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As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

reuters.com

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Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#51

Post by monocasa »

tptacek wrote: post #40
crummy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. We should have closed restaurants, bars, whatever so we could keep schools open.

We also should have prioritized epidemiology studies involving schools --- there seems to be a growing consensus that K-8 schools aren't significant spreaders. The HVAC concerns about schools are apparently easily addressed with basic, portable air filters and box fans. There's a lot we could have done differently here.

> there seems to be a growing consensus that K-8 schools aren't significant spreaders

There's almost no evidence for that. It boils down to the virus is absolutely out of control here, and kids are way more likely to be asymptomatic, meaning that it's way harder to nail down that a child to adult transmission occurred outside of the household.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#53

Post by thaumasiotes »

tptacek wrote: post #40
crummy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. We should have closed restaurants, bars, whatever so we could keep schools open.

We also should have prioritized epidemiology studies involving schools --- there seems to be a growing consensus that K-8 schools aren't significant spreaders. The HVAC concerns about schools are apparently easily addressed with basic, portable air filters and box fans. There's a lot we could have done differently here.

Growing consensus? The only thing I've ever seen said about it -- which was said quite early on -- was "we have never seen an instance of children spreading the disease to adults".

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#54

Post by kortilla »

rayiner wrote: post #17
clcaev wrote: post #3

There is an interesting article about how race affects the decision to go back to school. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/03/why-black-paren...

It's interesting how Mother Jones spins a fairly minor polling difference into a whole narrative about "Black Parents [Not] Joining the Push to Reopen Schools." First, they clearly are. According to the CDC study cited by the article, 46% of Black parents agreed that schools should reopen in the fall: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6949a2.htm?s_cid=mm... . The article spins out a Black-white difference on t…

It’s Mother Jones, not exactly a bastion of rationalism. If there is a way to use any slight statistical difference to support the current du jour narrative (“white people are the problem” is a big one), you can count on them to do it.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#55

Post by lettergram »

cassalian wrote: post #9

Anyone else find it strange that a country that has often fallen in line with "think of the children" arguments for hypothetical dangers appears to be completely uncaring about very real dangers of social isolation that are impacting our youth?

It’s not the whole country.

It’s largely the propagation of fear from the media and the teachers unions who don’t want to work (and the politicians trying to push large stimulus checks to the unions).

For instance, Florida never shut down schools. In contrast, Chicago and SF teachers unions are/were pushing to keep schools closed.

The “science” (note: much of it is not peer reviewed) thus far indicates it’s safe to open schools and there’s little to no risk. at this point most at risk individuals have been vaccinated and estimates were that 40-70% of people already had covid19 (so even less risk of spread). Children have reduced risk of spreading disease as well.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#56

Post by sjg007 »

cassalian wrote: post #9

Anyone else find it strange that a country that has often fallen in line with "think of the children" arguments for hypothetical dangers appears to be completely uncaring about very real dangers of social isolation that are impacting our youth?

The issue with covid is now the mutants. England did not lock down the schools this past winter and the B117 spread thru the schools into the wider population.

Brazil and its variant seems to be even worse and they basically let the virus rip from day 1.

These new variants are more lethal and more transmissible. So now we are really screwed unless the vaccine proves effective enough with masks to slow the spread. And that’s not guaranteed. And then we have the rest of the world to deal with.

I don’t expect covid to go away for at least 5 years and that includes boosters and masking. And lots of covid tests.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#57

Post by Tossito190 »

I work in education, I'm also in school and was in school. My educator cohort has uniformly spoken about the retention issues their students have had, it seems shutdowns seriously retarded the academic growth of their students. I can corroborate that, myself: I was forced to leave my studies, and elected to take the fall off, hoping for a return to normalcy in the Spring of '21 - this was done both to ensure that work and school wouldn't conflict, and that I could observe the normal curriculum instead of a haphazard entree of online learning and recorded lectures and sans the labs that I'm paying extra money to participate in.

Having returned, things aren't back to "normal", one of my professors elected to use recorded lectures which don't have the same quality as in-person lectures. Not to mention it tries my attention sitting at a computer. I had the same class previously, and returned good grades up to the lockdown, I'm now a C student in the class where I was before an A student.

Mathematical concepts have almost entirely slipped. I seem to have forgotten all of my previous training, even simple processes like factoring were lost. I was an B student in the previous class, and had a reasonably solid grasp on the concepts, which we reviewed this year, and I found myself almost entirely lacking. I'm now a struggling C student and whats worse is the constant battery of assessment is actually doing more harm than good, requiring me to hamfistedly smash through chapters without ever studying the subject to develop understanding.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#58

Post by sillyconesally »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #24
germinalphrase wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US federal gov’t spends about 3x as much on those over the age of 65 than it does those under the age of 18 (including transfer payments to parents of those children)[0]. Personally, I think that should be flipped, but kid’s don’t vote. [0] https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/23x...

I'm assuming you mean the US spends 33% as much on those under 18 as it does on those over 65 (otherwise your comment about voting makes no sense)? If so, it seem sensible for the government to spend more on the elderly, simply because they cost most and there is nobody else to pay for it. People under 18 typically have one or two parents to care for them. Older people don't have parents and don't necessarily have fa…

There is net negative value in keeping people alive in their retirement age. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03MZG9vK0W8 Bill is right. Fortunately, Covid mostly effects the elderly and is helping to correct this situation without uncomfortable "death panels". The other positive is that this will get everyone on board with a global digital identity registry, which will help with everything from climate change mitigation to solving global inequality.

Re: As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds

#60

Post by croes »

inglor_cz wrote: post #12

I am neither in the U.S. nor a student, not even an extrovert - and I still feel the effects of our local lockdown on my mental stability. So does my wife, who is usually more resilient than I am. This will have a lot of subtle consequences down the line.

Are you sure it's the lockdown and not only that the lockdown makes you more aware of the danger of the virus?
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