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Seattle Public Schools has seen enrollment drop 30% (!!!) over the past couple years because it is an utter shambles [0]. (correction: many schools have that l

by finnh 4y ago

Seattle Public Schools has seen enrollment drop 30% (!!!) over the past couple years because it is an utter shambles [0]. (correction: many schools have that level of decline or higher, but the decline district-wide is much lower). Cancelling as many advanced classes as possible, without grandfathering, so (eg) my two sons were both forced to repeat a year of math when they cancellled year-up math. An administration that is roundly hated, by parent and teacher alike. This feels like grasping in the dumbest possible way while ignoring the actual problem: if you bore the heck out of the kids, the ones who can afford to leave will. Also being bored 8 hours/day isn't good for mental health... [0] https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/public-school-districts-experiencing-decline-enrollment-statewide/RQAP3Q2QF5GTFA7OBN5S3NFCUQ/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/public-school-districts-exp...

tempsy 4y ago
i don’t know anything about the other issues facing the school but to say social media addiction is a “dumb” thing to address seems incredibly naive to me. growing up is hard enough as it is and social media absolutely can be detrimental to mental health if used excessively. imo the only reason we haven’t properly addressed the issue as a society is because it’s incredibly difficult to “prove” from a research perspective given the newness of social media.
- finnh 4y ago
  Social media is awful and terrible; no argument there. But SPS has much larger problems to address internally before tackling this broader societal issue.
  - tempsy 4y ago
    You can do two things at once.
    - b1ue64 4y ago
      You can't do them well if you're incompetent.
      - remarkEon 4y ago
        I don’t think anyone is imagining that SPS is going to implement social media regulation, it’s asking the courts (and indirectly Congress) to do that.
- idopmstuff 4y ago
  Social media addiction is an important thing to address, but a school district filing lawsuits against social media companies just seems like the worst possible way to address it. This is an organization whose entire purpose is educating kids. If they want to address social media addiction, why on earth would they not start by educating kids about it?
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    I expect that'll work about as well as gym teachers teaching kids not to have premarital sex or smoke drugs. Such admonitions might sometimes work for individual kids, but on the whole they don't work. TikTok/etc is unlike sex and illicit drugs in that it's a commercial enterprise that is operating openly and can in theory be sued into submission. You can't sue a plant anybody can grow in their closet, but you can sue a tech company.
    - asdff 4y ago
      Exactly. A student will sit there, arms crossed, internally opposing everything the administrator is saying because they've convinced themselves already its bullshit. They already think they will just find work as an influencer: https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/3614182-1-in-4-gen-z-ers-plan-to-become-social-media-influencers/ https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture...
    - idopmstuff 4y ago
      Gym teachers telling kids not to have premarital sex or smoke drugs isn't teaching them. You can teach kids how condoms work and that STDs stay with them for life. You can teach kids that drugs these days can be laced with fentanyl and how to acquire and use fentanyl test strips. Those things won't stop kids from having sex or doing drugs, but they can certainly and do mitigate some of the harm. You can take a similar approach to social media. Gym teachers telling them not to use TikTok will obviously not work, but you can teach them about how their data is shared and monetized. You can show them examples of people who posted things on social media and had their lives ruined over it. If the leaders of a school district have adopted the approach that you just can't teach kids anything they don't want to hear, I think they ought to find different jobs. As for the lawsuit, sure, you can sue a social media company? Will you win? Maybe, after extensive and costly litigation. Will those companies be forced to change their behavior in meaningful ways that will impact your students? Maybe, or maybe they'll just pay a fine and make superficial changes that last until the next lawsuit concludes in half a decade, then repeat. And besides that, even if you manage to win and dismantle Facebook, TikTok, etc., you'll have an infinite number of other companies coming in to fill the void. You can sue a tech company, but you can't sue a general class of software. You can legislate against it, but at best that is a long, hard road.
themitigating 4y ago
There can be more than issue causing more than one problem. Thinking that problems must be solved in some sort of order is dumb on your part
jeffbee 4y ago
I'm skeptical of your 30% number. Their reports seem to indicate current enrollment of 51608 compared to a peak of 53627, down 4%. That doesn't seem out of line with demographic processes.
- incone123 4y ago
  Linked article shows some individual schools losing more than 30%, but does not give an overall percentage.
- finnh 4y ago
  I'm going off the linked article, which is about multiple individual schools with that level of loss. But I appreciate the correction; I should have stated that number more carefully.
kube-system 4y ago
Maybe the dopamine addictions that many of these kids experience are the reason they’re bored with school. Maybe they’re a contributing reason that remote learning was ineffective. When I was a kid, going to school was the social medium. Even the kids who skipped class physically came to school to meet up. Now that we’ve removed that incentive for attendance, no wonder kids don’t show up.
- asdff 4y ago
  I know for sure if I was saddled with remote learning during elementary/middle/highschool I would waste all of my time playing games and try skirting by with the bare minimum. After all, that's exactly what we did with the computer lab in the school whenever we got access to it.
- broast 4y ago
  It seems inevitable we will have to adapt to the new normal expected dopamine frequency
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  I still hated every minute of school lessons in school, even without social medias st the time. I know it's a one off, but boring people for 6 hours per day in high school is bad. All I wanted to do was stop being there for 6 hours. I'm pretty sure I hit depression due to that, but was never diagnosed
tw98521358 4y ago
[flagged]
roody15 4y ago
Sadly this what happens with the “equity” push is public schools. There is no way to have “equalized” outcomes without dumbing down the content. This means less advanced courses. It’s sad because somehow the idea of equal opportunity has been replaced with equalized outcomes in education.
- bathtub365 4y ago
  Is this actually due to the “equity” push? The article linked by the parent points to staffing issues during the pandemic and the issue you point to isn’t mentioned.
  - brianwawok 4y ago
    You need to read between the lines. No child left behind and similar punishes schools that don’t get their lowest students up to a certain test score. It does not mandate or encourage or anything else advanced classes. So when a budget cut happens, guess where the cut happens?
spritefs 4y ago
> Cancelling as many advanced classes as possible I wish someone would compile a list of every school district that's doing this or planning on doing it, just for public knowledge purposes

by finnh 4y ago

tempsy 4y ago

i don’t know anything about the other issues facing the school but to say social media addiction is a “dumb” thing to address seems incredibly naive to me. growing up is hard enough as it is and social media absolutely can be detrimental to mental health if used excessively. imo the only reason we haven’t properly addressed the issue as a society is because it’s incredibly difficult to “prove” from a research perspective given the newness of social media.

finnh 4y ago
Social media is awful and terrible; no argument there. But SPS has much larger problems to address internally before tackling this broader societal issue.
- tempsy 4y ago
  You can do two things at once.
  - b1ue64 4y ago
    You can't do them well if you're incompetent.
    - remarkEon 4y ago
      I don’t think anyone is imagining that SPS is going to implement social media regulation, it’s asking the courts (and indirectly Congress) to do that.
idopmstuff 4y ago
Social media addiction is an important thing to address, but a school district filing lawsuits against social media companies just seems like the worst possible way to address it. This is an organization whose entire purpose is educating kids. If they want to address social media addiction, why on earth would they not start by educating kids about it?
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  I expect that'll work about as well as gym teachers teaching kids not to have premarital sex or smoke drugs. Such admonitions might sometimes work for individual kids, but on the whole they don't work. TikTok/etc is unlike sex and illicit drugs in that it's a commercial enterprise that is operating openly and can in theory be sued into submission. You can't sue a plant anybody can grow in their closet, but you can sue a tech company.
  - asdff 4y ago
    Exactly. A student will sit there, arms crossed, internally opposing everything the administrator is saying because they've convinced themselves already its bullshit. They already think they will just find work as an influencer: https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/3614182-1-in-4-gen-z-ers-plan-to-become-social-media-influencers/ https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture...
  - idopmstuff 4y ago
    Gym teachers telling kids not to have premarital sex or smoke drugs isn't teaching them. You can teach kids how condoms work and that STDs stay with them for life. You can teach kids that drugs these days can be laced with fentanyl and how to acquire and use fentanyl test strips. Those things won't stop kids from having sex or doing drugs, but they can certainly and do mitigate some of the harm. You can take a similar approach to social media. Gym teachers telling them not to use TikTok will obviously not work, but you can teach them about how their data is shared and monetized. You can show them examples of people who posted things on social media and had their lives ruined over it. If the leaders of a school district have adopted the approach that you just can't teach kids anything they don't want to hear, I think they ought to find different jobs. As for the lawsuit, sure, you can sue a social media company? Will you win? Maybe, after extensive and costly litigation. Will those companies be forced to change their behavior in meaningful ways that will impact your students? Maybe, or maybe they'll just pay a fine and make superficial changes that last until the next lawsuit concludes in half a decade, then repeat. And besides that, even if you manage to win and dismantle Facebook, TikTok, etc., you'll have an infinite number of other companies coming in to fill the void. You can sue a tech company, but you can't sue a general class of software. You can legislate against it, but at best that is a long, hard road.

themitigating 4y ago

There can be more than issue causing more than one problem. Thinking that problems must be solved in some sort of order is dumb on your part

jeffbee 4y ago

I'm skeptical of your 30% number. Their reports seem to indicate current enrollment of 51608 compared to a peak of 53627, down 4%. That doesn't seem out of line with demographic processes.

incone123 4y ago
Linked article shows some individual schools losing more than 30%, but does not give an overall percentage.
finnh 4y ago
I'm going off the linked article, which is about multiple individual schools with that level of loss. But I appreciate the correction; I should have stated that number more carefully.

kube-system 4y ago

Maybe the dopamine addictions that many of these kids experience are the reason they’re bored with school. Maybe they’re a contributing reason that remote learning was ineffective. When I was a kid, going to school was the social medium. Even the kids who skipped class physically came to school to meet up. Now that we’ve removed that incentive for attendance, no wonder kids don’t show up.

asdff 4y ago
I know for sure if I was saddled with remote learning during elementary/middle/highschool I would waste all of my time playing games and try skirting by with the bare minimum. After all, that's exactly what we did with the computer lab in the school whenever we got access to it.
broast 4y ago
It seems inevitable we will have to adapt to the new normal expected dopamine frequency
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
I still hated every minute of school lessons in school, even without social medias st the time. I know it's a one off, but boring people for 6 hours per day in high school is bad. All I wanted to do was stop being there for 6 hours. I'm pretty sure I hit depression due to that, but was never diagnosed

tw98521358 4y ago

[flagged]

roody15 4y ago

Sadly this what happens with the “equity” push is public schools. There is no way to have “equalized” outcomes without dumbing down the content. This means less advanced courses. It’s sad because somehow the idea of equal opportunity has been replaced with equalized outcomes in education.

bathtub365 4y ago
Is this actually due to the “equity” push? The article linked by the parent points to staffing issues during the pandemic and the issue you point to isn’t mentioned.
- brianwawok 4y ago
  You need to read between the lines. No child left behind and similar punishes schools that don’t get their lowest students up to a certain test score. It does not mandate or encourage or anything else advanced classes. So when a budget cut happens, guess where the cut happens?

spritefs 4y ago

> Cancelling as many advanced classes as possible I wish someone would compile a list of every school district that's doing this or planning on doing it, just for public knowledge purposes