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Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#401

Post by chosenbreed37 »

thephyber wrote: post #252
nickff wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want an increase in mask supply, you have to either allow the pricing mechanism to do its job, or force people to make masks. Given the (very popular) laws against price gauging, it seems like the only viable option is to force some companies to manufacture more masks. Production capacity is available, but at a higher cost than is currently economical. All that being said, your second point seems correct to me…

> If you want an increase in mask supply, you have to either allow the pricing mechanism to do its job, or force people to make masks. Those aren't the only options. Some mask manufacturers could scale up manufacturing as long as they had a medium/long term contract to make the investment worth it. The current administration keeps blaming the previous one for drawing down on the federal PPP supply without replenishin…

Curious. Is there anything stopping individual states from doing this? Surely a federal system should enable individual states to act independently to some extent. They must have their own budgets and are to determine how resources are allocated. No?

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#402

Post by [deleted] »

tehwebguy wrote: post #282
_qn5w wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re fulfilling the Idiocracy prophecy. Those who think about their life choices are less likely to breed than those who are more reckless and have children with less hesitation. The similar survival rate of children of the two groups means the more-reckless genes & culture will out-propagate the less-reckless genes & culture. I’m pretty sure less-reckless is what we need more of, but without some extreme and quest…

Oh cool, eugenics on HN. People are obviously free to downvote this but Idiocracy's entire premise, and the parent comment, are about eugenics. Additionally, Idiocracy was not very funny aside from Picnicface's Powerthirst jokes recycled into Brawndo.

[deleted]

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#403

Post by vkou »

chrisseaton wrote: post #321
MereInterest wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrelevant. Plan a building for 2000 students. Figure out the best location, heating/cooling, building maintenance schedules, etc. Merge districts so that you can offer niche courses for advanced students. Then have the funding cut by 50%, because 1000 of the students go to charter schools. The fixed costs were planned out for the next 20 years, until the rug was pulled out from under schools. Instead, you get fewer…

Aren't these charter schools free and open to everyone? What's the problem? If people don't want to send their children to your public schools then take a look at why.

No, they aren't, because they expel problem students, into the public system. Even if admissions are lottery-based, expulsions are not.

Imagine two groceries. One that has to, by law, serve every kind of customer, and one that is allowed to throw out shoplifters, drunks, people high-out-of-their-minds-on-meth, etc.

Which one of these will provide better groceries for lower prices?

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#404

Post by ciarannolan »

DenisM wrote: post #376
ciarannolan wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The federal government has no jurisdiction over education. It's possible that GP was referring to the current federal government in general re: Covid-19, not specifically their jurisdiction over education. And in that sense they're correct: the current leadership in the US is a disaster and "worse than useless".

It's the same deal tho - the federal government has no jurisdiction over the healthcare system either. The Obamacare, if you recall, in large part hinged on a "tax" created just for this purpose because taxation is the purview of the fed, which was a hack. And even if Trump issued a "mask mandate" on the first day, for example, who is to enforce it? The FBI?

Yes, it's not written into law that the federal government has the specific power to drag kids back into classrooms and arrest people not wearing masks.

Do you think they have no levers to pull to affect policy from a federal level other than physically forcing people to do things? I'm not really sure what your point is.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#405

Post by treis »

Kapura wrote: post #380
treis wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the extremely low rate of teacher pay (for a job that requires a Master's degree) limits the pool of available teachers greatly. Teacher pay is not extremely low. The median teacher salary is usually pretty close to the median salary for the state. Plus they get good benefits, a pension, and much more time off than other jobs. It's a solid middle class life.

ok thank you for explaining my family's lived experience to me, the person whose family's lived experience it is. Maybe later you could swing by and tell me if I'm finding the sun hot or not.

Your family's lived experience doesn't change the statistics.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#407

Post by ashtonkem »

larntz wrote: post #363
ashtonkem wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto, except I’m dubious about the prospect of having a child in America.

I think people have felt the same about having children throughout most of history. Do you want a child born into slavery? Do you want a child subject to a totalitarian government? Do you want a child born into extreme poverty or famine? I feel like if you want to have a kid you have one and you deal with whatever adversity comes along. Take the opportunity to prepare your child to deal with the world that exists reg…

This argument is unconvincing and really annoying. I don’t care about the calculus other people had to go through to have children in other times because I’m not them. Every human makes decisions based on the pressures they experience in their own life, pointing out that times were worse elsewhere is just annoying pedantry.

And of course, part of my point was I’m dubious about having a kid in America. As in, I’d be open to going expat and raising a child somewhere I think is safer and more stable.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#408

Post by s5300 »

jorblumesea wrote: post #322
not2b wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is a consequence of ideologies that have become popular in the US both in politics and in business. Having government direct a mobilization is not acceptable. A mandate that people wear masks is not acceptable. Having manufacturing capacity to make low-value products in large numbers in the US is bad business when poorer countries can do it for less. Having spare inventory is bad, because just-in-time man…

While it's easy to blame Trump (and he deserves a heaping pile of blame), the corruption and destruction of a functional US government has long been the goal of those on the right. Since the 80s there has been a concerted movement to defund and destroy the effective ability of our government for ideological and personal reasons. Then, when the water treatment plants break down or the education system is a mess they c…

Dear HN users:

I plea that you refrain down voting any comment that advises you to take a look at DeVos's Wikipedia page. I HIGHLY advise reading Betsy DeVos's Wikipedia page.

With no offense intended (truly) I've got the idea that quite a portion of HN users probably don't know just how much of an absolute shitshow the head of U.S. Education is. DeVos is certifiably insane

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#409

Post by maerF0x0 »

Good, that will save us from laying them all off when Online school teachers are able to teach nearly unlimited students via repeatable content like videos.

And those who are better tutors than lecturers can become tutors for those who need more help

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#410

Post by charwalker »

twblalock wrote: post #333
MattGaiser wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even on the outside, it seems like pushing kids back into the classroom is poorly thought out. I can't imagine the shitshow it must seem like on the inside.

The problem is, remote education has been a complete disaster. I know a few teachers. Apparently their students found out that the state was unwilling to hold anyone back a year during the pandemic, they shared this information with each other, and now a substantial amount of them are not doing any work. In some classes, more than half the students are permanently absent! Either their parents don't know, or don't car…

So 2 directions? The cheaper, easier, and far more deadly in person option or invest $$$ with a need for short term results. It's never that simple, but if the issue is spending the money then I don't see why it isn't a straight forward option given how much we've spent to buy bad debt and bail out administration cronies.
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