Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

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…

> unwilling to hold anyone back a year

When I was in middle school, a couple teachers threatened a couple kids that if they did not do X and Y and Z, they would be held back a year. The kids did not do X or Y or Z, i.e. nothing, and they were promoted anyway.

I didn't know anyone who was held back a year, other than one kid in 2nd grade. It's a completely empty threat, and the kids knew it.

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

#512

Post by rmrfrmrf » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

charwalker wrote: post #410

twblalock wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The consensus on both ends of the political spectrum over the past 30 years is that public education is a failure and must be abolished through either defunding or diverting funding to charter schools. Providing more funding to public schools would undermine that goal.

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

#513

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #464

ceejayoz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “They said we’d have masks and face shields and everyone is going to be covered, but it’s a school district — sometimes we don’t have soap,” he said. We've had trouble getting enough N95s for healthcare staff, let alone teachers.

Meanwhile multiple N95 production lines are sitting dormant in Texas and elsewhere. You're confusing not being willing to make masks with having trouble getting enough. No, we have no trouble getting enough. We have no willingness to make any. Those two couldn't be further from each other.

[deleted]

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

#514

Post by chrisseaton » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #417

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.

My girlfriend is a middle school guidance counselor. She was spending most of her week during the end of the school year dealing with referrals from teachers for students who weren't doing any work at home. Not just slacking off some, but entirely refusing to do anything. She'd try contacting the parents but many would never return her calls. The few she did contact weren't very concerned or admitted they lacked a wa…

If a child refuses to do anything when they were physically in school what was being done about it then?

You can’t physically force someone to learn then and you can’t now.

Not sure anything’s changed really.

All they did before was remove disruptive children and now I guess they remove themselves. Remains an unsolved problem!

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

#515

Post by mynameisvlad » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #493

mynameisvlad wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe there are any states currently issuing stay at home (which is different than SIP) orders. It also has 100% not been an overreaction. It saved countless lives by preventing spread. That whole flattening the curve thing and how well countries that have actually followed through and did not open early should show you how effective it has been.

It would be interesting to see the data of which is more effective. I'm currently biased towards believing that masks were highly effective and SIP orders mostly are not (because people still leave for groceries, for example) . If we create the false dichotomy of Masks vs SIP I would recommend Masks

Stay at home orders work because they minimize contact someone has with others.

Sure, people might still go to the groceries or other essential tasks. Once or twice a week. But if they're otherwise obeying the order and staying at home then just by not travelling to and from the office, going on recreational walks/drives/etc, and in general being isolated with a few people is obviously going to drastically limit the spread. It's not going to cut it down to 0, but it's still far less than the other extreme of living life normally and interacting with random people and surfaces daily.

Why are you even trying to create a false dichotomy? Just stay at home and wear a mask, ffs. It's really not that hard.

Saving lives should not be this grand political issue it's become in the US. It's objectively very simple. Limit contact and limit spread, and you'll have fewer cases. You limit contact by having people stay at home, and you limit spread by having people wear masks. This isn't rocket science or anything.

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

#516

Post by mnm1 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

chosenbreed37 wrote: post #362

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the things that has been so disheartening to me about the pandemic is that it has shown how we just can't really do anything anymore in the US. I mean, just look at PPE. I understand being a little flat footed when the pandemic first started, but it's been nearly 6 months now. I would have expected mass mobilization to pump out N95 masks, gloves, gowns, face shields, etc. by the millions. I mean, look…

It is true that the pandemic has brought to the fore some things that could be improved. I'm not based in the US but I think it has a lot going for it. We may argue about some of the drawbacks associated with the status quo but this is the country that landed people on the moon. It has brought us Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Starbucks, Hollywood, Disney, etc. In spite of the retoric from some quarters it sti…

Upward mobility is much lower in the US than most of Western Europe and likely most of Europe period.

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.brookings.edu/wp-co...

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

#517

Post by jimbokun » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

mtgp1000 wrote: post #479

oramit wrote: post #358

What we currently have going on right now is a complete collapse in confidence. So many commenters are debating the death rate, case counts, hospitalizations, etc, which is all besides the point. Heres the thing: even if you believe people are being irrationally afraid, telling people they are stupid and should just suck it up isn't going to get people to cooperate. Do you want to be smugly right, or do you want thin…

>Telling people that only 1% of them will die so it's all okay is telling people you don't care about them - they notice, they're not dumb. No no no no no. It's high time we stop treating everything as black and white in this country. It's not just callously disregarding the dead - it's about determining whether the literal and figurative loss of life caused by a lockdown is worth the loss of life caused by the virus…

> it's about determining whether the literal and figurative loss of life caused by a lockdown is worth the loss of life caused by the virus.

oramit said:

"The United States is currently choosing the worst possible combination of options. We locked down - causing enormous financial damage, but we didn't follow through with the lockdown nationally to actually stomp the virus. So we get to have the deaths and have the financial damage as well. Yay us!"

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

#518

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

chosenbreed37 wrote: post #362

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the things that has been so disheartening to me about the pandemic is that it has shown how we just can't really do anything anymore in the US. I mean, just look at PPE. I understand being a little flat footed when the pandemic first started, but it's been nearly 6 months now. I would have expected mass mobilization to pump out N95 masks, gloves, gowns, face shields, etc. by the millions. I mean, look…

It is true that the pandemic has brought to the fore some things that could be improved. I'm not based in the US but I think it has a lot going for it. We may argue about some of the drawbacks associated with the status quo but this is the country that landed people on the moon. It has brought us Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Starbucks, Hollywood, Disney, etc. In spite of the retoric from some quarters it sti…

> I think you'd struggle to find a better place in terms of upward mobility.

Just going to respond to this. The US used to be a paragon of upward mobility. That is no longer the case: https://www.forbes.com/sites/aparnamathur/2018/07/16/the-u-s... . That is just one article, but you can search "US upward mobility ranking" and find lots of articles and evidence how many other countries now do much, much better than the US in this regard.

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

#519

Post by GeneralMayhem » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #440

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…

We’re not a “country.” We’re 50 different states with a federal government, which doesn’t have public health as one of its assigned roles. This isn’t an ideological point, it’s a bare recitation of fact. Somehow, other federal republics like Germany managed to engage in an effective pandemic response while leaving most of the work to the states. For example, while Germany eventually had a mask order everywhere, the s…

>a federal government, which doesn’t have public health as one of its assigned roles

Yes, it does. It may not be explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, but the federal government is absolutely tasked with responding to national disasters, of which pandemics are one example. What is the CDC? What is FEMA? What is the NIH?

>Merkel didn’t issue a national mask order, for the same reason Trump didn’t: she wasn’t legally allowed to.

Even if it were true, that would make this the very first time in his life that legal limitations ever stopped Trump from doing something.

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

#520

Post by Someone1234 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

bazzert wrote: post #373

Someone1234 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charter schools compete for the same low funding pool, while only accepting well performing non-SPED students, leaving public schools with less money and a harder (& more expensive) student body. This artificially increases Charter School's performance, and artificially lowers Public School's performance. But this isn't an accident, Charter Schools are designed to de-fund public education for political reasons, and w…

>> while only accepting well performing non-SPED students, Thats not necessarily true, many (certainly here in MA) charter schools use a blind lottery for admissions.

Blind lotteries exist because it has been true, and most states still don't mandate blind lotteries. That's like using anti-discrimination laws as an argument for discrimination not existing.

Blind lotteries were started to combat this prevalent issue (and still fail to address poorly performing/SPED kids dropping out of charters and back into public education at a disproportionate rate, which undermines their goal).