Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kids are far behind in school

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 389 posts

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#31

Post by synergy20 »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #15
mort96 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand exactly what you're complaining about. Has anyone ignored the cost of closing schools? My impression has always been that everyone has known about the high cost, but, well, millions more dead isn't exactly a small cost either. I mean you may disagree with the choices which were made, but surely you have to recognize that it's a bit more complicated than what you're suggesting?

Yes, people have stated that 'the kids will be fine' quite consistently. Also, all costs other than deaths have been underplayed by people in favour of lockdowns. Memory-holing this is literally insane (where insane = disconnected from reality). That's not to say that what was done wasn't the best of a suite of bad options. But I saw nothing but fairly extreme downplaying of the consequences of lockdowns from people…

one reason to close school is not just about kids got covid themselves, but they could carry covid back home and hurt those elders in the house and make the pandemic worse.

it's a trade-off, I think we did what we had to do.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#32

Post by winphone1974 »

usrn wrote: post #18
criddell wrote: post #16

Any guesses what the long term consequences might be? I have a hard time imagining anything more dire than the immediate consequences of social isolation during the pandemic. In other words, I think the kids that make it through are going to be okay.

I spent high school in the woods home schooled and only socialized at church. So did all my siblings and a number of people I met at college. We all turned out fine.

Very few people ever self identify as "not fine" so along with being a single data point yours is pretty biased

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#33

Post by mensetmanusman »

usrn wrote: post #20
kkfx wrote: post #5

There is a meaning issue here: school in Democracies, in substantial ones, are the tool to spread a certain level of culture needed to be Citizens, those who intellectually can get opportunities to going further, those less smart can still acquire a minimum culture to be Citizens peers between peers. In formal BUT not substantial democracies witch means in wannabe dictatorships school means just indoctrination so the…

The idea that modern US public schools communicate the culture of the sounding community is honestly a little ridiculous sounding.

Apparently, national polling is showing that about 80% of parents are concerned about what is being taught in the schools, so it’s likely that this schooling system has decoupled from the values that the citizens want to uphold.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#34

Post by makomk »

satysin wrote: post #13
micromacrofoot wrote: post #4

Interesting that it can be quantified somewhat… but the suggested interventions (extra tutoring, summer school, longer days) are just not going to happen. That education is gone. If they happen anywhere, it’ll only be rich kids.

> If they happen anywhere, it’ll only be rich kids. This is a very sad truth. We are very fortunate and were able to afford private tuition for our son along with more free time to put into home schooling during the lockdowns to ensure he didn't fall behind. Unfortunately a lot cannot afford private tutors nor have free time they can commit to consistent home schooling so it will further separate those on lower incom…

The fundamental problem here is that when we chose to shut down society, most of the capacity that went unused is gone and cannot be brought forward into 2022 to fill in the gaps left behind. So for example, all of the teaching time that was wasted on ineffective distance learning or just didn't happen is gone. Want to organise a bunch of catch up sessions? You'll have to find a bunch of extra teaching time from somewhere (and likely a bunch of extra teachers) on top of normal teaching along with extra time in those kids' days - easy enough to do small scale for a wealthy few, much harder for all of society.

The same has happened everywhere, from factory production to restaurant meals and hotel stays, which limits our ability to pay teachers to do this - in order to pay them more in real terms they have to be able to buy more, but the amount of stuff available to buy isn't even enough to support people's existing quality of life. Any attempt to pay teachers generous overtime to teach extra would have to come out of other peoples' real-terms income in a world where that is already dropping for most, and the bigger the program the more painful and broadly felt that would be.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#35

Post by draw_down »

goldfeld wrote: post #29
criddell wrote: post #16

Any guesses what the long term consequences might be? I have a hard time imagining anything more dire than the immediate consequences of social isolation during the pandemic. In other words, I think the kids that make it through are going to be okay.

Oh you've no idea how catastrophic cascading effects over generations of parenting will be, but it's all fitting to a plan you know, the pandemic was just a means. The words religious and fascism come to mind, also Greg Egan's and others' sci-fi. In other news Politicians Are Far, Far Advanced In Their Schemes. Ed.: it may sound as if I'm calling out a major conspiracy and centralized but that's far from it, I'm just…

No post body was provided.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#36

Post by nverno »

> In the districts that stayed remote for most of last year, the outcome was as if Black and Hispanic students had lost four to five more weeks of instruction than white students had.

Is this referring to differences b/w students in the same schools, but of different ethnicity? I don't really understand the racial implications this article is making.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#37

Post by ryanbrunner »

usrn wrote: post #18
criddell wrote: post #16

Any guesses what the long term consequences might be? I have a hard time imagining anything more dire than the immediate consequences of social isolation during the pandemic. In other words, I think the kids that make it through are going to be okay.

I spent high school in the woods home schooled and only socialized at church. So did all my siblings and a number of people I met at college. We all turned out fine.

I think home schooling and large-class remote schooling are quite a bit different. We home schooled our kids for the 2020 / 2021 school year, while most other kids spent the majority of the year in remote learning. Our kids are doing great academically, while there's definitely some struggles among some of the other kids.

This is another factor increasing inequality, by the way - we were exceptionally privileged to be able to have work schedules able to handle this, and a nanny who could watch our kids while we worked. Most parents wouldn't be able to do that.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#38

Post by mort96 »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #15
mort96 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand exactly what you're complaining about. Has anyone ignored the cost of closing schools? My impression has always been that everyone has known about the high cost, but, well, millions more dead isn't exactly a small cost either. I mean you may disagree with the choices which were made, but surely you have to recognize that it's a bit more complicated than what you're suggesting?

Yes, people have stated that 'the kids will be fine' quite consistently. Also, all costs other than deaths have been underplayed by people in favour of lockdowns. Memory-holing this is literally insane (where insane = disconnected from reality). That's not to say that what was done wasn't the best of a suite of bad options. But I saw nothing but fairly extreme downplaying of the consequences of lockdowns from people…

It might have to do with the media enviroment we're exposed to; I'm from Norway, and I feel like the impact on children has been on the forefront of everyone's mind all the time, in domestic news, in domestic policy, and in my impression of international news. But the view from within the US might be completely different.

One problem I've seemed to notice in the US is that you have the "somewhat reasonable" side and the "batshit insane" side of every discussion, and the "somewhat reasonable" side over-corrects. A clear example of that is the mask discussion; you have the "batshit insane" side which claimed that masks literally deprived you of oxygen, and then the "somewhat reasonable" side would over-correct and downplay any negative sides to having to wear a mask. Whereas outside of the US, I feel like there was a much more reasonable conversation about how masks suck and are really annoying to wear, especially when you're exerting yourself physically or wear glasses, but are overall a good thing.

So it wouldn't surprise me if you had the same effect regarding schools, where the "batshit insane" side wants no response at all and doesn't even think COVID exists/thinks it's manufactured by the illuminati to control citizens/is no worse than a flu/whatever, and the "somewhat reasonable" side overcorrects by downplaying any negative sides to a COVID response.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#39

Post by paulryanrogers »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #26
croon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're arguing for data examining something that has happened, while all decisions regarding a new virus act on data only available prior. Acting from an assumption that an infectious disease spreads more if children from every family gather daily in crowded classrooms doesn't seem like an unreasonable one. I would also love more data on this, preferably before the next pandemic.

Pre-delta, Covid was massively disproportionately causing major complications and death for elderly and the chronically unhealthy. We know very few kids in school have parents or guardians that are "elderly" and that not many have parents or guardians that are "chronically unhealthy", and we knew that Covid (pre-delta) had a very low complication and death rate on school-aged children (not too dissimilar from the flu…

> We know very few kids in school have parents or guardians that are "elderly" and that not many have parents or guardians that are "chronically unhealthy"

Do we? 40% of US adults are obese.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#40

Post by [deleted] »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #26
croon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're arguing for data examining something that has happened, while all decisions regarding a new virus act on data only available prior. Acting from an assumption that an infectious disease spreads more if children from every family gather daily in crowded classrooms doesn't seem like an unreasonable one. I would also love more data on this, preferably before the next pandemic.

Pre-delta, Covid was massively disproportionately causing major complications and death for elderly and the chronically unhealthy. We know very few kids in school have parents or guardians that are "elderly" and that not many have parents or guardians that are "chronically unhealthy", and we knew that Covid (pre-delta) had a very low complication and death rate on school-aged children (not too dissimilar from the flu…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN