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Kids are far behind in school

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Re: Kids are far behind in school

#141

Post by nathanaldensr »

mort96 wrote: post #11
ovi256 wrote: post #7

I've heard from private school teachers that they expected exactly this to happen, and enrollment in private schools has boomed as parents that could used the schools that cared about staying open (and opened as soon as they could). This was well supported and non-controversial pre-pandemic, where we had research results showing that simply having participation in remote schooling lowers high school graduation rate b…

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?

millions more dead

Prove it. You can't draw wild conclusions like that and get away with it. Hardly any children die from COVID-19, and the ones that do often had extreme comorbidities.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#142

Post by lordnacho »

namelessoracle wrote: post #112
lordnacho wrote: post #81

Being 19 weeks behind doesn't sound that bad to me. It sounds like one of those things you can measure but you can't notice otherwise. Sure, still a thing to think about. But haven't you all had a friend who got sick and missed a lot of school? Can you tell from meeting adults that they were ill for half a year during their childhood? Maybe the numbers will capture it, but it doesn't seem like enough to worry about.…

19 weeks is enough to make a kid college ready or not. And it's enough to push a kid that would be eligible to high achieving school to a lesser one.

Yes because they won't be prepared for exams. But not because they aren't educated.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#143

Post by jdmichal »

taeric wrote: post #115
mattmcknight wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why those kids that were reading at an early age are typically not that ahead in a few years. That's often because they are dropped in a single pace system, where they are forced to sit with kids learning the alphabet, wasting valuable time, getting bored.

Certainly possible. My priors speak otherwise, though. Just seeing my own kids accelerate in reading at different ages makes me think early success is as indicative of kid's abilities as it is executive impact. Certainly not zero. But mostly overstated.

Sometimes I'm really surprised that people have such a hard time extrapolating from their own experiences learning to children and school.

Individuals will tend to learn things at their own pace. Individuals will tend to learn different things at different paces.

Example: I despised history in school. The only subject I ever scored less than a B in during a quarter. I discovered it was mostly just down to how it was being taught, as a series of factual but mostly disjointed events. I found that I enjoy learning about history, as long as I'm understanding the complex causation and linking between those different events.

Example: I've hired people that had zero experience in one of our programming languages. They typically end up completing their first PR in that language within a month or two -- with assistance, of course. People tend to pick things up pretty fast when it's part of their job expectations. (I always make it clear during interviewing and the hiring process that such an expectation would be present.)

Example: My son didn't begin to talk until after his third birthday. Now he is almost entirely caught up, with only minor speech issues.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#144

Post by bombcar »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #118
015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The article you're commenting on mentions several interventions with significant benefit: "High-dosage tutoring—which educators define as involving a trained tutor working with one to four students at a time, three times a week for a whole year—is one of the few interventions with a demonstrated benefit that comes close, producing an average gain equivalent to 19 weeks of instruction." "One option is voluntary summer…

Summer school, being about 5 weeks, adding 5 weeks of gain is ... kind of expected.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#145

Post by giantg2 »

Steltek wrote: post #97
giantg2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"i.e., the property tax base, because schools are locally funded" Not exactly. Most states and the federal government adjust funding to send it to the schools that need it most. https://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/research/school-fundi...

"Most states" qualifier supports the claim that funding varies widely from state to state and town to town. State and Federal funding grants alone are not going to sustain a school district. Also, your link is basically a charter school industry propo campaign. Hardly unbiased when talking about public schools.

It's possible there could be bias. Do you have a source that states otherwise? Do you have any resaon/explaination to suspect the numbers in the pertianate table to be biased?

'"Most states" qualifier supports the claim that funding varies widely from state to state and town to town.'

Of course funding will vary to some degree - as does cost of living. This is especially true depending on the state, but it is not based on local wealth (as the original claim states). The point is that the troupe that districts collecting less property tax are providing poor education because of it are mostly false. The funding levels are mostly adjusted to be similar to other districts based on the needs-based funding of higher levels of government. Are there some states that underfunded the entire system? Probably. The example of Pennsylvania shows that it is one of the highest funded states, with some of the highest paid teachers, has relatively evenly distributed funds, and it still has districts that underperformed. This isn't a funding issue, and continuing to look at it like one is doing a disservice to those students.

There are other factors that drive success more than property tax funding. Things like two parent households, and societal/parental expectations.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#146

Post by yonaguska »

woleium wrote: post #117
yonaguska wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't believe they're doing it for votes, why do you think they're doing it? I'm not even white, and it seems obvious to me that it's happening. In some cases, people support this because they are racist, and simply hate all things white. Going through college, I had several professors that were outright about their position on immigration and how it will fix the racism problem in America by making whites a mi…

Encouraging unskilled immigrants from Mexico is preferable to fruit rotting in the fields. This is more than a one dimensional issue :)

That specific scenario is almost entirely covered by temporary work visas.

Unskilled immigrants are also cutting wages in restaurants, factories, construction, and all manner of other industries, all over the country. And this has been going on for generations. It's modern day slavery. These people are held in this psuedo-citizenship limbo and are often abused by their employers. If you are wondering why there haven't been any real labor movements in the past 30 years, this is why.

Voter replacement is not the only reason for unfettered immigration, importing a large amount of under-educated people also replaces the middle class by driving the value of unskilled labor down. And that's why an unsecured border has bipartisan support by the politicians profiting.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#147

Post by toast0 »

taeric wrote: post #120
brightball wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is silly. There is nothing stopping any other sport from being as central more than the amount of money and effort that currently goes to football. Often in an arms race against neighboring schools. To try and prop it up as a natural thing that is good just feels like a major problem.

> There is nothing stopping any other sport from being as central more than the amount of money and effort that currently goes to football.

It's awful hard for the band to take the field at halftime at water polo. Those uniforms don't really want to be wet.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#148

Post by micromacrofoot »

dncornholio wrote: post #45

... and they will absolutely be fine. Learning is not being done only on schools. Also schools aren't as efficient every day of the week. Some years or semesters are a lot more important than others. In any case, I have no doubt kids will catch up.

They will not catch up. It will be a feature of this generation. You can't just remove a year of education and expect things to normalize without intervention. You see similar effects throughout history in education, workforces, etc due to life-disrupting events like war.

"Fine" is relative. Individuals will continue on as always... and many won't notice any change... but this will likely be an ongoing measurable difference when society is more cumulatively studied.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#149

Post by nathanaldensr »

lowkey_ wrote: post #59
woleium wrote: post #52

Quoted post unavailable.

This is the same logic behind the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, the idea that Democratic politicians in the US will encourage mass immigration so that they get more voters. However much we want to doubt our politicians, I really don't think they would change the demographic makeup or worsen the education of our country simply for votes.

You are incredibly naive and trusting.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#150

Post by leksak »

tejohnso wrote: post #104
lapcat wrote: post #55

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…

> What does being "behind" even mean? Or matter? Is extending parental dependency the problem? If someone starts college at 20 instead of 18 they are likely at home longer. But a lot of people aren't leaving home for college anyway, or they return home after college whether they graduate or not. If a bunch of kids start high school at 16 instead of 14 is it going to cause serious problems? It seems to me the only iss…

You don't imagine being two years older than the majority of your classmates at that time is going to have immediate effects on their social life at that time or that employers in the future will note that they graduated later in life and thus pass them over for a different candidate?
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