'Appalling' standardized test scores in wake of covid school closures

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Catholic K-8 in our DC neighborhood went back right after Labor Day in 9/2020. It is crazy that our DCPS kids stayed home almost the entire 2020-21 school year.

somehow they want us to pretend we didn’t see catholic schools reopen in the *same neighborhoods* public schools closed.

Yeah, driving to the grocery store, I'd see the kids at the local Catholic ES outside during recess and lunch, while our kids were still stuck in virtual. It pissed me off every time.

You made the choice for public. Public schools serve many communities. Some communities were experiencing Covid when rich white people weren’t. Not sure what to say. Maybe try therapy to help get you out of your bubble and move on from Covid. ???

This is just gibberish. The problem was that public schools weren't serving any community when they were closed last year. The racist policy was leaving poor and minority kids to sink or swim on their own, while the kids of the WFH class were able to at least get a modicum of an education because their parents had the ability and resources to help them.

You can't run from the numbers. The policies you supported were absolutely devastating to poor and minority kids, and it's unlikely that schools will ever make up the difference. This will have lifelong negative effects on an entire generation of children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Catholic K-8 in our DC neighborhood went back right after Labor Day in 9/2020. It is crazy that our DCPS kids stayed home almost the entire 2020-21 school year.

somehow they want us to pretend we didn’t see catholic schools reopen in the *same neighborhoods* public schools closed.

Yeah, driving to the grocery store, I'd see the kids at the local Catholic ES outside during recess and lunch, while our kids were still stuck in virtual. It pissed me off every time.

YUP. I had friends and family with kids in catholic, private, and international schools the entire time. It made me feel insane.

If there had been some massive death toll of Catholic school kids and their families, I'm sure the teachers' unions would be shouting that from the rooftops. Of course, they're noticeably quiet on this point, and their only response is that we need to "move on."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm old enough to remember when those of us advocating for opening schools early on were selfish jerks!

When I usually say "I hate to say I told you so" I don't usually mean it. I love to be proven right retroactively.

Not this time. I predicted just how bad shutting schools down for an extended period would be for kids, especially for lower-income and at-risk kids. I do genuinely wish I was wrong on this point, though.

I wonder if the people responsible for extended school shutdowns in DC and other blue states and cities will ever admit they were wrong?

If you're one of the people who was opposed to reopening schools in the fall on 2020, this is on you. And people like me are going to rub your nose in it for the rest of your days.

I'm a teacher and would never say I was wrong for being unwilling to go into school prior to being vaccinated. You can rub my nose or your nose in it as much as you want. I'm focused on trying to support students where they are now.

Ok, but that doesnt change the fact that you were wrong -- wrong and selfish and poorly informed, and your students suffered because of your poor decisions.

Sorry you had to parent your kids during a pandemic. Boo hoo.

I can’t believe you’re still here … are you sorry at all that you forced poor black kids to be isolated and deprived of school, with evident repercussions, meanwhile affluent white parents sent their kids to school or supplemented at home?

Minorities suffered the loss of more family and friends to Covid. They were reluctant to send their kids back. I understand, you don’t know anyone who died but many lost family. Many were orphaned. Your solipsism is staggering.

The fact you’re still claiming this now is amazing. Truly.

It's true though. DCPS did surveys and Black and Hispanic families always disproportionately favored keeping schools remote. Did everyone forget about that?

Yes, they forgot because it doesn’t fit their narrative. Only they care about the poor minority students… as long as their rich white kids are in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Catholic K-8 in our DC neighborhood went back right after Labor Day in 9/2020. It is crazy that our DCPS kids stayed home almost the entire 2020-21 school year.

somehow they want us to pretend we didn’t see catholic schools reopen in the *same neighborhoods* public schools closed.

Yeah, driving to the grocery store, I'd see the kids at the local Catholic ES outside during recess and lunch, while our kids were still stuck in virtual. It pissed me off every time.

You made the choice for public. Public schools serve many communities. Some communities were experiencing Covid when rich white people weren’t. Not sure what to say. Maybe try therapy to help get you out of your bubble and move on from Covid. ???

This is just gibberish. The problem was that public schools weren't serving any community when they were closed last year. The racist policy was leaving poor and minority kids to sink or swim on their own, while the kids of the WFH class were able to at least get a modicum of an education because their parents had the ability and resources to help them.

You can't run from the numbers. The policies you supported were absolutely devastating to poor and minority kids, and it's unlikely that schools will ever make up the difference. This will have lifelong negative effects on an entire generation of children.

You are ridiculous. Minority families didn’t want their kids in school. No one is denying that there will be negative repercussions from going virtual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm old enough to remember when those of us advocating for opening schools early on were selfish jerks!

When I usually say "I hate to say I told you so" I don't usually mean it. I love to be proven right retroactively.

Not this time. I predicted just how bad shutting schools down for an extended period would be for kids, especially for lower-income and at-risk kids. I do genuinely wish I was wrong on this point, though.

I wonder if the people responsible for extended school shutdowns in DC and other blue states and cities will ever admit they were wrong?

If you're one of the people who was opposed to reopening schools in the fall on 2020, this is on you. And people like me are going to rub your nose in it for the rest of your days.

I'm a teacher and would never say I was wrong for being unwilling to go into school prior to being vaccinated. You can rub my nose or your nose in it as much as you want. I'm focused on trying to support students where they are now.

Ok, but that doesnt change the fact that you were wrong -- wrong and selfish and poorly informed, and your students suffered because of your poor decisions.

Sorry you had to parent your kids during a pandemic. Boo hoo.

I can’t believe you’re still here … are you sorry at all that you forced poor black kids to be isolated and deprived of school, with evident repercussions, meanwhile affluent white parents sent their kids to school or supplemented at home?

Minorities suffered the loss of more family and friends to Covid. They were reluctant to send their kids back. I understand, you don’t know anyone who died but many lost family. Many were orphaned. Your solipsism is staggering.

The fact you’re still claiming this now is amazing. Truly.

It's true though. DCPS did surveys and Black and Hispanic families always disproportionately favored keeping schools remote. Did everyone forget about that?

Those results were generated by the fear-mongering by political actors and the fact that closed schools sent a strong message of fear.

And of course, it was never all POC parents. A huge number wanted schools open. Since when does a group get to prevent another group from getting a public service? We don’t put issues like this up for a vote. We elect officials to lead and decide what is the best course overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm old enough to remember when those of us advocating for opening schools early on were selfish jerks!

When I usually say "I hate to say I told you so" I don't usually mean it. I love to be proven right retroactively.

Not this time. I predicted just how bad shutting schools down for an extended period would be for kids, especially for lower-income and at-risk kids. I do genuinely wish I was wrong on this point, though.

I wonder if the people responsible for extended school shutdowns in DC and other blue states and cities will ever admit they were wrong?

If you're one of the people who was opposed to reopening schools in the fall on 2020, this is on you. And people like me are going to rub your nose in it for the rest of your days.

I'm a teacher and would never say I was wrong for being unwilling to go into school prior to being vaccinated. You can rub my nose or your nose in it as much as you want. I'm focused on trying to support students where they are now.

Ok, but that doesnt change the fact that you were wrong -- wrong and selfish and poorly informed, and your students suffered because of your poor decisions.

Sorry you had to parent your kids during a pandemic. Boo hoo.

I can’t believe you’re still here … are you sorry at all that you forced poor black kids to be isolated and deprived of school, with evident repercussions, meanwhile affluent white parents sent their kids to school or supplemented at home?

Minorities suffered the loss of more family and friends to Covid. They were reluctant to send their kids back. I understand, you don’t know anyone who died but many lost family. Many were orphaned. Your solipsism is staggering.

The fact you’re still claiming this now is amazing. Truly.

It's true though. DCPS did surveys and Black and Hispanic families always disproportionately favored keeping schools remote. Did everyone forget about that?

Yes, they forgot because it doesn’t fit their narrative. Only they care about the poor minority students… as long as their rich white kids are in school.

In DC, at least, no one was forced to go back to in-person school. In our upper NW school, we sent our kid back as soon as possible, but only about half of his classmates went back at first.

If some people wanted to keep their kids remote at first, no one was going to stop them. But those of us who wanted our kids back in-person should have been given that opportunity much sooner than February of 2021.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Catholic K-8 in our DC neighborhood went back right after Labor Day in 9/2020. It is crazy that our DCPS kids stayed home almost the entire 2020-21 school year.

somehow they want us to pretend we didn’t see catholic schools reopen in the *same neighborhoods* public schools closed.

Yeah, driving to the grocery store, I'd see the kids at the local Catholic ES outside during recess and lunch, while our kids were still stuck in virtual. It pissed me off every time.

You made the choice for public. Public schools serve many communities. Some communities were experiencing Covid when rich white people weren’t. Not sure what to say. Maybe try therapy to help get you out of your bubble and move on from Covid. ???

“It was your fault. Stop talking about it. Move on. Get therapy.”. Yeah … sounds like a sincere effort there to discuss the actual risks and benefits of school closure.

If anything dismayed me more than the actual closures, it was the insane discourse on the left about it. Major figures on the left are still trying to claim it was racist to support access to education. Absolutely unreal and permanently changed my politics.

Your dismissal of the loss of life in minority communities is terrible. Your posts are incredibly tone deaf and insensitive to the million+ lives that were lost to Covid, which were overwhelmingly people of color. Although white MAGA is racking up the numbers now.

The left is acknowledging learning loss but they aren’t (and shouldn’t) be dismissive of the people who died. My kids were home too. It was a less than ideal situation but that’s life in a pandemic. I also acknowledge that certain professions and communities had it worse. Would I have liked to have had my kids back in school sooner? Absolutely! But I’m not going to whine and fill up DCUM about it. Grow the F* up. Life is hard and doesn’t go your way often.

And your ghoulish exploitation of deaths in the minority community is disgusting. Your take is that we should compound the harms inflicted by covid on minorities by also blocking their kids from school. You refuse to accept that school closures harmed families and insist on perpetuating the harmful lie that they needed to be so scared that they kept their kids at home. Meanwhile affluent white families who had access to better information and resources *kept their kids in school* or were able to support their kids at home. You are everything you claim your opponents to be - you exploit poor families in DC for political ends and create the very equity gap you pretend to decry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This doesn’t prove that this was a result of school closures. It was a result of the pandemic. My life is worse after the pandemic. Your life is worse. Our kids live on this planet. Their lives are worse too. There’s no getting around that.

It’s unbelievable that you people are still denying that school closures were harmful to children and learning. I am actually shocked people are still saying these things. I thought this thread would be nothing but people saying, “well obviously, now how can we fix it”. Unbelievable.

It’s unbelievable that people like you are still pretending that living in an ongoing public health crisis with over a million deaths hasn’t had a negative impact on children.

You know no one is denying that school closures were harmful to children, right? No one at the time shut down schools to *help* learning.
Schools were shut down to save lives in the midst of a once in a century public health crisis.
Now we can study that to see if that helped (and we should!) but the decision at the time was "save lives and accept some learning loss" not "close down schools for the heck of it and hope kids still learn stuff"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This doesn’t prove that this was a result of school closures. It was a result of the pandemic. My life is worse after the pandemic. Your life is worse. Our kids live on this planet. Their lives are worse too. There’s no getting around that.

It’s unbelievable that you people are still denying that school closures were harmful to children and learning. I am actually shocked people are still saying these things. I thought this thread would be nothing but people saying, “well obviously, now how can we fix it”. Unbelievable.

It’s unbelievable that people like you are still pretending that living in an ongoing public health crisis with over a million deaths hasn’t had a negative impact on children.

You know no one is denying that school closures were harmful to children, right? No one at the time shut down schools to *help* learning.
Schools were shut down to save lives in the midst of a once in a century public health crisis.
Now we can study that to see if that helped (and we should!) but the decision at the time was "save lives and accept some learning loss" not "close down schools for the heck of it and hope kids still learn stuff"

Sorry - forgot we didn't get the whole thread of quoting. Clearly I agree with the immediate quote. It's the one before it that's... unbelievable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This doesn’t prove that this was a result of school closures. It was a result of the pandemic. My life is worse after the pandemic. Your life is worse. Our kids live on this planet. Their lives are worse too. There’s no getting around that.

It’s unbelievable that you people are still denying that school closures were harmful to children and learning. I am actually shocked people are still saying these things. I thought this thread would be nothing but people saying, “well obviously, now how can we fix it”. Unbelievable.

It’s unbelievable that people like you are still pretending that living in an ongoing public health crisis with over a million deaths hasn’t had a negative impact on children.

You know no one is denying that school closures were harmful to children, right? No one at the time shut down schools to *help* learning.
Schools were shut down to save lives in the midst of a once in a century public health crisis.
Now we can study that to see if that helped (and we should!) but the decision at the time was "save lives and accept some learning loss" not "close down schools for the heck of it and hope kids still learn stuff"

You keep arguing from the flawed premise that school closures saved lives and were the only option. Anyone with eyes knew that was false.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This doesn’t prove that this was a result of school closures. It was a result of the pandemic. My life is worse after the pandemic. Your life is worse. Our kids live on this planet. Their lives are worse too. There’s no getting around that.

It’s unbelievable that you people are still denying that school closures were harmful to children and learning. I am actually shocked people are still saying these things. I thought this thread would be nothing but people saying, “well obviously, now how can we fix it”. Unbelievable.

It’s unbelievable that people like you are still pretending that living in an ongoing public health crisis with over a million deaths hasn’t had a negative impact on children.

You know no one is denying that school closures were harmful to children, right? No one at the time shut down schools to *help* learning.
Schools were shut down to save lives in the midst of a once in a century public health crisis.
Now we can study that to see if that helped (and we should!) but the decision at the time was "save lives and accept some learning loss" not "close down schools for the heck of it and hope kids still learn stuff"

Shutting down the schools in March of 2020 was not an unreasonable response. We then had months to prepare to reopen in the fall. Schools all over this country and the world accomplished reopening without any negative consequences. So, why did liberal and supposedly educated jurisdictions like DC not reopen until 2021?

It would go a long way towards smoothing over the bad feelings if people like you, and the relevant governmental officials who kept schools closed, would be honest and admit that you were wrong, and we should have reopened in August-September of 2020.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This doesn’t prove that this was a result of school closures. It was a result of the pandemic. My life is worse after the pandemic. Your life is worse. Our kids live on this planet. Their lives are worse too. There’s no getting around that.

It’s unbelievable that you people are still denying that school closures were harmful to children and learning. I am actually shocked people are still saying these things. I thought this thread would be nothing but people saying, “well obviously, now how can we fix it”. Unbelievable.

It’s unbelievable that people like you are still pretending that living in an ongoing public health crisis with over a million deaths hasn’t had a negative impact on children.

You know no one is denying that school closures were harmful to children, right? No one at the time shut down schools to *help* learning.
Schools were shut down to save lives in the midst of a once in a century public health crisis.
Now we can study that to see if that helped (and we should!) but the decision at the time was "save lives and accept some learning loss" not "close down schools for the heck of it and hope kids still learn stuff"

You keep arguing from the flawed premise that school closures saved lives and were the only option. Anyone with eyes knew that was false.

The most telling thing about school closures remains the Alexandria superintendent pulling his kid from public in order to send them to an in person catholic school while at the same time stressing the need for public schools to stay closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This doesn’t prove that this was a result of school closures. It was a result of the pandemic. My life is worse after the pandemic. Your life is worse. Our kids live on this planet. Their lives are worse too. There’s no getting around that.

It’s unbelievable that you people are still denying that school closures were harmful to children and learning. I am actually shocked people are still saying these things. I thought this thread would be nothing but people saying, “well obviously, now how can we fix it”. Unbelievable.

It’s unbelievable that people like you are still pretending that living in an ongoing public health crisis with over a million deaths hasn’t had a negative impact on children.

You know no one is denying that school closures were harmful to children, right? No one at the time shut down schools to *help* learning.
Schools were shut down to save lives in the midst of a once in a century public health crisis.
Now we can study that to see if that helped (and we should!) but the decision at the time was "save lives and accept some learning loss" not "close down schools for the heck of it and hope kids still learn stuff"

Shutting down the schools in March of 2020 was not an unreasonable response. We then had months to prepare to reopen in the fall. Schools all over this country and the world accomplished reopening without any negative consequences. So, why did liberal and supposedly educated jurisdictions like DC not reopen until 2021?

It would go a long way towards smoothing over the bad feelings if people like you, and the relevant governmental officials who kept schools closed, would be honest and admit that you were wrong, and we should have reopened in August-September of 2020.

I never understood why closing schools was deemed to be a critical public health measure to stop the spread of COVID. Instead of continually arguing that lower income and people of color had worse COVID outcomes and therefore should not have been forced to have their kids learn in person, we should have prioritized keeping people safer in their workplaces and homes through free accessible testing, offering resources for isolating, free high-quality masks, and many other measures that could have kept those working in person safer and prevented the spread between multi-generational households supporting each other during school closures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This doesn’t prove that this was a result of school closures. It was a result of the pandemic. My life is worse after the pandemic. Your life is worse. Our kids live on this planet. Their lives are worse too. There’s no getting around that.

It’s unbelievable that you people are still denying that school closures were harmful to children and learning. I am actually shocked people are still saying these things. I thought this thread would be nothing but people saying, “well obviously, now how can we fix it”. Unbelievable.

It’s unbelievable that people like you are still pretending that living in an ongoing public health crisis with over a million deaths hasn’t had a negative impact on children.

You know no one is denying that school closures were harmful to children, right? No one at the time shut down schools to *help* learning.
Schools were shut down to save lives in the midst of a once in a century public health crisis.
Now we can study that to see if that helped (and we should!) but the decision at the time was "save lives and accept some learning loss" not "close down schools for the heck of it and hope kids still learn stuff"

Narrator: it didn’t help and had catastrophic effects on children, which many of us were saying at the time.l

No one will ever admit they were wrong. There will not be a reckoning. But the truth remains.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if the vaccination numbers had of gone up would the decision making have been different. DC did everything it could to get people vaccinated--gift cards, air pods, etc. The conspiracy theories and fear mongering were just ridiculous. Of course Black people have a reason to be skeptical but it was and is still far out there. Just have to do the work now..no point in revisionist history...