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School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

nytimes.com

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Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#271

Post by Uehreka »

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…

> To some degree elementary school has always been a large part daycare and small part teaching.

This was definitely a fashionable thing to say last decade. But in a post-Covid world where we’ve seen meaningful deficits in skills as a result of disruptions to in-person elementary school attendance, I think we should re-evaluate this prior. It seems evident that there’s a lot more going on in school than just babysitting.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#272

Post by sp332 »

tayo42 wrote: post #223
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.

This sick but nothing really state you mention is weird now. I think i never used to think of it, but after the pandemic like if my throat is a little sore but I don't feel tired or groggy am I still just expected to sit inside?A weak cold can linger for days, weeks sometime. I get multiple ways of thinking about it.

I think the guidance on colds is that they're less contagious after 4 days of symptoms, and more than 24 hours after the fever is gone. For covid it was different because you could be contagious before having symptoms, and the different strains had different numbers of days and even different sets of symptoms.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#273

Post by vundercind »

ryandrake wrote: post #265
kube-system wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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".

Thank god (ha, ha) for immigrants I guess.

The Internet’s been a disaster for civil society.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#274

Post by nostrademons »

kube-system wrote: post #182
pavel_lishin wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because those breaks don't line up with things like the solar eclipse. Because those breaks don't line up with other cousins' breaks. Because those breaks don't line up with great-grandma's 95th birthday, and she lives a full day's journey away. Because those breaks don't line up with your work schedule, or your partner's work schedule. Because my child is excelling academically, and I absolutely don't think that she…

All of those situations existed in decades past. Why do parents think that school doesn't provide as much value as they used to?

If you look at the history of why public education in the U.S. was enacted, there were 3 main reasons, none of which were actually educating children:

1. Assimilate immigrant children into American culture so that they would think of themselves as "American" first and whatever ethnicity they came from second. (Hence, the Pledge of Allegiance, national anthem, American football games, focus on history & social studies in class, etc.)

2. Provide childcare during working hours so parents could go to work. (Hence, compulsory education, hours that aligned with a factory schedule, high student-teacher ratios, etc.)

3. Teach children the skills they would need to be successful in the factory system. (Hence, attendance, arriving punctually, moving between rooms at the bell, following orders, not complaining, etc.)

What's happened over the last 40 years is that the factory system in America fell apart, and so the skills needed for it no longer seem all that relevant compared to actually getting a good education, which school is not all that effective at. Meanwhile there are new waves of immigration with parents that were often highly educated (moreso than native-born Americans, oftentimes) abroad; they don't buy the "this is what a good education looks like" explanation, because they have had an actual good education abroad. And the Internet in general makes people much more suspicious of institutions, because you can see the ways that different power centers try to enforce control of the discourse, and there is no unified discourse to get behind anyway. The public school system in America is deeply embedded in the industrial institutions that were developed from 1900-1980, and as those institutions collapse, the public school system collapses with them.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#275

Post by elboru »

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 don't think having a cold or two is going to put many people in this category.

Have you been around kids post COVID? Winters after the pandemic have been a nightmare for many parents. My nephews have basically been "sick" the whole winter (getting sick, staying home, recovering, going back to school, getting a new virus, repeat).

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#276

Post by Dig1t »

ryandrake wrote: post #265
kube-system wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I recommend approaching people who want to homeschool with an open mind and a little empathy. They are not bible thumpers who want to eschew science, many of them are just normal people who do not like the bias and worldview that is being applied to education.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#277

Post by vundercind »

bombcar wrote: post #194
kube-system wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those situations existed in decades past. Why do parents think that school doesn't provide as much value as they used to?

People got pulled from class for vacations all the time when I was a kid. It wasn't super common, but it was common enough that there was a standard procedure around it (basically you'd get the classwork/homework that you'd be missing and be expected to present it upon return). I think a bigger part now is that schools are somewhat more overloaded, so missing class puts you "out of sync" and there's nothing to help y…

There’s a serious “butts in seats = cash” focus from admin, now. I’m not sure if funding arrangements used (80s and 90s? Pre-nclb? I dunno) to be different.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#278

Post by swed420 »

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]

For the communal masking method that was deployed early on in the pandemic due to N95 respirator shortages, you're correct.

> At best, masking is a practice that makes the wearer think they're doing something "courteous", when they really aren't doing anything beneficial at all.

Fortunately in 2024, individuals have the freedom to choose to wear an N95 for their own personal protection. These devices are effective when worn properly, especially compared to vaccines when trying to minimize transmission to prevent reinfections which increase the risk of long COVID.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#279

Post by seneca »

ryandrake wrote: post #265
kube-system wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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".

I can assure you, the people newly complaining about "liberal indoctrination" in schools don't mean science and math. It's fine to disagree with people about what should be taught, but it's not productive to ignore how much education has changed and why people object to it, and then disingenuously mischaracterize them.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#280

Post by silverquiet »

partiallypro wrote: post #269
silverquiet wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

It's funny - in a sense I pretty much agree with you; I had to be cajoled into school and everything as well and found it fundamentally miserable. Certainly I understand that without an education the future is quite grim (especially for me as I have some physical disability). But after that treatment, I decided it was not something I could ever put a child through, so in that sense I have some sympathy for these parents. Though to me the solution is obvious; simply don't have children.
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