4 ms·

Schools closures were really a disastrous policy. Experts and parents alike agreed that schools should have remained open. Instead, the US was the standout amo

Schools closures were really a disastrous policy. Experts and parents alike agreed that schools should have remained open. Instead, the US was the standout among Western nations at not getting kids back into the classroom: https://webarchive.unesco.org/web/20220629024039/https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse/ https://webarchive.unesco.org/web/20220629024039/https://en.... Teachers' and their unions also became somewhat bad actors here too - undermining good faith attempts to resume classroom teaching and constantly moving goalposts well after the vaccine was available. It also pitted teachers directly against their local policymakers and voters. The irony is that while everyone stayed home for a year and studied up on social justice, the lack of schooling will hit poorer families much worse. We were able to put our kid in a private school. Time will tell the lingering effects on less fortunate families. Really telling is that almost no one is attending PTA meetings anymore (unless to yell at teachers or to yell at the people yelling at teachers). Anyone who actually cared about partnering with/challenging teachers to improve education has since moved on.

rbreaves 4y ago
The pandemic was the disastrous part and yes measures were taken in response to it that no one liked doing, but how we lay blame on people trying to protect themselves, and their family.. I think is shortsighted. More people died in most countries from it than what they died in the last World War, and maybe 2. We don't go around constantly blaming the people and decisions that led up to the World Wars, it happened and we accept it and move on from it. Also sending kids into private schools in the US I think is part of the problem - there are many proponents that'd love all public schools to go under and to teach their brand of "science" and "history" to their students while knowing they are not providing an actual education. That is not all private schools, but many do have an agenda and little to no oversight in the US.
- legitster 4y ago
  > how we lay blame on people trying to protect themselves, and their family.. I think is shortsighted Sure, but does ensuring my child has a good education not part of protecting my family? I faced about a 0.5% chance of being critically harmed by Covid versus an unknown chance that my child would permanently be affected by school closures. That's not so cut and dry a choice as people make it. And we can find all sorts of reasons to knock private education, but they actually stayed open and provided education.
  - p0pcult 4y ago
    Protecting your family while letting the society in which it exists rot is not protecting your family.
    - ehvatum 4y ago
      It is sometimes better to step out of the way of a barreling misguided consensus that will soon enough dash itself to pieces. No amount of argument or action could alter Randy Weingartner’s strategy. She was going to close schools nationwide and mischaracterize any criticism of her strategy as anti-science in order to stigmatize her opponents and increase her own person power, until the political environment shifted and she had to be less lazy.
- kodyo 4y ago
  We can blame them if it was obviously wrong, and it was obviously wrong at the time. The numbers showed very early on that kids and healthy adults weren’t all that susceptible to COVID.
yamtaddle 4y ago
Locally, at least one private school was able to open earlier & safer than the public schools, and without pissing off their teachers by exposing them to unnecessary risk... in no small part because the school's culture tends to exclude families that'd take excessive risks during a pandemic, send kids to school when someone at home was sick with likely or confirmed Covid, or tell their kids things that'd lead to their having poor masking and distancing discipline. Part of the reason public schools struggled to open was precisely because of parents "challenging" things. That private school could do better, in part, because it had the freedom to exclude assholes. Public schools don't have that freedom.

rbreaves 4y ago

The pandemic was the disastrous part and yes measures were taken in response to it that no one liked doing, but how we lay blame on people trying to protect themselves, and their family.. I think is shortsighted. More people died in most countries from it than what they died in the last World War, and maybe 2. We don't go around constantly blaming the people and decisions that led up to the World Wars, it happened and we accept it and move on from it. Also sending kids into private schools in the US I think is part of the problem - there are many proponents that'd love all public schools to go under and to teach their brand of "science" and "history" to their students while knowing they are not providing an actual education. That is not all private schools, but many do have an agenda and little to no oversight in the US.

legitster 4y ago
> how we lay blame on people trying to protect themselves, and their family.. I think is shortsighted Sure, but does ensuring my child has a good education not part of protecting my family? I faced about a 0.5% chance of being critically harmed by Covid versus an unknown chance that my child would permanently be affected by school closures. That's not so cut and dry a choice as people make it. And we can find all sorts of reasons to knock private education, but they actually stayed open and provided education.
- p0pcult 4y ago
  Protecting your family while letting the society in which it exists rot is not protecting your family.
  - ehvatum 4y ago
    It is sometimes better to step out of the way of a barreling misguided consensus that will soon enough dash itself to pieces. No amount of argument or action could alter Randy Weingartner’s strategy. She was going to close schools nationwide and mischaracterize any criticism of her strategy as anti-science in order to stigmatize her opponents and increase her own person power, until the political environment shifted and she had to be less lazy.
kodyo 4y ago
We can blame them if it was obviously wrong, and it was obviously wrong at the time. The numbers showed very early on that kids and healthy adults weren’t all that susceptible to COVID.

yamtaddle 4y ago

Locally, at least one private school was able to open earlier & safer than the public schools, and without pissing off their teachers by exposing them to unnecessary risk... in no small part because the school's culture tends to exclude families that'd take excessive risks during a pandemic, send kids to school when someone at home was sick with likely or confirmed Covid, or tell their kids things that'd lead to their having poor masking and distancing discipline. Part of the reason public schools struggled to open was precisely because of parents "challenging" things. That private school could do better, in part, because it had the freedom to exclude assholes. Public schools don't have that freedom.