Whoa, Kyleigh! Stop with the false claims. You are pro-teacher and want them to teach where they teach best? Who do you think you are?! Enough already. There is a global pandemic. Teachers are people with the same rights as you. It’s not ideal, but stop the strop. To see why no one is listening to you check Fox out (no more tolerance for alternative facts): https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-cuts-away-trumps-press-secretary-says-it-cant-air-false-claims-good-conscience-1546155 |
+1,000 |
You "keep trying to report" posts that don't agree with your little self-created echo chamber. They are not being removed because differing opinions have every bit as much value as yours, whether you like them or not or agree with them or not. Not a teacher and SURE as hell not a "WTU rep" (LOL), but a parent who's sick to death of repetitive selfish whiners |
Well, answer the question? What are you willing to do to get schools back open? In Europe, multiple countries are under lockdown. If you aren't willing to make sacrifices and get covid under control, you need to accept education is no DL. Not everyone agrees that in person right now is preferred over DL. I prefer DL. I wish there was more to DL as 2 hours per class a week isn't enough but given we have 8 classes it realistically is the best they can do. |
If our teachers get covid, who will teach? |
It says a lot about you that you try to smear this very reasonable, fact-based, and interesting discussion between those PPs, which is reflective of the discussion actual education and public health experts around the world are having, as "repetitive selfish whining". If anything is repetitive and selfish and whining, it's the posts that regurgitate the WTU position, although I do agree there is no reason to report them. Let them continue to expose the weakness and insularity of their argument. |
Every expert, whether an expert in education or public health, believe that in person delivery of education is preferable over DL. Every single one. In fact, every education expert also agrees that there is learning loss as a result of school transition to and continued delivery of education by DL. Every district in the DMV is talking about that learning loss and how to address it. Are each of these experts selfish? No. These are undisputed facts. The debate is about what degree of risk is acceptable in order to provide education in its best setting. Reasonable minds can differ about how to quantify and weigh the potential risks of returning versus providing an inferior educational model as a result of extended school closures. With the numbers where they are now, there is a strong argument that the risks are too great. However, I have seen very few public health experts express concern about the risk of transmission of COVID in a school setting. Parents and teachers aren't public health experts. However, those same experts also believe that, from a public health perspective, there are other ways to mitigate risks within a community that would keep community spread at acceptable levels for returning children to school buildings. Remember, the original question on the table whether there would come a point when people who have expressed support for teachers continuing to teach through DL would change their mind. In the continuum of weighing risks of in person learning versus harms caused by continued DL, it is neither selfish nor unreasonable to decide that at some point the harm to children outweighs the risk. |
Do you also blame parents for the achievement gap and believe that there is no need to adjust our delivery of education services to children who are disadvantaged in order to help them meet standards? If education is ultimately the function of parents, then there is no need to be concerned about populations who are struggling, right? |
DP. If it's an echo chamber, it's not a little one but a very large one. Any expert in education or public health outside the US would agree that DL is unacceptably inferior, and that schools should be the last thing to close and the first to open. Nobody outside the US calls anyone selfish for stating this fact. But of course I know that it is precisely the discussion of the international perspective that bothers the PP for whatever reason. |
Is there a coherent argument in there somewhere? If so, it would appear to be that those of us who appreciate scientific evidence on the risks of in-person learning (I'll spare you the research - they are very low) and the adverse impacts of DL on children's learning are like "Kyleigh" (sic)? Kindly explain that as it flies straight over my head. |
Oh, inside the US, all of the experts would agree with your statements too. Individual teachers are not experts. |
This is completely accurate. |
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DL is not an acceptable alternative to in-person for children PK-2nd Grade. Even if you just focus on academics (reading, writing, math), the average child in these grades will not meet basic grade-level standards through DL only.
Children with disruptive home lives, mental health issues, IEPs, and other concerns will be at a particular disadvantage. Also, in order to make DL even minimally effective for this age group, students need a parent to be with them 100% of the time. Maybe 1st and 2nd graders can do some of it on their own, but it works best with an adult nearby who can make sure they have what they need, troubleshoot tech issues, and reinforce concepts throughout the rest of the day. Children this age simply are not self-sufficient academically, and "education" cannot be reduced to a few hours of interaction with a teacher online. Even with parental supervision, individual children will struggle based on their particular learning needs, their parents' teaching skills, as well as behavioral and mental health factors. So no, DCPS is not providing an education to these children. They are, at best, providing a curriculum+ -- here is what your child is supposed to be learning, and here are some strategies for teaching this content to your child. That's not education, it is not even close to what is guaranteed by public education. Maybe if you are a middle school math teacher, you are providing an education. But if you teach early grades, everyone involved knows that this is not working. One of the PK teachers I know sent her own 4 year old to a private PK because that's how ineffective DL was for him. She teaches PK for a living, and she could not in good conscious let her child suffer through DL at that age. Think about that for a minute. |
| I would ordinarily oppose anything written by AEI affiliates as a matter of principle, but I have to admit that this article describes the situation almost perfectly: https://thedispatch.com/p/teachers-unions-have-kept-schools |
same here. I’m going to exit this pandemic as much more libertarian than I ever thought possible. |