of the children". It does take a village to raise a child. Let's do that, and not just leave it to two parents and a teacher.
sandos 5y ago
Sweden apparently put the values of kids time in school very high, since schools were open all pandemic long for many kids, I believe up to ninth grade, and only high schoolers had some limited periods of online/home schooling. College/university was of course different so more like the recommendations for everyone else.

crawfordcomeaux 5y ago

First, let's learn to account for emotional, mental, spiritual costs. Then we can talk about the productivity hit.

gotstad 5y ago
While those are important costs to consider, there is no way people will agree on how to measure such things in comparable terms.
- crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
  So don't bother trying?! Nope. That just means it's a moonshot. Besides I don't agree with current education approaches, so why pedestal one over the other. Also, there ARE metrics of subjective wellbeing and we can use them. There's a culture of denial and aversion to real challenges that leads to people to escape it through numbers and dollars. What you're saying sounds like what that culture says.
ianbicking 5y ago
Those are all important too, but I think these different indicators all point in the same direction: that we should be putting a lot more effort into keeping schools open
- crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
  I disagree. We need to stop the nonsense disconnected from reality and nature society of bullshit now, not later. That includes bullshit child care and education and jobs. Essentialism is what's needed here.
refurb 5y ago
Ok, how do you measure spiritual costs?
- adolph 5y ago
  Underrated comment. In the spring of 20 all the talk of what was essential and what wasn’t lead me to believe that just about everything shut down was actually the things that made life worth living for many people.

quadrifoliate 5y ago

> How many person-hours of lost productivity is there for each day a classroom is closed? At least a hundred per classroom, more than a thousand for each day a school is closed. I think I must have missed the point at which classrooms took on a responsibility for parental productivity? If so, does parental productivity also fall drastically during summer when schools have holidays? Stresses by the pandemic itself have likely caused parental productivity to plummet. Remember that "classrooms" are not the sterile abstractions you seem to bucket them into, they are staffed by teachers who are both employees and often parents themselves; with the accompanying stresses. They are required to face Covid, often from students who are imperfectly masked or unmasked. I don't understand the American blind spot that allows people to think of schools being as essential as hospitals; and requires them to both face Covid infections while paying teachers $40k and doctors $400k. Clearly the rates at which teachers are paid indicate that US society doesn't consider them as essential.

orangecat 5y ago
I think I must have missed the point at which classrooms took on a responsibility for parental productivity? Because child care has long been part of the value proposition of public schools. It's amusing how "you shouldn't have had kids if one parent wasn't willing to stay at home full time" is now something that the far left and far right agree on.
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  > It's amusing how "you shouldn't have had kids if one parent wasn't willing to stay at home full time" is now something that the far left and far right agree on. I consider myself somewhat left wing, and I don't agree with this statement at all. Cooperative babysitting, more flexible work arrangements, larger friend groups, joint families, and more social cohesion in general are a good way to balance childcare. I actually agree that teaching can provide some part of this, but don't understand the fact where everything else runs according to a hyper-capitalist algorithm, but teachers are expected to take on outsize responsibility and risk adverse healthcare outcomes because "Think of the children". It does take a village to raise a child. Let's do that, and not just leave it to two parents and a teacher.

sandos 5y ago

Sweden apparently put the values of kids time in school very high, since schools were open all pandemic long for many kids, I believe up to ninth grade, and only high schoolers had some limited periods of online/home schooling. College/university was of course different so more like the recommendations for everyone else.