And now we enter the echo chamber portion of this thread. The responses will no longer focus on the topic. We will begin our daily descent into teacher bashing, commenting on how no one cares about kids, how terrible parents are, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The average student could begin the next school year having lost as much as a third of the expected progress from the previous year in reading and half of the expected progress in math...

the average student could fall seven months behind academically, while black and Hispanic students could experience even greater learning losses, equivalent to 10 months for black children and nine months for Latinos, according to an analysis from McKinsey & Company, the consulting group."


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/us/coronavirus-education-lost-learning.html

Fall behind who? The imaginary children who stayed in school all year?

I love how blase everyone suddenly is about the importance of school.

But they are falling behind where they should be (maybe we should just flunk everyone). The effect is especially pronounced with poor kids. If a child's parents both went to Harvard, no, closing schools probably isn't going to matter so much to them. It's lower SES kids that everyone should be worrying about. From the article:

"A separate analysis of 800,000 students from researchers at Brown and Harvard looked at how Zearn, an online math program, was used both before and after schools closed in March. It found that through late April, student progress in math decreased by about half in classrooms located in low-income ZIP codes, by a third in classrooms in middle-income ZIP codes and not at all in classrooms in high-income ZIP codes."

Falling behind whom?!?!? The imaginary children who have been in schools this whole time? Wtf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect schools will be open this fall as normal. Rightly or wrongly, the world is moving on. By August, I bet coronavirus will not get nearly the same attention is does now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/politics/coronavirus-washington-trump.html

This is because it is summer. People are outside a lot more which helps limit the spread. If we look at Fauci’s statements, and the history of the Spanish flu, once the weather gets cooler things will change. Being in a school, let alone a tiny classroom with almost 30 kids, is a recipe for disaster. We don’t all teach young children. My students are 17-18 years old, nothing says they can’t spread the virus like a typical adult.

Summer weather doesn’t last forever. We have to think about the full year, not just right now. Health always always always needs to come first!

But Covid doesn't kill like the Spanish flu. It kills mostly people over 65. For the vast majority of younger people, the risk is minuscule. That is a scientific fact. When you weigh the education of millions against the health concerns of a small minority, it is not obvious that health must come first. We need to make accommodations for those at risk while recognizing the essential importance of education for millions of kids.

Please stop spreading false facts. You do not have to be old, you can be 30 and die. If you are overweight (which many Americans are), have Diabetes, etc. you have a much higher risk. That is a scientific fact.

For people under 30, the risk is lower than from the regular flu. BY A LOT. For kids under 18, they have a higher risk of being hospitalized as a result of NOROVIRUS (i.e., the regular old stomach bug) than COVID. This is not dangerous for kids. To the extent we're locking down, it is for vulnerable populations, but let's not pretend we aren't making kids and young workers bear the brunt of the costs while AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT POPULATION is the most at risk (and, in the case of retired folks, BY FAR THE LEAST AFFECTED economically).

Not true, especially not for babies under 1. 11% of babies under 1 will become critical if contracted. 7% of 1-4 year olds will be critical and 4% of 5+ children. Think about the huge number of kids in schools. That translates into a lot of hospitalized critical kids. Even if the death rate is super low, i don’t want what I consider a pretty significant chance of my two young kids and infant being hospitalized and in critical condition.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The average student could begin the next school year having lost as much as a third of the expected progress from the previous year in reading and half of the expected progress in math...

the average student could fall seven months behind academically, while black and Hispanic students could experience even greater learning losses, equivalent to 10 months for black children and nine months for Latinos, according to an analysis from McKinsey & Company, the consulting group."


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/us/coronavirus-education-lost-learning.html

Fall behind who? The imaginary children who stayed in school all year?

I love how blase everyone suddenly is about the importance of school.

But they are falling behind where they should be (maybe we should just flunk everyone). The effect is especially pronounced with poor kids. If a child's parents both went to Harvard, no, closing schools probably isn't going to matter so much to them. It's lower SES kids that everyone should be worrying about. From the article:

"A separate analysis of 800,000 students from researchers at Brown and Harvard looked at how Zearn, an online math program, was used both before and after schools closed in March. It found that through late April, student progress in math decreased by about half in classrooms located in low-income ZIP codes, by a third in classrooms in middle-income ZIP codes and not at all in classrooms in high-income ZIP codes."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We will be back. No one is going to tolerate this lock down anymore. This summer social distancing will stop & we will by default adopt the herd immunity model. Then- life goes on.
For teachers who are truly uneasy, give them a year- at paid salary to invest in a new training/career.

Folks gotta move on. And teachers need to realize their job comes with inherent health risks. We are around little kids all day! Kids are always sick! If this is no longer a risk some teachers want to take- support them in retraining & finding a new profession.

I'm laughing at your idea of a teaching profession that's more like the chicken-processing industry: Hey, you're pretty likely to get a debilitating disease working here, and we don't care! Classroom colds, Covid-19, it's all about the same, right? We'll just get another random body to take your place, gotta keep parents' employers happy.

What kind of workforce do you think we'd see in classrooms under this model? Only people who're so desperate for a job they're willing to risk their long-term health.

I would rather my kids be in school w/ any literate adult who can pass a background check (re: safety) than at home doing "distance learning." So, there's that.

I don’t believe you. No parent wants to have the bad teacher. Yes we all know some schools have that one or two bad teachers and every parent does everything they can to stay out of that class. Now you will suddenly volunteer your kid to be in the class with the teacher who doesn’t teach and you won’t complain? That’s nonsense

What? If the alternative is literally that my kids won't have school, I absolutely would. Of course I'd rather have a real, good teacher and no I wouldn't volunteer my kid for the new, rando teacher class; I just think you're misguided if you don't think parents will take basically anything over DL in the younger grades. At the less extreme end, for instance, I would be 100% fine with my kid having any specials teacher at their ES for a primary class teacher next year if that was needed to make full time school work, even one of the gym teachers. They're nice people, good role models, good with kids. The quality of the academic experience they provide is low on my list of concerns for my K-er if the alternative is "DL" at home that I supervise, while watching my 2 other younger kids (one of whom is doing PK3 DL, whatever the hell that is), while doing a FT professional job and while my DH is at work outside the house 50%+ of the days (he's a healthcare provider). In short: a warm, safe body watching my kids in a classroom space with appropriate learning materials while they interact with their peers sounds pretty good to me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We will be back. No one is going to tolerate this lock down anymore. This summer social distancing will stop & we will by default adopt the herd immunity model. Then- life goes on.
For teachers who are truly uneasy, give them a year- at paid salary to invest in a new training/career.

Folks gotta move on. And teachers need to realize their job comes with inherent health risks. We are around little kids all day! Kids are always sick! If this is no longer a risk some teachers want to take- support them in retraining & finding a new profession.

I'm laughing at your idea of a teaching profession that's more like the chicken-processing industry: Hey, you're pretty likely to get a debilitating disease working here, and we don't care! Classroom colds, Covid-19, it's all about the same, right? We'll just get another random body to take your place, gotta keep parents' employers happy.

What kind of workforce do you think we'd see in classrooms under this model? Only people who're so desperate for a job they're willing to risk their long-term health.

I would rather my kids be in school w/ any literate adult who can pass a background check (re: safety) than at home doing "distance learning." So, there's that.

I don’t believe you. No parent wants to have the bad teacher. Yes we all know some schools have that one or two bad teachers and every parent does everything they can to stay out of that class. Now you will suddenly volunteer your kid to be in the class with the teacher who doesn’t teach and you won’t complain? That’s nonsense

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We will be back. No one is going to tolerate this lock down anymore. This summer social distancing will stop & we will by default adopt the herd immunity model. Then- life goes on.
For teachers who are truly uneasy, give them a year- at paid salary to invest in a new training/career.

Folks gotta move on. And teachers need to realize their job comes with inherent health risks. We are around little kids all day! Kids are always sick! If this is no longer a risk some teachers want to take- support them in retraining & finding a new profession.

I'm laughing at your idea of a teaching profession that's more like the chicken-processing industry: Hey, you're pretty likely to get a debilitating disease working here, and we don't care! Classroom colds, Covid-19, it's all about the same, right? We'll just get another random body to take your place, gotta keep parents' employers happy.

What kind of workforce do you think we'd see in classrooms under this model? Only people who're so desperate for a job they're willing to risk their long-term health.

I would rather my kids be in school w/ any literate adult who can pass a background check (re: safety) than at home doing "distance learning." So, there's that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect schools will be open this fall as normal. Rightly or wrongly, the world is moving on. By August, I bet coronavirus will not get nearly the same attention is does now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/politics/coronavirus-washington-trump.html

This is because it is summer. People are outside a lot more which helps limit the spread. If we look at Fauci’s statements, and the history of the Spanish flu, once the weather gets cooler things will change. Being in a school, let alone a tiny classroom with almost 30 kids, is a recipe for disaster. We don’t all teach young children. My students are 17-18 years old, nothing says they can’t spread the virus like a typical adult.

Summer weather doesn’t last forever. We have to think about the full year, not just right now. Health always always always needs to come first!

But Covid doesn't kill like the Spanish flu. It kills mostly people over 65. For the vast majority of younger people, the risk is minuscule. That is a scientific fact. When you weigh the education of millions against the health concerns of a small minority, it is not obvious that health must come first. We need to make accommodations for those at risk while recognizing the essential importance of education for millions of kids.

Please stop spreading false facts. You do not have to be old, you can be 30 and die. If you are overweight (which many Americans are), have Diabetes, etc. you have a much higher risk. That is a scientific fact.

For people under 30, the risk is lower than from the regular flu. BY A LOT. For kids under 18, they have a higher risk of being hospitalized as a result of NOROVIRUS (i.e., the regular old stomach bug) than COVID. This is not dangerous for kids. To the extent we're locking down, it is for vulnerable populations, but let's not pretend we aren't making kids and young workers bear the brunt of the costs while AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT POPULATION is the most at risk (and, in the case of retired folks, BY FAR THE LEAST AFFECTED economically).

Anonymous wrote:I just don’t understand how the hybrid model can possibly work with the number of teachers who are also parents and will be facing the exact same childcare challenges that we are all facing. The benefits of this model simply do not outweigh the enormous cost that remote learning models have inflicted on at-risk kids across the city. Kids need to go back to school. They just do.

First no one cares about teachers having kids. No one, not parents, not central office. Two the things that Dcps will now be requiring on canvas will keep child engaged in the content for a significantly longer period this fall.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The average student could begin the next school year having lost as much as a third of the expected progress from the previous year in reading and half of the expected progress in math...

the average student could fall seven months behind academically, while black and Hispanic students could experience even greater learning losses, equivalent to 10 months for black children and nine months for Latinos, according to an analysis from McKinsey & Company, the consulting group."


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/us/coronavirus-education-lost-learning.html

Fall behind who? The imaginary children who stayed in school all year?

Exactly. Schools have been shut down across the country. All these imaginary projections about children “falling behind” an artificial benchmark.

This.

What? It literally says the comparator is "expected progress from the previous year" -- i.e., marked against standard grade level benchmarks. I assume these are all sock puppets; it can't be that this many people are this clueless.

Also, to the extent we're talking about next year, I will 100% guarantee that many school districts nationwide open as usual. What we do remains to be seen, but I still think everyone is living in a la la land where they assume there will be an effective, widely distributed vaccine shortly. If not, do we really just do this indefinitely? It's crazy. Rolling lockdowns to flatten the curve if hospital or ventilator use hits 90% of regular or 80% of surge capacity (whichever target is higher), as it likely will once regular flu season gets underway next winter.

I just don’t understand how the hybrid model can possibly work with the number of teachers who are also parents and will be facing the exact same childcare challenges that we are all facing. The benefits of this model simply do not outweigh the enormous cost that remote learning models have inflicted on at-risk kids across the city. Kids need to go back to school. They just do.

Anonymous wrote:We will be back. No one is going to tolerate this lock down anymore. This summer social distancing will stop & we will by default adopt the herd immunity model. Then- life goes on.
For teachers who are truly uneasy, give them a year- at paid salary to invest in a new training/career.

Folks gotta move on. And teachers need to realize their job comes with inherent health risks. We are around little kids all day! Kids are always sick! If this is no longer a risk some teachers want to take- support them in retraining & finding a new profession.

I'm laughing at your idea of a teaching profession that's more like the chicken-processing industry: Hey, you're pretty likely to get a debilitating disease working here, and we don't care! Classroom colds, Covid-19, it's all about the same, right? We'll just get another random body to take your place, gotta keep parents' employers happy.

What kind of workforce do you think we'd see in classrooms under this model? Only people who're so desperate for a job they're willing to risk their long-term health.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect schools will be open this fall as normal. Rightly or wrongly, the world is moving on. By August, I bet coronavirus will not get nearly the same attention is does now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/politics/coronavirus-washington-trump.html

This is because it is summer. People are outside a lot more which helps limit the spread. If we look at Fauci’s statements, and the history of the Spanish flu, once the weather gets cooler things will change. Being in a school, let alone a tiny classroom with almost 30 kids, is a recipe for disaster. We don’t all teach young children. My students are 17-18 years old, nothing says they can’t spread the virus like a typical adult.

Summer weather doesn’t last forever. We have to think about the full year, not just right now. Health always always always needs to come first!

But Covid doesn't kill like the Spanish flu. It kills mostly people over 65. For the vast majority of younger people, the risk is minuscule. That is a scientific fact. When you weigh the education of millions against the health concerns of a small minority, it is not obvious that health must come first. We need to make accommodations for those at risk while recognizing the essential importance of education for millions of kids.

Please stop spreading false facts. You do not have to be old, you can be 30 and die. If you are overweight (which many Americans are), have Diabetes, etc. you have a much higher risk. That is a scientific fact.

Please learn to read. I said "for the vast majority of younger people, the risk is minuscule". That is a fact. It does not mean that nobody under 65 dies from this. It means that their risk is low, which is true. Look up the stats.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The average student could begin the next school year having lost as much as a third of the expected progress from the previous year in reading and half of the expected progress in math...

the average student could fall seven months behind academically, while black and Hispanic students could experience even greater learning losses, equivalent to 10 months for black children and nine months for Latinos, according to an analysis from McKinsey & Company, the consulting group."


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/us/coronavirus-education-lost-learning.html

Fall behind who? The imaginary children who stayed in school all year?

Exactly. Schools have been shut down across the country. All these imaginary projections about children “falling behind” an artificial benchmark.

This.

I don't think school will look "normal" in the fall, but I have to take issue with this. My kids are bright and have been engaged in learning...until now. And I work in healthcare, so I can't spend time with them going over the assignments they're being sent, so I have no doubt they have fallen behind. I know kids and families who are paying for tutoring over Zoom, SAHMs who are spending hours every day on actual homeschooling...many kids will fall behind.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect schools will be open this fall as normal. Rightly or wrongly, the world is moving on. By August, I bet coronavirus will not get nearly the same attention is does now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/politics/coronavirus-washington-trump.html

This is because it is summer. People are outside a lot more which helps limit the spread. If we look at Fauci’s statements, and the history of the Spanish flu, once the weather gets cooler things will change. Being in a school, let alone a tiny classroom with almost 30 kids, is a recipe for disaster. We don’t all teach young children. My students are 17-18 years old, nothing says they can’t spread the virus like a typical adult.

Summer weather doesn’t last forever. We have to think about the full year, not just right now. Health always always always needs to come first!

But Covid doesn't kill like the Spanish flu. It kills mostly people over 65. For the vast majority of younger people, the risk is minuscule. That is a scientific fact. When you weigh the education of millions against the health concerns of a small minority, it is not obvious that health must come first. We need to make accommodations for those at risk while recognizing the essential importance of education for millions of kids.

Please stop spreading false facts. You do not have to be old, you can be 30 and die. If you are overweight (which many Americans are), have Diabetes, etc. you have a much higher risk. That is a scientific fact.