121–130 of 389 posts
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Understanding why something works and being able to put that in use are often two different things.
I agree. I just don't think spending extra time on homework and paying for tutors is going to help with the latter.
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What I'm saying is that there's no uniformity. Incoming college freshman are mostly the same age, but their preparation for college varies dramatically, depending largely on where they came from. At any given age, many US students are "behind" their peers, because they're not all receiving the same education.
That doesn't mean they're not behind, though? If anything it just means most students are behind. It's strange you say that the problem is overstated but also say that you encountered many kids yourself who were not prepared.
As I asked originally, what does "behind" even mean? It seems to depend crucially on a schedule and expectations. This is why I mentioned social promotion, where students move up in grade simply because a year has passed.
The pandemic has certainly messed up the standard academic schedule, without a doubt. But so what? Are kids irreparably harmed because the standard academic schedule was messed up? I don't think so. Kids were already moving at different educational paces before the pandemic.
I'm not saying it's good that educational quality differs by school district. But this is a socioeconomic problem. There's no "natural human" educational system that the pandemic messed up. When you compare US kids with, say, the great English philosopher John Stuart Mill, we're all way behind. As a kid, J.S. Mill was the beneficiary of an educational experiment almost without equal in history. He was taught Greek at the age of three! Who gets that?
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The thing about football is that so many people are involved with it, it becomes a school wide event. You have players on the team and coaches, yes. But you also have cheerleaders, marching band, trainer assistants (usually students who want to go into medicine or physical therapy). There are homecoming pagents and dances plus the social event every weekend for the school that goes along with it. There’s no sport in…
If football is so disruptive to the primary purpose of school, which is education, then it should be completely eliminated from schools. No taxpayer money should be used for this entertainment nonsense.
What does being "behind" even mean? The dirty truth of the US educational "system" is that there is no system. Different school districts offer vastly different levels of education, depending mainly on wealth (i.e., the property tax base, because schools are locally funded). When I was a kid, my family moved from one city to another within the same state, and suddenly I was way behind in my new school, especially in…
>Different school districts offer vastly different levels of education, depending mainly on wealth The data show that causation mostly flows in the opposite direction. The main determinant of whether a school is "good" is the average academic ability of the students who attend the school. And that, statistically speaking, is largely a function of race and income. Policy interventions based on the idea that school qua…
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That doesn't mean they're not behind, though? If anything it just means most students are behind. It's strange you say that the problem is overstated but also say that you encountered many kids yourself who were not prepared.
> That doesn't mean they're not behind, though? As I asked originally, what does "behind" even mean? It seems to depend crucially on a schedule and expectations. This is why I mentioned social promotion, where students move up in grade simply because a year has passed. The pandemic has certainly messed up the standard academic schedule, without a doubt. But so what? Are kids irreparably harmed because the standard ac…
The authors never claimed kids were irreparably damaged. Your take is just so bizarre.
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Please expand?
The benefit of the lockdowns was very, very small for the kids.
It is at that (thankfully theoretical) moment when the FULL benefits of having made this current sacrifice with devolve upon them. Only then will they be able to look at the rest us and say, "We are all in this together. Please don't sacrifice me to a slow and painful death, please make the sacrifice for me instead, and, y'know, stay home and wear masks."
We care for the elderly because we love them, but if that's not enough for you, remember that the selfish reason to care for them is there in the background, waiting for you to get old and slip in the tub: we want to be cared for when we get old.
Respect your elders.
What does being "behind" even mean? The dirty truth of the US educational "system" is that there is no system. Different school districts offer vastly different levels of education, depending mainly on wealth (i.e., the property tax base, because schools are locally funded). When I was a kid, my family moved from one city to another within the same state, and suddenly I was way behind in my new school, especially in…
Alternative explanation: you are acting like there is no problem based on anecdotal evidence that is irrelevant to the current situation - At the same time there might be a very serious one as quite a few kids basically have missed proper school for about 2 years. Let's not even try to pretend that lockdowns have no negative effects at all.
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If you read the article, it specifically points to remote learning as the thing that put students behind. I think the commenter believes that the negative effect of remote learning is overstated relative to other factors.
the commenter didn't even mention remote at all tho
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Understanding why something works and being able to put that in use are often two different things.
I agree. I just don't think spending extra time on homework and paying for tutors is going to help with the latter.
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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.
The IFR for people under 50 (the vast majority of parents and guardians of school-aged children) is 0.427% [1]. If you assume the median age is 45, it drops down to 0.286%. at 35, it's 0.104%. When you factor in vaccines, these rates are reduced by >90%.
90% of these deaths come from people with co-morbidities. So you wouldn't multiply these numbers by 1.42 to get the IFR for obese people. It would be less than that. But I'll do that any way - for a worst case scenario.
Some 35 year olds might have their kids stay home because they'd have an extra 0.042% chance of dying (assuming their kid going to school means they definitely get Covid and their kid not going to school means they definitely wouldn't get Covid - which is a strange assumption). At 45, with those assumptions AND you being obese, it's about an extra 1 in 1000 chance of dying. Some people might not be willing to take that risk. A lot would gladly. If you're vaccinated - the rate is close to 1 in 90,000.
If you're 80, unvaccinated, and a 400 pound chain smoker - yeah, you definitely want to minimize your exposure as much as possible.
The reality is that you have about a 40% chance of getting Covid unless you live in a bubble. Sending your kids to school isn't even going to give you a 100% chance. So the risks of sending your kid to school are about cut in half (or less).
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...