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The policy response to the pandemic you mean
Or the lack thereof when it was happening, causing it to develop into a global pandemic with long term consequences that are swept under the rug because it's bad for the economy.
School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
31–40 of 401 posts
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#32I think some parents and kids have realised that much of that slog is ever less about the education and more about using children as tools for buffing the school or district stats in the best case or it's just riot control in the worst case.
Miss a day or two of school and now you're "behind" because you don't know some trivia¹ that's on your next standardised test. Mostly irrelevant to the student, but highly worrying to the school. The real things you need to learn, things like curiosity, scientific thinking, critical thinking, practical intuition, complex problem solving, unstructured information retrieval, team work and so on aren't easy to measure, so they're not really measured and then they're not optimised for. Which, when everything is minmaxed to death, means they're optimised against. That's the charitable, non-paranoid interpretation, at least.
I did a homestay in Germany decades ago and the kids left school at about 1pm and spent the afternoon in woodland unsupervised, co-operatively building a sprawling multi-storey "treehouse" that was about 25 metres on a side. I wouldn't be surprised if the skills acquired in that part of their childhood mostly came from there rather than bullet points about carbon bonds in benzene or something.
1: Sure trivia provides "pixels" for a hoped-for complete picture eventually, but the broad substrate you place these pixels on seems de-emphasised compared to just hammering decontextalised details that are easy to test until everyone is heartily sick of the whole subject.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#33Is it possible that expectations around attendance have never been reasonable or even safe? In an ideal world, people shouldn't go to work or school when they are sick. Not only does it slow their recovery, but in the case of communicable diseases, it spreads the illness. Yet a lot of schools have released post-pandemic guidance about how students should still come to school with minor illnesses. And most workplaces…
Back when I was in school about a decade ago, kids came to school sick as dogs as taking time off for being sick was seen as malingering. A friend at another school knew a guy who came to school with a stomach bug and puked several times throughout the day as they had a perfect attendance incentive worth grades, so to ensure he got his grades, he walked around puking for the day. I spent plenty of classes hacking and coughing.
So I don't think they are reasonable at all. If you are sick, you should stay home should still apply.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#34This and similar issues shouldn't be surprising at all after we effectively declared that in-person schooling isn't really necessary and that kids would be fine staying home learning on an iPad. What were people supposed to take away from our handling of schooling during the pandemic response?
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#35"because teachers must slow down and adjust their approach to keep everyone on track." Do this and then you'll have your top performers start being absent as well -- out of boredom. I'd suggest sending kids that are lagging behind, and those that have high absentee rates, into remedial classes. Education should get kids excited about learning. From my experience, nothing gets kids more excited than the feeling that t…
Yeah, the ones that are lagging need more personal attention and fine-tuned lessons; unfortunately part of the issue is the teacher shortage, so they can't really make smaller classes.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#36> In a working-class pocket of Michigan, school administrators have tried almost everything, including pajama day, to boost student attendance. Wow, pajama day didn't bring back students? So strange. I wonder if they tried less homework, shorter school-days and/or later start of the day? Basically the three reasons I myself was chronically absent from school for as long as I can remember.
The article highlights that many parents whose children are absent are treating the posted assignments/homework as the primary teaching tool, so cutting that back hurts absent kids (I also understand that homework’s has been massively scaled back already in most places). Shorter days unfortunately interferes with school’s role as state-provided daycare for working parents. Later days is a solid idea, and I believe re…
My mom's a teacher in a decent school district in California, and later school times didn't have a significant effect on post-pandemic absences in her experiences (for the students who did come in, it did have a positive effect on their performance though).
The brutal truth is a subset of parents just don't care too much about education. It doesn't matter if it's an affluent or a working class district - there will always be a subset of parents that are either unable to (fairly common among impoverished parents sadly) or uninterested to (fairly uncommon among more affluent parents sadly) become much more involved parents
Basically, teachers assume parents will intervene in their students lives to give structure. Parents in the other hand assume teachers will intervene to give their children structure in their lives. And neither side will budge.
Some autonomy for kids is critical, but there also needs to be some amount of structure as well. You can't be 100% disciplinarian nor 100% free roaming. A happy balance is needed, and sadly, a handful of bad apples among both teachers and parents have deteriorated that relationship among these critical caregivers.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#37[dead]
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article highlights that many parents whose children are absent are treating the posted assignments/homework as the primary teaching tool, so cutting that back hurts absent kids (I also understand that homework’s has been massively scaled back already in most places). Shorter days unfortunately interferes with school’s role as state-provided daycare for working parents. Later days is a solid idea, and I believe re…
> if I understand correctly this is largely a scheduling/budget issue with how busses are staggered today My California public school district had no busses. I still remember miserably making 7AM classes.
They still don't, even when I was a kid and even today.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#39> Everywhere * in the USA
Is school in the US optional? Over here (the Netherlands) school is mandatory for anyone under 18.
Skipping school without a valid reason (e.g. illness) comes with a €100/day fine.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#40stigmatize the working class as boring while promoting alternative lifestyles as more attractive/worthy .. then tax their parents into the ground through run-away inflation.. strip them of any potential for home ownership or a stable life and then wonder why kids don't see any value in traditional education?