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

School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 401 posts

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#261

Post by silverquiet »

partiallypro wrote: post #241
silverquiet wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm approaching 40 and I'm pretty worried about climate change and don't really think I can afford the American dream. I can't imagine staring down six or seven decades into the future at this point.

Every generation says this, they still showed up and did the work. Do you honestly think a teenager that was drafted into WW1 wasn't scared for their future? What about people in the Spanish Flu or Polio epidemics? People in the 50s thought we'd all die in nuclear war. It's so annoying that people think our circumstances are worse than our ancestors. They aren't, unless you're literally at war, your life is better th…

Are you saying that this generation is somehow different from all the others not because of their optimism for the future, but because they lack work ethic? I think that elders have been complaining of following generations' work ethic since pre-history. But I distinctly remember kids being optimistic (I thought irrationally so; I was a pretty miserable child before it was cool) about the future when I was in school. They all thought they were going to get handed a lucrative job after they finished a four-year degree at some luxurious university.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#262

Post by anon291 »

whiterknight wrote: post #187
annoyingnoob wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the illusory value of startup equity lottery tickets it appears Kind of like the lottery, you cannot win if you do not play. I could have a job with a paycheck, or I could have a job with a paycheck and a lottery ticket.

There are other kinds of investments that are less risky than isos.

I don't understand this attitude. Most sw engineers at a startup are well compensated salary wise. Who cares if you also have a lottery ticket.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#263

Post by gbacon »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #239

In unrelated news: https://news.sky.com/story/number-of-long-term-sick-hits-rec... The failure to prioritise rationality over economics is going to be seen as one of the biggest public health and economic failures in recent centuries.

An unleashed public health establishment leaping outside their area of expertise to successfully push for lockdowns was the largest unforced error in generations, one whose effects we’re still feeling years later. Scientists who study the allocation of scarce resources toward desired ends are economists, not epidemiologists.

A basic truth of economics is that people respond to incentives. When you subsidize something, you get more of it. Public choice economics shows us that government employees likewise respond to career interest. Incentivizing people not to work and incentivizing another group of people to pump up their rookie numbers of people not working may create a slight inflationary pressure on the overall figure.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#264

Post by vundercind »

ballenf wrote: post #180
jawns wrote: post #18

Is 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…

Before covid we'd ask our kids what they did and we'd get the usual super brief explanation but would assume that kids just didn't want to go into detail or didn't remember. After covid, we realized that their answer was closer to the truth than all the learning we imagined in our heads. To some degree elementary school has always been a large part daycare and small part teaching. But the one big change from my exper…

Can confirm it’s terrible. Part of the reason my long-time teacher wife got out was that so little of the work is actually productively teaching and it’d gotten worse with each year.

The other reasons were… everything else. Consistently toxic work environments across several schools, a culture of “just do a little more—it’s for the kids!”, shit pay, low social standing, watching students have mental health crises or terrible troubles at home and occasionally kill themselves while not being able to do much about it, corrupt petty-dictator superintendents, constant flailing between expensive “frameworks” implemented so incompetently that they plainly have no hope of working right, et c. The small part of summer they’re actually off and not prepping for the next year was the only good thing about it, by the end. The insulting demands, organizational dysfunction, and lack of support during Covid was the final straw—for her and lots of others, now the field has a severe teacher shortage.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#265

Post by ryandrake »

kube-system wrote: post #140
jawns wrote: post #18

Is 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…

> Chronic absence is typically defined as missing at least 10 percent of the school year, or about 18 days, for any reason. I don't think having a cold or two is going to put many people in this category. Decades ago when I was in public school, the kids who were chronically absent like this were the ones who clearly had some behavioral issues or problems at home. The linked study also demonstrates that the rates are…

> I think the real issue here is that a subset of people simply have fewer fucks to give about school, and that has been accelerated by the distance and space that COVID created between students/parents and school.

Some parents are even giving negative-fucks about school, in other words being actively against public education, teachers, and so on. I know of Facebook groups where parents share tips on how to maximize the number of absences without triggering various flags. And, a surprising number of my wife's friends from church have opted for homeschooling, so they can teach their kids from the Bible and skip all that science and math "liberal indoctrination". It's scary.

I can't believe how much of this is creeping into even HN too, a group of presumably above-average educated techies. Just look at the comments in this article dunking on the school system! Education is, for most people, their only shot at achieving the ever-shrinking middle class.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#266

Post by CamperBob2 »

VancouverMan wrote: post #198
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this liminal state of "sick, but not too sick to perform". A lot of us are fortunate enough to work from home if we've just got the sniffles, which lets us perform but not infect the office. For those of us who can't just do work or school remote, I sure wish we could at least do like Japan and mask up. It seems like it should be common courtesy.

[flagged]

You know, surgeons don't wear masks solely to protect themselves, right? They wear them to protect their patients as well as themselves. In fact, that's kind of the main idea.

When the droplets that you exhale through a mask change direction, they lose velocity, and consequently range.

I blame the lack of hands-on science education for the large number of people who don't intuitively grasp concepts like this. It's easy to blame things like right-wing media, but the media would have less power over people if they were given the opportunity to cultivate some common sense in childhood. In that regard, it sounds like things are only going to get worse.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#267

Post by williamcotton »

usea wrote: post #257
williamcotton wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My office basically dictates that we show up regardless. Why? We work in legal services and our clients depend heavily on us and with massive consequences when we make mistakes. Court mandated deadlines don’t care about a runny nose. I see no measurable impact on performance.

This is just another way of saying you're under-staffed so owners can capture more of the value of your labor. It's neither virtuous nor effective.

No, it isn’t. I work side-by-side the CEO and as a colleague and he works more hours than anyone else. He’s a great person and a friend.

We have multiple people in a company of about 15 who have worked there for over 20 years.

Who are you working for?

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#268

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

anon291 wrote: post #246
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that people that graduated high school in 2020 had the worst experience (at least in the US) of any cohort in at least 50 years. They didn't get to experience really the end of high school, and those that started college in the fall didn't really get to experience the beginning of college, when many people make lifelong friends. Now they're graduating in 2024, where the vibe on many campuses is one of division…

I think you got your years wrong

Whoops, thanks, meant people who graduated HS in 2020, not 2000. Edited.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#269

Post by partiallypro »

silverquiet wrote: post #261
partiallypro wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every generation says this, they still showed up and did the work. Do you honestly think a teenager that was drafted into WW1 wasn't scared for their future? What about people in the Spanish Flu or Polio epidemics? People in the 50s thought we'd all die in nuclear war. It's so annoying that people think our circumstances are worse than our ancestors. They aren't, unless you're literally at war, your life is better th…

Are you saying that this generation is somehow different from all the others not because of their optimism for the future, but because they lack work ethic? I think that elders have been complaining of following generations' work ethic since pre-history. But I distinctly remember kids being optimistic (I thought irrationally so; I was a pretty miserable child before it was cool) about the future when I was in school.…

No, I'm not blaming the kids. I'm blaming the parents, I felt like I made this pretty explicit in my second paragraph. Virtually no kid wants to go to school. That's irrelevant. Some kids don't want to eat anything but junk food. You shouldn't let them. You're the parent. You cannot allow your kid to be truant. You are nearly guaranteeing them poverty, that is abuse and neglect, and it should be punished. There are some stories here of people saying it worked for them, this place isn't "most people," most people on HN came from families with money or had opportunities bestowed upon them. Reeks of privilege.

Forget the doomerism of what a child might think, again it's about perspective. That's not even why these kids are skipping class to begin with, that's just some invention people here have said. We're talking about kids that can barely read or write, not HN poster kids with educated parents or good surroundings. People are skipping classes because their parents allow it, kids will look for excuses and always have. The parents should be held liable, and it's not just bad for the kids, it's bad for all of society. People arguing in favor of truancy are totally detached from reality for -most- people.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#270

Post by albrewer »

williamcotton wrote: post #87
candiddevmike wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my area, you get 10 days of unexcused absence per year before parents and kids start receiving fines and possibly a referral to CPS. That number is way too small IMO, and it forces folks to go to the doctor constantly for getting small illnesses excused (school policies are 24 hours without a fever, but they don't take temperatures, it's honor based...), since you want to keep those 10 days for an actual vacation.

Why would you take your kids on a vacation during school? There are plenty of breaks during the year including all of summer.

Because flying anywhere during those few short breaks is about 3-5x the cost vs. traveling at some other time. I'd rather fly to Europe for $400 per person vs. $2200 per person; it's the difference between going and not going.
Post reply on HN