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No Way to Grow Up

nytimes.com

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Re: No Way to Grow Up

#601

Post by IggleSniggle »

BadCookie wrote: post #497
IggleSniggle wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello, American parent here. In non-COVID times, there are endless summer programs of all variety to provide childcare for kids during summer months. This is not the case during Thanksgiving / Winter Holiday and depending on where you are, Spring Break. As an American parent, COVID has been rough. I love spending my time with my kids, but there’s also an endless debate of “am I going to take time off work today to pr…

I send my kid to private school to get an average class size of about 8 kids. If instead I sent him to public school and donated my tuition checks to the school, my son would have a class size of >20, and I have no idea where my money would be spent. On some level, I’m a little ashamed of sending my kid to a better school than most kids get, but I’m giving you an honest answer.

Much appreciate you taking the time to provide an honest answer. I went through that thought process too. You make the best choice you can for your child.

I believe the research that says that, having a more diverse environment (for all senses of the word “diverse”) results in better learning outcomes. I’m sure that diverse classrooms are common in some private schools and not others, and that you also get access to a different kind of diversity.

I also believe the research that says that, after you account for socioeconomic background, public schools are high performing for kids from families with means. Private schools can select their student body in a way that lets them market a unified accomplishment of their students. Public schools must accept all students regardless of their circumstances, which makes their results appear worse in aggregate.

I also believe in supporting our public institutions.

I’m not trying to create an argument with your sincere response, just providing my own rational for not sending my kids to private school even though we can afford to. I do this to address my feeling of doubt in the same way that you did this to address your feeling of guilt.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#602

Post by pnutjam »

bradlys wrote: post #568
BadCookie wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I send my kid to private school to get an average class size of about 8 kids. If instead I sent him to public school and donated my tuition checks to the school, my son would have a class size of >20, and I have no idea where my money would be spent. On some level, I’m a little ashamed of sending my kid to a better school than most kids get, but I’m giving you an honest answer.

The other aspect is that private schools are self-selecting first and selective second. Your kid either needs to be well behaved or fiendishly rich (enough to offset their problems with benefits for everyone). This isn’t the case in public - as it takes everyone as they are. The reasons I’ve considered private school for my future children after talking to friends/parents who have put theirs in private has less to do…

You'd be surprised how much parents can shape things, especially if they have time and money (mostly money).

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#603

Post by pnutjam »

istjohn wrote: post #546
zookatron wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For better or worse American public schools have basically become an essential service as a free day care system for busy parents. I'm not saying this is good, I think it's a huge problem, but pretending that is not the way it is doesn't help fix it. The question is how to make improvements to our education system to prevent it from being misused this way, and on top of that how to actually politically make those cha…

That's not a bug, it's a feature. Why shouldn't we have socialized childcare? Our economy needs parents to be able to work 40 hours per week while raising children. If anything, we need to provide better support to families who can't afford childcare every summer.

Our economy needs parents to be able to work 40 hours per week while raising children.

Let's be honest. Our economy only needs people to work 20-25 hours a week max.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#604

Post by rjbwork »

jdminhbg wrote: post #457
quadrifoliate wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American society depends on personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare, retirement, and employment. Your child's education is usually an honorable exception to this in that it's totally government run and borderline volunteer-run, but funding for that is not adequate to the point where you can reasonably expect it to continue as usual in the midst of a global pandemic. The sooner you can come to terms with…

> funding for that is not adequate to the point where you can reasonably expect it to continue as usual in the midst of a global pandemic The US spends way more on education per capita than many countries that were able to keep their schools open during 2020-2021: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd

I haven't looked at the numbers in a while, but I think we also have much more top heavy education organizations, and much more unequal distributions of funds due to the bulk of funding coming from local property taxes. So, while we may, at a national level, have higher per capita spending, many, and maybe even most, places have much lower per capita spending.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#605

Post by dqpb »

dogleash wrote: post #480

This article is a confidence trick. By making it about COVID, the affluent readers of the New York Times can pat themselves on the back as if they weren't failing the youth prior to quarantine measures. Of course they were. I've seen it. Everyone's seen it; even if they've chosen to believe they haven't. The secondary sources have to water it down like this article if they want to talk about it at all. And the primar…

You’re being a little too cryptic.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#606

Post by ianai »

uniqueuid wrote: post #570
ilteris wrote: post #367

I don't give a shit what the article says or specifically points to but I can tell you this much. I am a dad of a 6 year old. My kid goes to public school in NYC and last year was bad... They did a test at the beginning of this year before the start of the first grade and her results were awful. This is an unprecedented event and everyone is clueless including in education. I don't make a big deal about the test resu…

Thank you for this comment, it's incredibly true. Some elementary school teachers I know (in Europe) repeatedly remind me how important non-academic elements are in school. * Kids go to school to get emotional care. * Kids go to school to get attention, and someone to listen. * Kids go to school to learn social behavior. * Kids go to school to have a surrogate mommy to care for them while parents work. * Kids go to s…

Wow that’s absolutely not what public school was like for me. It was brutality left right and center. My first grade teacher put me in “remedial class” after she “caught” me being able to read upside down and backwards. She was across the room at the time. Then there’s all the bullying on the playground - including being knocked out unconscious the first time I actually stood up to a bully. The school punished us both with the exact same punishment. I swore. He probably did brain damage to me. Etc etc.

In short, this concept that school actually has benefits is pretty alien to my lived reality.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#607

Post by ianai »

uniqueuid wrote: post #583
watwut wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda hope they go to bathroom at home too. I agree it is better for kids to be in school then not, but lets not pretend there is no basic learning going on at home.

Haha sure! What I implied is: There are many things we need to learn about life in public spaces, including trivial things such as: What is a stall, where is the toilet paper, how do other people behave, what's the etiquette etc etc. Much of this is completely non-evident to small kids, because behavior at home is (naturally) so different.

That could be taught at the public library.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#608

Post by shmel »

mithr wrote: post #513
shmel wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will it even help? In what country did it help? France mandated vaxx passports literally everywhere (pretty much like you suggest) and yet they reported, what, 270k cases just today? Why do you expect a different result in the US from the very same policy?

I don't know what exactly France did and why it does or doesn't work for them, but the article was less about the net number of new cases, and more about the impact of shutting down schools/society. We know that, if you're vaccinated, you're both less likely to get COVID (not necessarily unlikely , with the new super-infectious variants, but less likely), and once you have it, are less likely to have a high viral loa…

It is funny how much you are talking math. Can you put any hard numbers on your intuition about "risk drastically reduced"? Or is it your own psychological feeling of safety similar to the one when people are scared of airplanes, but don't think twice before driving?

Here is a recent omicron case study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.22.21268021v...

Two thirds of the gathering was infected. Everybody, every single one of them, was triple-vaccinated and negative tested beforehand. And yet, here we are. This is in line with previous superspreader events back in early 2020. At this point I am highly skeptical that there is any reduced transmission with current outdated vaccines and new variants we have. It is difficult to know now if these vaccines prevented the transmission of the original strain. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, it doesn't matter now, it is extinct anyway. But the data shows that vaccines' effect on transmission right now is fairly minimal.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#609

Post by johnkpaul »

throwawaygh wrote: post #439
quadrifoliate wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American society depends on personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare, retirement, and employment. Your child's education is usually an honorable exception to this in that it's totally government run and borderline volunteer-run, but funding for that is not adequate to the point where you can reasonably expect it to continue as usual in the midst of a global pandemic. The sooner you can come to terms with…

> personal responsibility in the aspects of healthcare Pre-retirement: I don't take any personal responsibility for healthcare. It’s not an option. My employer provides me with a menu of more-or-less completely standardized options. Those options even specify how often I should go to general checks-ups and strictly police my access to specialists. I have very little power to control my own consumption of healthcare,…

> The rest (who can afford to save for retirement) probably have a 401(K) with a small menu of target date funds

If by have, you mean use, my own anecdata is quite the opposite. Everyone I know that isn’t in tech/software, is not contributing to their retirement plans that are offered. Maybe they “have” them with a 0 balance.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#610

Post by ryathal »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #499
johnla wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids are in NYC public schools too. My 3rd grader opted into the state assessment tests. They release the scores with breakdowns how the kids do by grade and school. This time they didn't. I'm pretty sure it's because of how terrible the results were that it'd be a scandal.

If you're a programmer (like many on this site are), I find it hard to see how you think state assessment tests can be objective or measure real learning for a student in any statistically meaningful way. They make whiteboard coding tests look extremely subjective, fair, and balanced in comparison. I know people who have had to teach 3rd graders to give standardized tests, and reality is that a lot depends on the moo…

Standardized tests work just fine to assess competency. White board interviews probably would to if they were designed and graded by assessment professionals. Those tests are designed to assess competency at a specific level, and they are a lot better at it than many give them credit for. You don't have to be in a great mood to be able to read, especially at a third grade level. These tests are far better than anyone wants to admit at showing how terrible our schools are in the U.S.
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