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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

#701

Post by [deleted] »

usaar333 wrote: post #481
politelemon wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do they have the budget for counseling when students and teachers pass away? It pains me to admit that this didn't even occur to me as part of the topic of teachers being sent back. The human aspects of students-teacher relationships. I feel I've been desensitized to this after exposing myself to a constant stream of news, and now I'm thinking further about what other aspects lie behind other headlines. Thank you f…

It's a human aspect, but to be blunt, it's not a significant consideration as long as you aren't opening schools in an area with high community transfer (e.g. Houston today). IF you additionally filter out high risk-group teaches (known pre-existing health conditions, older than 65, etc.) excess death risk is quite low. (e.g. in the Bay Area, dying in a car crash remains far more likely (~10x) if you meet the criteri…

[deleted]

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

#702

Post by gowld »

isthispermanent wrote: post #541
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…

Yes. This is largely the problem. Unfortunately, I don't think it would have mattered whether it was a left or right president. The side not in office would have done the opposite. Everything is a political proxy war right now.

There are two camps causing trouble preventing COVID-19 mitigation: the Radical Right where they are in office (Trump, Arizona, Florida,...), and the Radical Right where the Left or moderate Right are in office (Michigan).

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

#703

Post by oramit »

isthispermanent wrote: post #541
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…

Yes. This is largely the problem. Unfortunately, I don't think it would have mattered whether it was a left or right president. The side not in office would have done the opposite. Everything is a political proxy war right now.

I'm not so certain. There is extreme political polarization, yes, but I don't think we can honestly look at the situation at hand and not see the giant Trump shaped elephant in the room. He hasn't ever governed as a "unity" president. That has worked for him when things were generally humming along but it fails catastrophically in times of crisis. Lots of people (myself included) simply don't believe he can put aside partisanship and his own ambition to do what is in the best interest of the country. I feel like my mistrust has been proven correct.

Remember, at the start of this crisis Trump did start holding regular Covid briefings, there were big actions taken, and his approval numbers went up quite a bit. But then he backed away from all that, and started actively undermining things. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ I'm honestly baffled by it because he doesn't even have to really succeed to get good approval numbers, he just has to look like he cares, but he can't manage even that.

Contrast this with Andrew Cuomo of New York, who by any objective measure totally screwed things up. It didn't matter though - he was decisive, held daily briefings, and at least looked like he was putting in effort to fix things. Now his popularity is up a ton. https://buffalonews.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/public-...

That's really the core of my entire thesis. The public doesn't expect perfection in the face of something like this - I don't. But I do expect the politician to give a damn, or at least put in the effort of looking like they giving a damn. A crisis like this is exactly the sort of thing you can rally the country around. There was a brief two week period in late March where it actually happened! It was a choice by Trump, which then filtered down into Trump leaning local politicians, to turn it into a proxy war.

Believe me, I'm cynical about politics too, but I think you're engaging in the worse kind of "both-sidesism" with this. Is your contention really that if Hilary was president, Republicans would have all locked down, and Democrats would not? I just don't see it. We only truly know about the timeline we are in right now, shrugging your shoulders and saying things wouldn't be better anyway in another timeline you don't know anything about isn't helpful.

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

#704

Post by flukus »

thomasahle wrote: post #524
mtgp1000 wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> Let's also not forget that a number of other countries like Sweden didn't lock down at all and are doing fine. Sweden did a voluntary lock down, which was in practice pretty comprehensive. Even then they still had a death rate per capita many times higher than its neighbours, and it was economically hit just as hard. Perhaps it was worth a try, but it didn't pan out. Their government even formed a commission to fig…

It also wasn't completely voluntary, they closed high schools, they banned gatherings with more than 50 people, they limited how many people could visit bars and restaurants and made them sit at a table. The government didn't sit back and do nothing like many people seem to think.

These restrictions with some give or take are what the world will have to adopt until it's either eliminated or we get a vaccine.

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

#705

Post by enchiridion »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #441

Pennsylvania is considering putting the funding with the kids, rather than through the system/administration. The average spending per student in the US is about $15k/yr. If that money went with the student, instead of to administration, etc. a teacher could take on 10 students and make $150k/yr revenue. A mainstream online curriculum for those students costs less than $30/mo. I'm not saying that's exactly the soluti…

This is a great idea! Cut the amount a bit to pay for state oversight and certification. Maybe light standardized testing to make sure everyone is generally on track.

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

#706

Post by malandrew »

jyounker wrote: post #567
malandrew wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad part is that it isn't like there isn't a budget to pay teachers more. We spend more per kid than we ever have, but now any budget increases get absorbed by growth in the administration. Administration in education and healthcare is a cancer.

> We spend more per kid than we ever have. While true in absolute dollars, it doesn't really seem to be true in inflation adjusted dollars. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZbUD16t4aaM6rCOmFogjxkVhRpJ...

Time scale on that is too short. There is one on this page that goes back to 1970 in 2016 inflation adjusted dollars:

https://edsource.org/2015/states-in-motion-school-finance-na...

Even if it stayed constant per your graph, teachers are competing with growth in administrators for education dollars.

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

#707

Post by WalterBright »

japhyr wrote: post #637
jmcqk6 wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public schools are only one part of our civilization. The ineffectual and incompetent national response has left no good options on the table for public schools. No matter what happens now, we're sacrificing some children because the assholes in power couldn't be bothered to care about things other than themselves.

Right. Even if one community comes up with a really good plan, we still have interstate travel in a nation with numerous states whose governors are actively against any mitigating actions on a local level. So no, we can't just "look to our governors".

There were proposals for NYC to isolate itself.

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

#708

Post by tremon »

diogenescynic wrote: post #463
slowhand09 wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My nephews kids are homeschooled. They have a rigorous curriculum, specific goals, etc. They also have regular socialization activity with other homeschoolers. They just choose to not settle for the mediocrity, nor accept the indoctrination pushed by the education system.

No offense, but this is where it starts getting weird and into the whole "society is bad!" that seems pretty extreme: >They just choose to not settle for the mediocrity, nor accept the indoctrination pushed by the education system. Most people I know who went to public schools came out fairly well. I refuse to share this elitist/ideological attitude towards them. What indoctrination? Don't you think that's a rather g…

What indoctrination?

Is the Pledge Of Allegiance still a thing at schools?

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

#709

Post by markkanof »

Kapura wrote: post #13

My mother is an elementary school teacher, and I don't want her to go back to school this year. The federal government is worse than useless, and the state government is feckless and unwilling to make the tough calls to protect people's lives. She's been a teacher for ~15 years and still makes less than $30k a year teaching. She loves helping the kids, but her life isn't worth it.

How does your mother feel about going back?

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

#710

Post by ipnon »

doggydogs94 wrote: post #406

Maybe a nationwide gap year.

This whole generation is going to be lost. It's not a cataclysm, but a whole generation of American kids are going to be a year or two behind on their studies. They will have grown up during unprecedented social unrest. If the economy doesn't recover and society doesn't support their families, millions of them will grow up in poverty. It's not a certainty, but the outlook could be much better. It's sad, I feel for these kids.
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