Anyone listen to this week's this American Life? It is terrifying what school closures has done

[Anonymous]

This isn’t a Democrat vs Republican issue, it’s an American issue and often a worldwide issue. It’s disgusting what politicians and letter agencies did to the country and disgusting what they did to the kids and also disgusting that parents allowed it to happen to the children by not standing up earlier for their rights. Children will never get those years back and will forever be changed because of what happened. If you have the resources you should invest in some extra programs to ensure your kid doesn’t fall behind, Seriously consider running for school board and being prepared to push back next time they try this. Never forget what they did to our children and never ever be complacent and allow it to happen again. Attend school board meetings, write your senators and congress, demand better. Especially for the kids that have suffered and are still suffering. We have to do better

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m really pissed schools were closed for so long. It was done because unions refused to let their teachers return to school. Before anyone says I’m a Trumpie, I am not. I’m a lifelong Democrat! But that’s what happened and we can’t pretend otherwise. It made me change my opinion about teacher unions, for sure. I’m sorry for all the millions of kids who are behind in the US and no one cares. Affluent parents will just say “kids are resilient” - remember that line?

Affluent parents put their kids in private schools that stayed open.

or formed pods and hired tutors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised about the lack of thought on the part of the administration at the 2nd girl's school to her missed learning and socializing. They knew she had disappeared, they knew she had not been attending school for the past 1.5+ years, they knew she was back and eagerly awaited her. Yet... they completely failed to anticipate any of these speed bumps (or not even speed bumps, but massive road barriers!). Instead of spending that 1-on-1 time with her figuring out getting her caught up, she spent it talking about high school applications! That just seemed so off and so tone deaf. I get the perspective that if they held her back, it would be demoralizing and maybe make her less likely to get through high school, although to me it could go both ways. But it seems like this is exactly the learning loss the whole education industry has been talking about during Covid and they did nothing for her. I hope they wake up and get her in some pull outs to get caught up in math, writing, reading. If administrators aren't getting organized about this, the ins and outs of the learning loss, then the kids really will be screwed long term. Plus, isn't this what the millions in Covid relief $ to schools is precisely for??

I think this is just another direct result of how under-resourced schools are in terms of personnel. In a better world the school would have a counselor or social worker who could have worked with the child she had been dealing with a lot of personal life trauma but it sounds like either the school has no counselor or the counselor was just way too busy dealing with other issues to really sit down and help the child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys know that this this TAL episode was originally designed to be one mostly-pro-virtual-school story and one anti-whatever-tf-happened-during-covid school story, right? But they put a little coda on it because they found out the kid from the first story wasn't actually doing her work the second time she went virtual.

Contrary to the two stories in here, not everybody's virtual experience was bad. I'm the mom above with a middle school girl, and she still talks about the year right after covid first happened, where schools here were still virtual, as a time when she really found her voice and confidence in herself. She caught back up in math, but found inner strength. For her it was a net gain.

Sorry if your kids did not have that experience, but it's not all doom and gloom.

The first story wasn't real pro virtual school as much as it was about a mom with very few resources doing the best that she could to support her kid when schools were closed and how much that psychologically impacted both mother and daughter. I don't think they necessarily chose to go back to virtual schooling because they thought it was a better option but because they felt stuck between two difficult options and chose the one that they were more comfortable with and even then it turned out to not be really great either. I hope that Neah can readjust to life in school or find a better and healthier way to homeschool

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if you are a regular listener of this podcast but they aren’t typically looking for “the norm” they are looking for “the exception”. Yes, in exceptional circumstances there were really adverse outcomes. On the other hand, there were no school shootings, which I would say are also “exceptional” circumstances.

I think there will eventually be real data about the year of remote school, and I assume it will, as many of our school outcomes, track along socioeconomic lines. I don’t think we will get that data from This American Life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know if you are a regular listener of this podcast but they aren’t typically looking for “the norm” they are looking for “the exception”. Yes, in exceptional circumstances there were really adverse outcomes. On the other hand, there were no school shootings, which I would say are also “exceptional” circumstances.

I think there will eventually be real data about the year of remote school, and I assume it will, as many of our school outcomes, track along socioeconomic lines. I don’t think we will get that data from This American Life.

There's already a ton of 'real data' about the year of remote school, and as you noted, the achievement gap has increased along racial / socioeconomic lines.

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/20210608-impacts-of-covid19.pdf

[Anonymous]

Sorry, that wasn't the link I meant to post (although it is interesting).

Here's the one regarding data: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/03/17/dc-schools-achievement-gap-pandemic-reading/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the democrats did closing schools was terrible and I'm basically an independent now because of it.

Yup. My husband jokes the school debacle turned me -- the liberalist liberal who ever libbed -- Republican. That's not exactly true. But it's not exactly false either.

This fascinates me, because I would argue that anyone who identifies as liberal would have identified the systemic issues that the pandemic revealed. If you take the TAL episode, Neah suffered in part because her mother did not have access to affordable childcare. What is the Republican plan to support working single moms, or to ensure that the have affordable high quality childcare?

The other story also reveals systemic issues. What is the Republican platform to protect renters? How would they have helped a child who needed to be out of school to support grandparents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the democrats did closing schools was terrible and I'm basically an independent now because of it.

Yup. My husband jokes the school debacle turned me -- the liberalist liberal who ever libbed -- Republican. That's not exactly true. But it's not exactly false either.

This fascinates me, because I would argue that anyone who identifies as liberal would have identified the systemic issues that the pandemic revealed. If you take the TAL episode, Neah suffered in part because her mother did not have access to affordable childcare. What is the Republican plan to support working single moms, or to ensure that the have affordable high quality childcare?

The other story also reveals systemic issues. What is the Republican platform to protect renters? How would they have helped a child who needed to be out of school to support grandparents?

Not the PP. Eh, there was a very obvious solution to the problems, and that solution was to reopen schools and keep them open. Which is what the Republicans (and much of Europe) were doing. You don't have to solve the bigger issues of lack of affordable child care (also closed during the early pandemic) if you just open the schools.

Indeed there are bigger issues, but aside from stop-gap measures, neither Rs nor Ds attempted to solve them in the early pandemic.

At this stage, I certainly don't think Ds give a crap about education, and I don't think they care about widening gaps in achievement by SES; they've shown as much for 2 years. I don't necessarily think R's care either, mostly. It hurts more that the Ds don't care, though; I never had expectations for the Rs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tired of this being politicized. If you are going on about liberal or not…blah blah blah. People had different reactions, different risk assessments. Leave politics out of it.

The D FCPS school board is the one who closed schools when the governor - the only doctor governor - allowed them to open and the FCPS health dept approved of opening in person. I’m not leaving politics out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the democrats did closing schools was terrible and I'm basically an independent now because of it.

Yup. My husband jokes the school debacle turned me -- the liberalist liberal who ever libbed -- Republican. That's not exactly true. But it's not exactly false either.

This fascinates me, because I would argue that anyone who identifies as liberal would have identified the systemic issues that the pandemic revealed. If you take the TAL episode, Neah suffered in part because her mother did not have access to affordable childcare. What is the Republican plan to support working single moms, or to ensure that the have affordable high quality childcare?

The other story also reveals systemic issues. What is the Republican platform to protect renters? How would they have helped a child who needed to be out of school to support grandparents?

The R plan was to open school in terms of childcare. That was by far the better option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the democrats did closing schools was terrible and I'm basically an independent now because of it.

Yup. My husband jokes the school debacle turned me -- the liberalist liberal who ever libbed -- Republican. That's not exactly true. But it's not exactly false either.

This fascinates me, because I would argue that anyone who identifies as liberal would have identified the systemic issues that the pandemic revealed. If you take the TAL episode, Neah suffered in part because her mother did not have access to affordable childcare. What is the Republican plan to support working single moms, or to ensure that the have affordable high quality childcare?

The other story also reveals systemic issues. What is the Republican platform to protect renters? How would they have helped a child who needed to be out of school to support grandparents?

Not the PP. Eh, there was a very obvious solution to the problems, and that solution was to reopen schools and keep them open. Which is what the Republicans (and much of Europe) were doing. You don't have to solve the bigger issues of lack of affordable child care (also closed during the early pandemic) if you just open the schools.

Indeed there are bigger issues, but aside from stop-gap measures, neither Rs nor Ds attempted to solve them in the early pandemic.

At this stage, I certainly don't think Ds give a crap about education, and I don't think they care about widening gaps in achievement by SES; they've shown as much for 2 years. I don't necessarily think R's care either, mostly. It hurts more that the Ds don't care, though; I never had expectations for the Rs.

This is how I feel too. I’m also not the PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m really pissed schools were closed for so long. It was done because unions refused to let their teachers return to school. Before anyone says I’m a Trumpie, I am not. I’m a lifelong Democrat! But that’s what happened and we can’t pretend otherwise. It made me change my opinion about teacher unions, for sure. I’m sorry for all the millions of kids who are behind in the US and no one cares. Affluent parents will just say “kids are resilient” - remember that line?

Affluent parents put their kids in private schools that stayed open.

or formed pods and hired tutors.

Like Melanie Maren, school board member. Kept schools closed and hired a pod for her kid and drove all around for travel soccer.

[Anonymous]

if you didn't get realize you were getting a front row seat to the dysfunction that is public education during the pandemic, I'm not sure what will open your eyes to the dysfunction, lack of resources and politics that run education these days.

My kids are now in private school. They had no learning loss. Their teachers did not die. Grandma is still alive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m really pissed schools were closed for so long. It was done because unions refused to let their teachers return to school. Before anyone says I’m a Trumpie, I am not. I’m a lifelong Democrat! But that’s what happened and we can’t pretend otherwise. It made me change my opinion about teacher unions, for sure. I’m sorry for all the millions of kids who are behind in the US and no one cares. Affluent parents will just say “kids are resilient” - remember that line?

Affluent parents put their kids in private schools that stayed open.

or formed pods and hired tutors.

Like Melanie Maren, school board member. Kept schools closed and hired a pod for her kid and drove all around for travel soccer.

That should be criminal.