75% of Maryland 8th grade students and 69 percent of 4th grade students are at or below

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt that there is a loss of learning due to the pandemic and virtual learning. Im just curious as to what some of you would have done differently? I mean going virtual was the only option at a time. Our kids are alive. Not saying they didn’t pay a price, of course, but what’s here is here .

What a joke.

Relocated to a southern state. Schools were open. Kids excelled.

Standards are so low at southern states that my kid is excelling there even without being enrolled there! lol

Which is why Texas has districts ranked in the top 10. Which is, by the way, way ahead of mcps which ranks far below.

Yes. Lots of Asian-Americans in Sugarland, Texas. These kids do very well! Y'all know why MCPS is doing poorly. Fake equity based on lowering the bar to rigerous programs that attracted the best students, removal of final exams so there is grade inflation, removal of textbooks etc so that kids who are doing poorly feel that they are doing well. LOL.

Most of what people blame for MCPS' failings is nonsense. The fake equity stuff doesn't help. I mean you can't make people value education who just don't care. They need to focus on providing opportunities that meet kids at their level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some reason Asian kids did fine during the pandemic. Their scores, including SAT scores, just keep going up. Why is that?

The article says that the downward trend was from 2013. Asian-Americans have already figured out that there are a lot of weaknesses in American education system and so they have been supplementing and teaching their kids at home.

Mostly the Asian-American parents (and specifically the moms) are very well-educated and can teach Math to their children so the children are coming out ahead in STEM. Culturally, there is a huge emphasis on education within families and the community as a whole. Finally, most Asian-Americans first gen were highly educated people from their countries who came to the US. They are not the poorest of the poor, uneducated migrants.

The weaknesses in American education system that most Asians notice and try to overcome are -
1) Shortened school year
2) Lack of textbooks
3) Lack of final exams
4) Lack of discipline in classrooms. Disruptive students are tolerated. Parents are not responsible.
5) Lack of a well defined curriculum, syllabus that is shared with students and parents. Textbooks and units of study that are mapped to the syllabus and curriculum.
6) Not failing any students in any grade and holding them back
7) Grade inflation. Students earn grades for doing homework.
8) Graded assignments and tests are not returned back to students and parents.
9) No comprehensive, standardized curriculum, syallabus, textbooks, testing and school year nationally for all grades and all subjects. Even SAT is going away.

What the US does extremely well -
1) Free education for everybody
2) Free transportation for coming and going to school
3) Free meals
4) Free school supplies.

+1

I agree with most of this, which is why the academic success of Asian-American students should not be used to argue why what we are doing now is just fine for any family that cares about their kids' education. If you can only succeed through extensive supplementation, there is a problem. The lack of textbooks and defined syllabus are a huge part of why it is hard for parents to help their kids - it takes independent work to provide that support, which may don't have.

+1. I was reading through the exhaustive list of what needs to be overcome, it's no wonder parents are daunted. My dad used to read my textbooks to help me with math. My kids have no textbooks! Not to mention that the way kids teach math is different from when I was a kid.

I also just don't understand how parents find all this time for extra supplementation and have kids willing to sit and do it after a full day of school plus homework. Are no one else's kids exhausted at the end of the day?

Of course kids are exhausted. Same way parents make kids do sports and other extracurricular activities they make them do extra math and reading

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes disaggregation would be helpful. But I imagine the stats will reflect similar results. Meanwhile the teachers were telling us how everything was fine and virtual school and students loved it better than virtual. 🙄

Many of us knew all along this would happen.

Virtual school was fine for kids who had parents who cared enough to make sure the kids were getting what they needed.

Except they only presented 80% of the content, even to your super-smart, well-behaved DC. So no, your kid isn't 'fine."

Why weren't you supplementing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some reason Asian kids did fine during the pandemic. Their scores, including SAT scores, just keep going up. Why is that?

The article says that the downward trend was from 2013. Asian-Americans have already figured out that there are a lot of weaknesses in American education system and so they have been supplementing and teaching their kids at home.

Mostly the Asian-American parents (and specifically the moms) are very well-educated and can teach Math to their children so the children are coming out ahead in STEM. Culturally, there is a huge emphasis on education within families and the community as a whole. Finally, most Asian-Americans first gen were highly educated people from their countries who came to the US. They are not the poorest of the poor, uneducated migrants.

The weaknesses in American education system that most Asians notice and try to overcome are -
1) Shortened school year
2) Lack of textbooks
3) Lack of final exams
4) Lack of discipline in classrooms. Disruptive students are tolerated. Parents are not responsible.
5) Lack of a well defined curriculum, syllabus that is shared with students and parents. Textbooks and units of study that are mapped to the syllabus and curriculum.
6) Not failing any students in any grade and holding them back
7) Grade inflation. Students earn grades for doing homework.
8) Graded assignments and tests are not returned back to students and parents.
9) No comprehensive, standardized curriculum, syallabus, textbooks, testing and school year nationally for all grades and all subjects. Even SAT is going away.

What the US does extremely well -
1) Free education for everybody
2) Free transportation for coming and going to school
3) Free meals
4) Free school supplies.

+1

Would agree with some of this but textbooks are kind of a 19th century idea. There are many less traditional sources like Wikipedia or Khan Academy that are wonderful. People just need to stop looking for excuses and adapt.

DP.. Khan academy is a great resource, but it's only really useful for math, IMO. My kids have used that for math only.

I had to get my 9th grader an AP Gov book from amazon to study from because the schools don't really give out text books. That helped my DC tremendously.

I don't think you really needed a study to know that there was tremendous learning loss from virtual learning, especially younger kids who have the attention span of a gnat. Parents were trying to juggle work and VL for their kids. It must've been crazy and so stressful, which is why more moms dropped out of the workforce to deal with VL.

We were fortunate that our kids were in MS/HS and pretty tech savvy, but even then, my MSer was getting easily distracted in VL.

Now, the question is "how do we get the kids back on track"? I shudder to think that the way they achieve this is to lower the bar even more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some reason Asian kids did fine during the pandemic. Their scores, including SAT scores, just keep going up. Why is that?

The article says that the downward trend was from 2013. Asian-Americans have already figured out that there are a lot of weaknesses in American education system and so they have been supplementing and teaching their kids at home.

Mostly the Asian-American parents (and specifically the moms) are very well-educated and can teach Math to their children so the children are coming out ahead in STEM. Culturally, there is a huge emphasis on education within families and the community as a whole. Finally, most Asian-Americans first gen were highly educated people from their countries who came to the US. They are not the poorest of the poor, uneducated migrants.

The weaknesses in American education system that most Asians notice and try to overcome are -
1) Shortened school year
2) Lack of textbooks
3) Lack of final exams
4) Lack of discipline in classrooms. Disruptive students are tolerated. Parents are not responsible.
5) Lack of a well defined curriculum, syllabus that is shared with students and parents. Textbooks and units of study that are mapped to the syllabus and curriculum.
6) Not failing any students in any grade and holding them back
7) Grade inflation. Students earn grades for doing homework.
8) Graded assignments and tests are not returned back to students and parents.
9) No comprehensive, standardized curriculum, syallabus, textbooks, testing and school year nationally for all grades and all subjects. Even SAT is going away.

What the US does extremely well -
1) Free education for everybody
2) Free transportation for coming and going to school
3) Free meals
4) Free school supplies.

+1

Would agree with some of this but textbooks are kind of a 19th century idea. There are many less traditional sources like Wikipedia or Khan Academy that are wonderful. People just need to stop looking for excuses and adapt.

DP.. Khan academy is a great resource, but it's only really useful for math, IMO. My kids have used that for math only.

I had to get my 9th grader an AP Gov book from amazon to study from because the schools don't really give out text books. That helped my DC tremendously.

I don't think you really needed a study to know that there was tremendous learning loss from virtual learning, especially younger kids who have the attention span of a gnat. Parents were trying to juggle work and VL for their kids. It must've been crazy and so stressful, which is why more moms dropped out of the workforce to deal with VL.

We were fortunate that our kids were in MS/HS and pretty tech savvy, but even then, my MSer was getting easily distracted in VL.

Now, the question is "how do we get the kids back on track"? I shudder to think that the way they achieve this is to lower the bar even more.

For kids with parents who have resources, they either never got off track or caught back up already. Those whose parents don't have resources likely won't. With the amount of federal money that could have been used for targeted tutoring, there was an opportunity, but it looks like the money will just go to general expenses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some reason Asian kids did fine during the pandemic. Their scores, including SAT scores, just keep going up. Why is that?

The article says that the downward trend was from 2013. Asian-Americans have already figured out that there are a lot of weaknesses in American education system and so they have been supplementing and teaching their kids at home.

Mostly the Asian-American parents (and specifically the moms) are very well-educated and can teach Math to their children so the children are coming out ahead in STEM. Culturally, there is a huge emphasis on education within families and the community as a whole. Finally, most Asian-Americans first gen were highly educated people from their countries who came to the US. They are not the poorest of the poor, uneducated migrants.

The weaknesses in American education system that most Asians notice and try to overcome are -
1) Shortened school year
2) Lack of textbooks
3) Lack of final exams
4) Lack of discipline in classrooms. Disruptive students are tolerated. Parents are not responsible.
5) Lack of a well defined curriculum, syllabus that is shared with students and parents. Textbooks and units of study that are mapped to the syllabus and curriculum.
6) Not failing any students in any grade and holding them back
7) Grade inflation. Students earn grades for doing homework.
8) Graded assignments and tests are not returned back to students and parents.
9) No comprehensive, standardized curriculum, syallabus, textbooks, testing and school year nationally for all grades and all subjects. Even SAT is going away.

What the US does extremely well -
1) Free education for everybody
2) Free transportation for coming and going to school
3) Free meals
4) Free school supplies.

+1

I agree with most of this, which is why the academic success of Asian-American students should not be used to argue why what we are doing now is just fine for any family that cares about their kids' education. If you can only succeed through extensive supplementation, there is a problem. The lack of textbooks and defined syllabus are a huge part of why it is hard for parents to help their kids - it takes independent work to provide that support, which may don't have.

+1. I was reading through the exhaustive list of what needs to be overcome, it's no wonder parents are daunted. My dad used to read my textbooks to help me with math. My kids have no textbooks! Not to mention that the way kids teach math is different from when I was a kid.

I also just don't understand how parents find all this time for extra supplementation and have kids willing to sit and do it after a full day of school plus homework. Are no one else's kids exhausted at the end of the day?

Of course kids are exhausted. Same way parents make kids do sports and other extracurricular activities they make them do extra math and reading

If you need to "make" your kids do a sport or particular activity, you're doing it wrong. Let them choose. For my active kids sports are an outlet and an opportunity to be active after hours of sitting and starting at screens at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt that there is a loss of learning due to the pandemic and virtual learning. Im just curious as to what some of you would have done differently? I mean going virtual was the only option at a time. Our kids are alive. Not saying they didn’t pay a price, of course, but what’s here is here .

No. Actually, it’s possible we lost more kids due to school buildings being shut down from the pandemic. There has been a huge increase in mental health issues and suicides amongst kids since Covid began.

Zero kids age 0-17 have died of Covid in Montgomery County as a result of Covid. ZERO. That was with schools open/schools closed, prior to the Covid shot/after the Covid shot.

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/covid19/data/case-counts.html#deaths-age

We did not ‘save kids’ lives’ by keeping schools closed. Not at all.

Agree with the second poster. Some people cannot face what a wrong headed decision this was. Private schools were open. Public schools in red-leaning areas were open. Schools in other countries were open. C'mon, it's 2022, we can open our eyes and admit that we absolutely failed the kids.

Yes to this. Admit it was a mistake and let’s try to fix it.

The death rate of teachers in FLA does not point to it being “a mistake”.

What it was was a terrible situation .. a pandemic, that has caused setbacks everywhere in the US.

Btw 68% of students are at or above the national standard, there are 10-20% that will always be below so we really need to help the other 20%.

Not to minimize death, but where are you getting your statistics? I found this report about the deaths of Florida educators in the 2020-21 school year.

https://feaweb.org/covid19/fea-safe-schools-report/

It mentions 46 deaths of educators, including teachers, bus drivers, custodians, etc. If you look at the articles, some of them mention contracting COVID outside of school while on vacation or break.

In addition, schools here would never have opened without masks, as was the case in Florida.

So your theory is that more teachers in FLA got COVID from vacation?

You can google it and get the raw data instead a processed version from “the state of FLA”? Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d like to see what percentage are at vs below grade level. Despite popular belief in this area, being at grade level is fine. Additionally, we did what needed to be done at the time. We were aware of the consequences of virtual school but the risk outweighed the benefit. Sorry that is true.

No, it is not OK because the term is not "at grade level;" it is "at basic proficiency."

It is fine because the grades are equal to what kids were achieving in 2002. There was an increase from 2002-2020. It is also higher than what kids achieved pre-2002, those kids are currently in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt that there is a loss of learning due to the pandemic and virtual learning. Im just curious as to what some of you would have done differently? I mean going virtual was the only option at a time. Our kids are alive. Not saying they didn’t pay a price, of course, but what’s here is here .

No. Actually, it’s possible we lost more kids due to school buildings being shut down from the pandemic. There has been a huge increase in mental health issues and suicides amongst kids since Covid began.

Zero kids age 0-17 have died of Covid in Montgomery County as a result of Covid. ZERO. That was with schools open/schools closed, prior to the Covid shot/after the Covid shot.

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/covid19/data/case-counts.html#deaths-age

We did not ‘save kids’ lives’ by keeping schools closed. Not at all.

Agree with the second poster. Some people cannot face what a wrong headed decision this was. Private schools were open. Public schools in red-leaning areas were open. Schools in other countries were open. C'mon, it's 2022, we can open our eyes and admit that we absolutely failed the kids.

Yes to this. Admit it was a mistake and let’s try to fix it.

The death rate of teachers in FLA does not point to it being “a mistake”.

What it was was a terrible situation .. a pandemic, that has caused setbacks everywhere in the US.

Btw 68% of students are at or above the national standard, there are 10-20% that will always be below so we really need to help the other 20%.

Not to minimize death, but where are you getting your statistics? I found this report about the deaths of Florida educators in the 2020-21 school year.

https://feaweb.org/covid19/fea-safe-schools-report/

It mentions 46 deaths of educators, including teachers, bus drivers, custodians, etc. If you look at the articles, some of them mention contracting COVID outside of school while on vacation or break.

In addition, schools here would never have opened without masks, as was the case in Florida.

So your theory is that more teachers in FLA got COVID from vacation?

You can google it and get the raw data instead a processed version from “the state of FLA”? Lol

DP. Ok, so in FL, what was the Covid rate among teachers vs. the general population? Because unless you were living under a rock, lots of things were different in FL, not just schools being open. You don't have to go on vacation to get Covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some reason Asian kids did fine during the pandemic. Their scores, including SAT scores, just keep going up. Why is that?

The article says that the downward trend was from 2013. Asian-Americans have already figured out that there are a lot of weaknesses in American education system and so they have been supplementing and teaching their kids at home.

Mostly the Asian-American parents (and specifically the moms) are very well-educated and can teach Math to their children so the children are coming out ahead in STEM. Culturally, there is a huge emphasis on education within families and the community as a whole. Finally, most Asian-Americans first gen were highly educated people from their countries who came to the US. They are not the poorest of the poor, uneducated migrants.

The weaknesses in American education system that most Asians notice and try to overcome are -
1) Shortened school year
2) Lack of textbooks
3) Lack of final exams
4) Lack of discipline in classrooms. Disruptive students are tolerated. Parents are not responsible.
5) Lack of a well defined curriculum, syllabus that is shared with students and parents. Textbooks and units of study that are mapped to the syllabus and curriculum.
6) Not failing any students in any grade and holding them back
7) Grade inflation. Students earn grades for doing homework.
8) Graded assignments and tests are not returned back to students and parents.
9) No comprehensive, standardized curriculum, syallabus, textbooks, testing and school year nationally for all grades and all subjects. Even SAT is going away.

What the US does extremely well -
1) Free education for everybody
2) Free transportation for coming and going to school
3) Free meals
4) Free school supplies.

+1

Would agree with some of this but textbooks are kind of a 19th century idea. There are many less traditional sources like Wikipedia or Khan Academy that are wonderful. People just need to stop looking for excuses and adapt.

DP.. Khan academy is a great resource, but it's only really useful for math, IMO. My kids have used that for math only.

I had to get my 9th grader an AP Gov book from amazon to study from because the schools don't really give out text books. That helped my DC tremendously.

I don't think you really needed a study to know that there was tremendous learning loss from virtual learning, especially younger kids who have the attention span of a gnat. Parents were trying to juggle work and VL for their kids. It must've been crazy and so stressful, which is why more moms dropped out of the workforce to deal with VL.

We were fortunate that our kids were in MS/HS and pretty tech savvy, but even then, my MSer was getting easily distracted in VL.

Now, the question is "how do we get the kids back on track"? I shudder to think that the way they achieve this is to lower the bar even more.

For kids with parents who have resources, they either never got off track or caught back up already. Those whose parents don't have resources likely won't. With the amount of federal money that could have been used for targeted tutoring, there was an opportunity, but it looks like the money will just go to general expenses

Well, we had this free resources that was awesome. It's called the public library. You should try it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt that there is a loss of learning due to the pandemic and virtual learning. Im just curious as to what some of you would have done differently? I mean going virtual was the only option at a time. Our kids are alive. Not saying they didn’t pay a price, of course, but what’s here is here .

No. Actually, it’s possible we lost more kids due to school buildings being shut down from the pandemic. There has been a huge increase in mental health issues and suicides amongst kids since Covid began.

Zero kids age 0-17 have died of Covid in Montgomery County as a result of Covid. ZERO. That was with schools open/schools closed, prior to the Covid shot/after the Covid shot.

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/covid19/data/case-counts.html#deaths-age

We did not ‘save kids’ lives’ by keeping schools closed. Not at all.

Agree with the second poster. Some people cannot face what a wrong headed decision this was. Private schools were open. Public schools in red-leaning areas were open. Schools in other countries were open. C'mon, it's 2022, we can open our eyes and admit that we absolutely failed the kids.

Yes to this. Admit it was a mistake and let’s try to fix it.

The death rate of teachers in FLA does not point to it being “a mistake”.

What it was was a terrible situation .. a pandemic, that has caused setbacks everywhere in the US.

Btw 68% of students are at or above the national standard, there are 10-20% that will always be below so we really need to help the other 20%.

Not to minimize death, but where are you getting your statistics? I found this report about the deaths of Florida educators in the 2020-21 school year.

https://feaweb.org/covid19/fea-safe-schools-report/

It mentions 46 deaths of educators, including teachers, bus drivers, custodians, etc. If you look at the articles, some of them mention contracting COVID outside of school while on vacation or break.

In addition, schools here would never have opened without masks, as was the case in Florida.

So your theory is that more teachers in FLA got COVID from vacation?

You can google it and get the raw data instead a processed version from “the state of FLA”? Lol

DP. Ok, so in FL, what was the Covid rate among teachers vs. the general population? Because unless you were living under a rock, lots of things were different in FL, not just schools being open. You don't have to go on vacation to get Covid.

Doesn't matter scores in FL were down as much or more than anywhere. The problem wasn't DL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt that there is a loss of learning due to the pandemic and virtual learning. Im just curious as to what some of you would have done differently? I mean going virtual was the only option at a time. Our kids are alive. Not saying they didn’t pay a price, of course, but what’s here is here .

No. Actually, it’s possible we lost more kids due to school buildings being shut down from the pandemic. There has been a huge increase in mental health issues and suicides amongst kids since Covid began.

Zero kids age 0-17 have died of Covid in Montgomery County as a result of Covid. ZERO. That was with schools open/schools closed, prior to the Covid shot/after the Covid shot.

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/covid19/data/case-counts.html#deaths-age

We did not ‘save kids’ lives’ by keeping schools closed. Not at all.

Agree with the second poster. Some people cannot face what a wrong headed decision this was. Private schools were open. Public schools in red-leaning areas were open. Schools in other countries were open. C'mon, it's 2022, we can open our eyes and admit that we absolutely failed the kids.

Yes to this. Admit it was a mistake and let’s try to fix it.

The death rate of teachers in FLA does not point to it being “a mistake”.

What it was was a terrible situation .. a pandemic, that has caused setbacks everywhere in the US.

Btw 68% of students are at or above the national standard, there are 10-20% that will always be below so we really need to help the other 20%.

Not to minimize death, but where are you getting your statistics? I found this report about the deaths of Florida educators in the 2020-21 school year.

https://feaweb.org/covid19/fea-safe-schools-report/

It mentions 46 deaths of educators, including teachers, bus drivers, custodians, etc. If you look at the articles, some of them mention contracting COVID outside of school while on vacation or break.

In addition, schools here would never have opened without masks, as was the case in Florida.

So your theory is that more teachers in FLA got COVID from vacation?

You can google it and get the raw data instead a processed version from “the state of FLA”? Lol

DP. Ok, so in FL, what was the Covid rate among teachers vs. the general population? Because unless you were living under a rock, lots of things were different in FL, not just schools being open. You don't have to go on vacation to get Covid.

Teachers died in FLA at an alarming rate vs area that did not have schools open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt that there is a loss of learning due to the pandemic and virtual learning. Im just curious as to what some of you would have done differently? I mean going virtual was the only option at a time. Our kids are alive. Not saying they didn’t pay a price, of course, but what’s here is here .

No. Actually, it’s possible we lost more kids due to school buildings being shut down from the pandemic. There has been a huge increase in mental health issues and suicides amongst kids since Covid began.

Zero kids age 0-17 have died of Covid in Montgomery County as a result of Covid. ZERO. That was with schools open/schools closed, prior to the Covid shot/after the Covid shot.

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/covid19/data/case-counts.html#deaths-age

We did not ‘save kids’ lives’ by keeping schools closed. Not at all.

Agree with the second poster. Some people cannot face what a wrong headed decision this was. Private schools were open. Public schools in red-leaning areas were open. Schools in other countries were open. C'mon, it's 2022, we can open our eyes and admit that we absolutely failed the kids.

Yes to this. Admit it was a mistake and let’s try to fix it.

The death rate of teachers in FLA does not point to it being “a mistake”.

What it was was a terrible situation .. a pandemic, that has caused setbacks everywhere in the US.

Btw 68% of students are at or above the national standard, there are 10-20% that will always be below so we really need to help the other 20%.

Not to minimize death, but where are you getting your statistics? I found this report about the deaths of Florida educators in the 2020-21 school year.

https://feaweb.org/covid19/fea-safe-schools-report/

It mentions 46 deaths of educators, including teachers, bus drivers, custodians, etc. If you look at the articles, some of them mention contracting COVID outside of school while on vacation or break.

In addition, schools here would never have opened without masks, as was the case in Florida.

So your theory is that more teachers in FLA got COVID from vacation?

You can google it and get the raw data instead a processed version from “the state of FLA”? Lol

DP. Ok, so in FL, what was the Covid rate among teachers vs. the general population? Because unless you were living under a rock, lots of things were different in FL, not just schools being open. You don't have to go on vacation to get Covid.

Teachers died in FLA at an alarming rate vs area that did not have schools open.

Ok. I’m not going to attempt to teach you basic statistics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no doubt that there is a loss of learning due to the pandemic and virtual learning. Im just curious as to what some of you would have done differently? I mean going virtual was the only option at a time. Our kids are alive. Not saying they didn’t pay a price, of course, but what’s here is here .

No. Actually, it’s possible we lost more kids due to school buildings being shut down from the pandemic. There has been a huge increase in mental health issues and suicides amongst kids since Covid began.

Zero kids age 0-17 have died of Covid in Montgomery County as a result of Covid. ZERO. That was with schools open/schools closed, prior to the Covid shot/after the Covid shot.

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/covid19/data/case-counts.html#deaths-age

We did not ‘save kids’ lives’ by keeping schools closed. Not at all.

Agree with the second poster. Some people cannot face what a wrong headed decision this was. Private schools were open. Public schools in red-leaning areas were open. Schools in other countries were open. C'mon, it's 2022, we can open our eyes and admit that we absolutely failed the kids.

Yes to this. Admit it was a mistake and let’s try to fix it.

The death rate of teachers in FLA does not point to it being “a mistake”.

What it was was a terrible situation .. a pandemic, that has caused setbacks everywhere in the US.

Btw 68% of students are at or above the national standard, there are 10-20% that will always be below so we really need to help the other 20%.

Not to minimize death, but where are you getting your statistics? I found this report about the deaths of Florida educators in the 2020-21 school year.

https://feaweb.org/covid19/fea-safe-schools-report/

It mentions 46 deaths of educators, including teachers, bus drivers, custodians, etc. If you look at the articles, some of them mention contracting COVID outside of school while on vacation or break.

In addition, schools here would never have opened without masks, as was the case in Florida.

So your theory is that more teachers in FLA got COVID from vacation?

You can google it and get the raw data instead a processed version from “the state of FLA”? Lol

DP. Ok, so in FL, what was the Covid rate among teachers vs. the general population? Because unless you were living under a rock, lots of things were different in FL, not just schools being open. You don't have to go on vacation to get Covid.

Teachers died in FLA at an alarming rate vs area that did not have schools open.

I believe it- my cousin teaches in FL and she said she was among only a handful of teachers in her building to wear masks. She also skipped the teacher happy hours. She never caught Covid until well after she had been vaccinated but others were falling ill all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For some reason Asian kids did fine during the pandemic. Their scores, including SAT scores, just keep going up. Why is that?

The article says that the downward trend was from 2013. Asian-Americans have already figured out that there are a lot of weaknesses in American education system and so they have been supplementing and teaching their kids at home.

Mostly the Asian-American parents (and specifically the moms) are very well-educated and can teach Math to their children so the children are coming out ahead in STEM. Culturally, there is a huge emphasis on education within families and the community as a whole. Finally, most Asian-Americans first gen were highly educated people from their countries who came to the US. They are not the poorest of the poor, uneducated migrants.

The weaknesses in American education system that most Asians notice and try to overcome are -
1) Shortened school year
2) Lack of textbooks
3) Lack of final exams
4) Lack of discipline in classrooms. Disruptive students are tolerated. Parents are not responsible.
5) Lack of a well defined curriculum, syllabus that is shared with students and parents. Textbooks and units of study that are mapped to the syllabus and curriculum.
6) Not failing any students in any grade and holding them back
7) Grade inflation. Students earn grades for doing homework.
8) Graded assignments and tests are not returned back to students and parents.
9) No comprehensive, standardized curriculum, syallabus, textbooks, testing and school year nationally for all grades and all subjects. Even SAT is going away.

What the US does extremely well -
1) Free education for everybody
2) Free transportation for coming and going to school
3) Free meals
4) Free school supplies.

+1

I agree with most of this, which is why the academic success of Asian-American students should not be used to argue why what we are doing now is just fine for any family that cares about their kids' education. If you can only succeed through extensive supplementation, there is a problem. The lack of textbooks and defined syllabus are a huge part of why it is hard for parents to help their kids - it takes independent work to provide that support, which may don't have.

+1. I was reading through the exhaustive list of what needs to be overcome, it's no wonder parents are daunted. My dad used to read my textbooks to help me with math. My kids have no textbooks! Not to mention that the way kids teach math is different from when I was a kid.

I also just don't understand how parents find all this time for extra supplementation and have kids willing to sit and do it after a full day of school plus homework. Are no one else's kids exhausted at the end of the day?

There is no exhaustive list to overcome. There is no extensive supplementation. It is normal daily teaching at home so that the kids are able to review what they learned at school and if there are any lack of comprehension the parents can clarify for the child.

The parents need to priortize their kid's education above all. The school system is already giving free schooling, meals, supplies and transportation. Sometimes they are also giving free after and before care. They cannot do much more than this. Maybe they can give textbooks.

Parents need to step up and make sure that their kids are studying at home every day. 1 hour of daily review at home in the ES and MS years is all that is needed. However, only 40% of White Americans are college educated. Can you imagine that? Most parents are incapable of teaching their children because they are also basically uneducated. Never mind the URM and low SES households.

You do need textbooks and that is one thing that parents can do for their children. Get them textbooks before school opens. Buy the textbooks second hand from Amazon and use that to guide your children.

Are the kids exhausted from being in school? Sure. My kids are. But, they are expected to do all homework at school during lunch break and during the bus-ride home. The daily teaching happens when my husband or I get back from work and it happens for an hour or so every day. Weekends and holidays also include an hour or so of studying daily. Summer will also include vacation travel, some fun camps and some academic camps. Of course, this also means that the lives of parents revolve around the kids and their education.

Ultimately, parents are responsible if their kids are at or below grade.