As U.S. schools shuttered, student mental health cratered, survey finds • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by readflaggedcomm » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #152

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...

The overwhelming majority of that spending is social security and other retirement programs which are earned (and often paid-for) benefits from a lifetime of work. The next largest (by far) category is Medicare which was largely, but not entirely, paid for by a lifetime of work. Take just the retirement program figures out and the figures are much closer to what you prefer. Take out the half of Medicare that was paid…

And by "earned" you're evoking a moral argument, not a financial or legal one, because in the 40s and 50s Congress rejected the fully-funded model of social security. Just because you paid in doesn't mean anything will remain to take out.

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

#252

Post by rcpt » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

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?

Having one or both parents spend the rest of their lives suffering from a chronic illness isn't exactly great for kids either.

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

#253

Post by underseacables » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #21

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?

“think of the children” has always been a lie, though. Or at best a surface level truth. When the rubber hits the road (i.e. when it comes to spending money) the US as a country doesn’t care about things like early childhood education all that much. In many ways the pandemic response was in line with the norm: rich kids do just fine, poorer kids are mostly ignored.

Your comment reminded me of a Modest Proposal for the covid age.

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

#254

Post by vesinisa » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #200

afavour wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“think of the children” has always been a lie, though. Or at best a surface level truth. When the rubber hits the road (i.e. when it comes to spending money) the US as a country doesn’t care about things like early childhood education all that much. In many ways the pandemic response was in line with the norm: rich kids do just fine, poorer kids are mostly ignored.

> When the rubber hits the road (i.e. when it comes to spending money) the US as a country doesn’t care about things like early childhood education all that much. What countries fund education better per capita than the US? Can you give numbers? According to various sources, for example https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp , US per-student K-12 education funding is only behind four OECD countries: Switz…

To me, this fact makes it even more shocking how bad the US public education system is. How can it so effectively continue to fail to provide social mobility at scale? Where is all this money being spent? Not at least on teachers' salaries, I guess?

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

#255

Post by AlexTWithBeard » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

YarickR2 wrote: post #233

School-Cotton wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the rubber hits the road (i.e. when it comes to spending money) the US as a country doesn’t care about things like early childhood education all that much. What countries fund education better per capita than the US? Can you give numbers? According to various sources, for example https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp , US per-student K-12 education funding is only behind four OECD countries: Switz…

Spending in general is not a universal or meaningful metric to measure quality of education, details matter. Huge sums spent on school security/meals/transportation do nothing to increase quality of schooling compared to countries where all those measures are unnecessary (safe urban environments with parents able to feed kids by themselves)

But if not spending, how else could "the country" care about the children?

Or you're saying that no amount of money can replace a caring parent?

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

#256

Post by croes » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

soupbowl wrote: post #186

croes wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask yourself, what's the bigger trauma for you. Your partner dies of COVID-19, you can't see your parents for a year.

COVID is not a death sentence for the majority of people that get it.

Neither is the lockdown

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

#257

Post by curryst » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #172

stickfigure wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point we have enough data. The CDC gives an approximate IFR of 0.7% in the US. That would translate to low 7 digits. Also, it's very heavily weighted to the 70+ population. Strictly speaking from a kid's perspective, it would mostly be the experience of losing a grandparent early. It would be sad (as death almost always is) but probably not life-changing.

> At this point we have enough data. The CDC gives an approximate IFR of 0.7% in the US. That would translate to low 7 digits. Also, it's very heavily weighted to the 70+ population. ..with lockdowns in effect enough to keep hospitalization rates below capacity. > Strictly speaking from a kid's perspective, it would mostly be the experience of losing a grandparent early. It would be sad (as death almost always is) bu…

> ..with lockdowns in effect enough to keep hospitalization rates below capacity.

Lockdowns likely wouldn't affect IFR. It's a measure of fatality, not of infection rate, unless you think lifting the lockdown would cause a dramatic shift in infections to more vulnerable populations.

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

#258

Post by monocasa » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #242

monocasa wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death rate in Italy was in the double digits during the period of their hospitals being overrun last spring. Then they initiated heavy lockdowns, and got their death rate back under control.

Link sources. Prediction: you are quoting the meaningless CFR number rather than reliable estimates of IFR.

Early on, like in March of last year when Italy hit their double digit death rate, CFR was very meaningful. It's only when the breakdown was so bad that they couldn't meaningfully trace anymore that CFR stopped mattering.

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

#259

Post by AlexTWithBeard » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #218

afavour wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“think of the children” has always been a lie, though. Or at best a surface level truth. When the rubber hits the road (i.e. when it comes to spending money) the US as a country doesn’t care about things like early childhood education all that much. In many ways the pandemic response was in line with the norm: rich kids do just fine, poorer kids are mostly ignored.

Rich kids have access to private schools, which aren't subject to teacher's unions and political battles like the confusing one you had in New York between the Governor and the Mayor of NYC. They were contradicting each other on policy predictions and did a big disservice. In California, apparently teacher's unions have been blocking school opening plans. That's what I read and it could just be false or misleading ne…

Between "rich" and "poor" there's an ever-shrinking, but still a quite large layer of middle-class kids, who cannot afford private schools, tutors and summer camps abroad, but still manage to somehow get educated.

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

#260

Post by monocasa » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

curryst wrote: post #257

monocasa wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At this point we have enough data. The CDC gives an approximate IFR of 0.7% in the US. That would translate to low 7 digits. Also, it's very heavily weighted to the 70+ population. ..with lockdowns in effect enough to keep hospitalization rates below capacity. > Strictly speaking from a kid's perspective, it would mostly be the experience of losing a grandparent early. It would be sad (as death almost always is) bu…

> ..with lockdowns in effect enough to keep hospitalization rates below capacity. Lockdowns likely wouldn't affect IFR. It's a measure of fatality, not of infection rate, unless you think lifting the lockdown would cause a dramatic shift in infections to more vulnerable populations.

The IFR they're quoting is the death rate per infection.

It's not infections/population.