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

#811

Post by electriclove » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

samatman wrote: post #665

electriclove wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very pleased by the decision from the top in California today about keeping schools remote until things get better. The only complaint I have is how long it took to get there. Tons of people at hundreds/thousands of school districts and private schools throughout the state have spent incredible effort debating and planning and so much effort could have been saved if the decision from the top was made earlier.

I share your pleasure in the decision, but staunchly disagree with you about the method used to reach it. The correct decision was reached, in time (before the start of the school year) for it to make a difference. Tons of people and thousands of schools vigorously debating is the democratic process. A decision handed down from "the top" is authoritarianism, and as we've seen repeatedly this year, authoritarian decis…

The vigorous debating resulted in many school districts actually making plans to reopen in a variety of ways. All that effort became moot when Newsom announced his decision today.

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

#812

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 2:17 AM UTC

wegs wrote: post #750

theonething wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you believe keeping schools closed is better than reopening? Have you looked into the research? Most of my findings indicate that the benefits of opening safely outweigh the the risks and the adverse effects of school closure (to the children, families and society) outweigh the benefits. Just one quote out of many: > Weighing the health risks of reopening K-12 schools in fall 2020 against the educational risks…

That's not research. That's opinion pieces from research organizations. There's a question of values, which is a personal question. I don't want the moral weight of risking that my child catch COVID19 and cause someone else to die. If I were a teacher, I wouldn't want to be in a position where a mistake I make can make people die. I can run the numbers as well as the next guy, and I know the risks. I don't want my sc…

[deleted]

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

#813

Post by _qn5w » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 2:26 AM UTC

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.

Eugenics is a dirty and ambiguous word.

Mass killing of people based on criteria? Let’s not do that.

Reducing opportunities and quality of life for people we don’t want to breed? Let’s not do that.

Forced sterilization of populations? No.

Rewards for voluntary sterilization? (This selects based on socioeconomic status and moral values.) I don’t like this. You might be surprised to hear this is happening in India right now.

Fines for having too many children? (Again, this selects on socioeconomic status and moral values.) I don’t like this. You’re probably already aware this is happening in China.

Removing existing monetary or tax-break incentives that encourage having more children? We have a lot of child support/relief programs in Australia. They cause a sort of inverse selection by socioeconomic and moral values. I’m not sure how I feel about them. They really do improve the quality of life for the parents and the children, but they make having a child a less scary decision, which undoubtedly removes some of the hesitation that may have otherwise made a more reckless person think twice.

Researching genetics, culture and education and building programs that help people understand how nature and nurture will affect their unborn or young children. YES! These programs should be available to everyone. It should be mandatory to get a “child report” before having a child. But the exact contents of the child report should not be available to anyone but the prospective parents. (Aggregate anonymized should be available to all, though, to help with society-level planning.)

Wide-spread education on life planning? Openly marketing “Don’t have children before you’re ready!” ? Researching happiness and success metrics and publicizing the results in an accessible way, to help people realize the consequences of having children? Yes, yes, yes!

mrmuagi’s comment captures it well. If you look at a child in isolation, there are definitely preferable genes, cultural aspects, and educational aspects. For example, you want them to have a college-level degreee. You want them to not have asthma or eczema.

There will be children. How can we sway the forces of nature — in a way that most of us are okay with — toward preferable genes, culture, and education?

If we don’t steer the boat, we may not like where it goes.

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

#814

Post by MereInterest » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 2:29 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #805

MereInterest wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experimentally: No. Betsy Devos's implementation was tested in Detroit, and failed miserably at teaching children. Expanding it without major, major changes is irresponsible and immoral. Step 1 is a system that doesn't defund public schools in the process.

can you share a link? What I have read about charter schools in NY was very positive

Certainly. [1] gives a good overview, on how Devos pushed for more and more charter schools, without any requirement for credentials. [2] is some focus on the history of charter schools in Michigan, Devos's home state. [3] is a local news story (tracked down from some articles that reference it), going into a lawsuit about the poor performance of schools in the Detroit area, following the siphoning of funds to charter schools. The state didn't even attempt to argue that the schools were well-run, and instead argued that "there is no fundamental right to literacy".

Maybe I could see charter schools as a reasonable option in some cases. With Betsy Devos at the helm, they should be fought at every turn.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/12/...

[2] https://www.michiganadvance.com/2019/02/12/how-25-years-of-c...

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20170217112809/https://www.fox2d...

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

#815

Post by cellularmitosis » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 2:39 AM UTC

sfotm wrote: post #146

yboris wrote: post #133

A protest sign I saw is an apt response to the situation: "Why should we go to school if you won't listen to the educated?"

Because education is valuable regardless of whether or not everyone listens to you?

And how much value is provided to a dead kid?

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

#816

Post by 627467 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 2:43 AM UTC

I find it odd that countries/cities with much higher population density (and some, worst healthcare ie. in east Asia) are not going through this paranoia (finding hard to pick a mildler term) that many in the west have been going through. It's like: "I'm not leaving my house EVER until my (insert authority) guarantees I or someone won't die".

I guess people suddenly have much higher expectation of what is realistically authorized can guarantee. Good luck with that.

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

#817

Post by dgzl » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 2:44 AM UTC

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…

An old CS professor: Efficiency with computers, effectiveness with people.

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

#818

Post by bleah1000 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 2:46 AM UTC

electriclove wrote: post #626

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…

I'm very pleased by the decision from the top in California today about keeping schools remote until things get better. The only complaint I have is how long it took to get there. Tons of people at hundreds/thousands of school districts and private schools throughout the state have spent incredible effort debating and planning and so much effort could have been saved if the decision from the top was made earlier.

But he's making the decision for all of California. If you look at the actual data, it appears that most of the cases are coming from southern california. Also, the real data to look at is death rate, and hospitalization rate. I don't know about the death rate, but the hospitalization rate is definitely going up. However, nearly all of the patients are in southern california again. In fact, it's LA that's really the epicenter of death and hospitalization for california.

Here's the hospitalization link I'm using, because there might be better data somewhere else.

https://public.tableau.com/views/COVID-19HospitalsDashboard/...

It's easy to be consumed by the fear about this disease, and that the number of cases that are rising. But we have to be careful to make informed decisions, and not compromise student learning in the entire state due to rising cases in one part of the state.

One thing, is it looks a bit like the hospitalizations might be starting to slightly level off, but it's hard to tell since it still could be trending upwards. At the very least, it doesn't look like the cases are on any kind of exponential curve.

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

#819

Post by sigotirandolas » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 3:12 AM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #792

jdminhbg wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but Europe is almost doing miraculously well if you compare to the USA. This is totally at odds with the data. The UK, France, Spain, and Italy, among others, have higher deaths per capita than the US.

Older populations?

That helps, but at least for Spain and Italy, the hypothesis seems to be that the virus was already widely spread by the time lock-down started, so a lot of transmission still happened during lock-down until it got under control. I think it's the same for UK and France. but I'm less familiar.

Other EU countries like Germany, Austria or Poland fared much better than Spain, France, UK and Italy.

Maybe different cultures (e.g. how people relate, how compliant they are, how many people willingly ignore measures, etc.) also play a role.

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

#820

Post by quantified » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 3:13 AM UTC

oramit wrote: post #781

treis wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't snuff out hot spots. The virus was/is still in NYC and Washington. No matter how long we locked down for it would still be there waiting to emerge after the lock down ended. That was the problem with the lockdown. It was touted as a solution when its just a delaying tactic. Schools are the same. Keeping them closed is just a delaying tactic. And like the lockdown, unless we delay until a vaccine then it's a…

I don't remember lockdowns being touted as a solution. I always understood it as a delaying tactic so things could be brought back under some control. Flatten the curve and all that. NYC didn't eliminate the virus but they've kept their curve flat so it's not getting out of control again. This delaying tactic is all we have for right now, its likely saved thousands of lives, and that's not nothing. What is your plan…

You’re right, that was all we could arrive at at the time. We don’t have the plan that says test everyone once a week, support the folks who need to quarantine as a result, and really fence this off for 3 months til it’s down to little pockets. We don’t have a plan that says follow the regions, the counties, the communities, and work hardest on suppressing it where it was and where it was heading.

We did choose a bad option, now people who’ve been locked down are exhausted and ornery while the ones who didn’t are finally getting the idea.

And for some reason “no shirt no shoes no service” is well understood, no blowing secondhand smoke is accepted all over, but the right to infect is held as culturally important.