531–540 of 954 posts
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They haven't insisted on that. Quite the opposite, they have insisted they want to return to school. I have talked to them about the pandemic and they understand people are getting sick.
Ah yes, because people under the age of 25 are renowned for their long term thinking, risk assessment, and ability to understand their own mortality. Granted people older than that seem to be struggling a bit too.
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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…
Interesting. What grade levels? This seems to reflect that many of these folks seem to think what they are asked to learn is largely detached from their dat-to-day lives. I would agree with that assessment for high school students who are not college-bound. Specifically, high school for these folks is a rehash of middle school, a simplified version of college prep (which is not relevant for folks not going to college…
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She's in Colorado. The teachers' union agreed to a pay cut & freeze during the Bush financial crisis; pay had had only started to rise again a few years ago. This is somewhat of a digression, but the extremely low rate of teacher pay (for a job that requires a Master's degree) limits the pool of available teachers greatly. The people taking these jobs typically must have some other way of supporting their family; eit…
> 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.
The fact that people constantly compare teaching salaries to non-professional jobs and minimum wage workers is very telling.
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> Having government direct a mobilization is not acceptable. Then you would expect divergent performance in the D-controlled states (eg. California) vs the R-controlled states (eg. Texas), no? So far, I see all types of states having similar outcomes. > ... good leadership ... but we chose someone who is committed to division, ... I'm no fan of our current leader, but let's be honest Obama failed to properly launch a…
> I'm no fan of our current leader, but let's be honest Obama failed to properly launch a simple website for his signature initiative[1]. The problem is much deeper. This strikes me as a pretty passive-aggressive argument style. Who, in your opinion, is the better leader? Which of Obama or Trump do you think would handle this pandemic better? You are picking out one mistake, and kind-of-sort-of implying that makes th…
My point - a solo good leader is insufficient in the US because the systemic rot is deeper and bipartisan. (FWIW, Obama was an okay leader, though vastly better than Trump).
> You are picking out one mistake
Here are a few more: California High-Speed railway, which was being implemented when CA had D-dominated government under a very competent governor (Brown). Did that leadership or unified government control help? Absolutely not.
Another: 2-mile stretch of Second Avenue subway in NYC, which took almost a 100 years and $4-5B. Why? Were all the NYC leaders incompetent for a century? I don't think so.
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Well, that’s true, except that it’s not easy. Easy to talk about, sure, but not easy to implement without backlash from the moneyed interests that exist.
Most of the world has reacted better than the US. I agree it's not easy, it has not been easy for anyone. But the unwillingness/incapability of the US to suffer backlash from their own moneyed interests is not the norm. It's a symptom of a dysfunctional system. It shouldn't be normalized.
- we do take care that parents stay 1.5 meters apart. There’s special drop-off routes and such, parents don’t enter the buildings - I don’t have data on this but I assume ventilation is good in our schools and they opened windows - kids had to wash their hands a lot - younger kids can come close to teachers and intermingle, older kids have to keep their distance - we don’t wear masks, they are only required in public transportation Perhaps this is in some ways too small or different a dataset for it to be meaninful, but politics aside and living this reality it is apparent to me that schools for young kids can be reopened with minimal risk.
It is a bit surprising to me that there is such a strong focus in the US on school closures and mask wearing (here on HN but also in the major newspapers). It is my impression that in quite a few European countries there have been, and to some extent still are, significant debates about the effectiveness of both these measures. On the other hand, there appears to have been a much more universal implementation of othe…
I think by now there's little doubt that masks work, but Europe's incredibly and stupidly averse to them.
I have pretty much given up on everybody at this point. I have already pulled my kid from school and will not send them back. I am in a single income family and I am now working from home. All actions and purchases at this point are to help us to become more independant from the system. Society and government at large has shown itself to be unreliable and undependable. I am also making longer term plans to move out o…
The social contract theory has failed, and we're preparing now for a future without it.
My wife is a teacher. She's quitting in two weeks so that she can give her mandatory 30-day notice in time for the beginning of the semester. The planning being done for the next school year where we live is complete bullshit. The politicians and administrators running the planning have no idea about the realities. They are driving these hybrid models with kids doing remote and in-person learning in alternative days/…
I honestly doubt they think it will magically work, I think there are no good options that will give all the kids good educational outcomes, keep kids and teachers safe, and allow the economy to function without the use of schools as childcare, and that they are trying to pick the option that will have the least number of people calling for their heads.
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…
This statement implies that there's a way to completely eradicate the virus, eg. if everyone in the world stays locked in their homes for 6 weeks, then the virus will be eradicated. That's not realistic, the level of coordination required to make that happen does not exist.
So eradicating the virus was never on the table, no matter how much we lock down.