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Kids are far behind in school

theatlantic.com

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Re: Kids are far behind in school

#361

Post by humanrebar »

mcv wrote: post #190
humanrebar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but a lot of people, including underage people, are motivated by reason. School ideally goes at an appropriate pace to challenge them. Partly so they pick up good study habits in a non-contrived scenario with obvious benefits. Saying busy work is important because they might need study habits in five years is not motivating.

> School ideally goes at an appropriate pace to challenge them. I think it's impossible for school to go at an appropriate pace for everybody, because all students are different and struggle with different things. Half will be bored, the other half struggling to keep up. And in my son, those halves definitely overlap. In primary school, he did every possible gifted program they had and then some, skipped a grade, and…

I think that's true for the given model of homogeneous, large classroom instruction. I suspect we'll see major revisions in that model in the coming century, at least for those with resources.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#362

Post by makeitdouble »

mattcwilson wrote: post #356
makeitdouble wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8266060/ > Early evidence indicated that schools were low risk and children were unlikely to be very infectious, but it is becoming clear that children and youth can acquire and transmit COVID-19 in school settings and that transmission clusters and outbreaks can be large.

Thanks! A little confused though, the protocols run here all assume the classroom stays in-person and just goes into different isolation measures. Most of the protocols (besides the baseline, do-nothing protocol) have some effect, but aren’t perfect. > None of the mitigation protocols we modeled, initiated by a positive test in a symptomatic individual, are able to prevent large transmission clusters unless the trans…

As I understand, the base premise of the research here is that remote schooling is the proven no-risk solution, and their goal is to evaluate other strategies that could somewhat keep contamination at manageable levels for in-person classrooms.

It is in particular useful for cases where virtual schools are just not an option (on the top of my head, toddlers and lower age kids for instance. If their parents can't teach them for whatever reasons, in-person teaching will be critical to their development, and they can't wait 3 years that the dust settles)

Now this study might have a lot more different political stuff going on, but I generally think the situation with kids is complicated and there is no one single solution to the learning problem. We'd need to adjust to a lot of cases.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#363

Post by micromacrofoot »

randomtwiddler wrote: post #324
micromacrofoot wrote: post #4

Interesting that it can be quantified somewhat… but the suggested interventions (extra tutoring, summer school, longer days) are just not going to happen. That education is gone. If they happen anywhere, it’ll only be rich kids.

Parents can educate their own children. The costs for well outlined curriculum in the digital age are minimal.

This kind of comment usually comes from someone very young, or maybe unfamiliar with the state of many family's lives in the US.

Parents aren't often educated well themselves. They don't know how to teach anything to anyone.

Some of the working poor don't even have time to cook their kids reasonable meals.

Locally we're experiencing a bus driver shortage (more like a pay shortage), and the school district knows that on days without buses... some kids don't show up because there's no one home that can take the time off of work to bring them to school.

Parents with the education, time, and money can educate their own children. Outside of the upper-middle class... it's rare to encounter parents who have all of those.

If we were to rely on parents for education, we'd be setting half the country back by a good 50 years. Literacy rates would absolutely plummet.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#364

Post by mattmcknight »

spiderice wrote: post #170
mattmcknight wrote: post #119

Simply end social promotion. You shouldn't move up to the next level of a class until you've mastered the current level. (Levels can be much smaller than a year.) Being at a different pace isn't a problem if you can just make up the time. The side effect bonus is letting other students test out of levels they don't need, they can finish early while others end later.

This solution appeals to me, though I'm wondering what the implications are. Like what does a 12 year old who finished the curriculum do for the next 6 years? Early college? Continue to go to public school anyway even though they've mastered everything? I'm not suggesting the solution wouldn't work. Just interesting to think about the new problems that would arise from it. Especially given that public school doubles…

I remember a girl in my area who had a masters before she got her high school diploma. https://www.gmu.edu/news/2017-05/class-2017-masons-youngest-...

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#365

Post by bradlys »

giantg2 wrote: post #145
Steltek wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 bas…

As someone who went to a very poor school district - I can tell you that what the state and federal government has sent in the past is not sufficient. My school district was only 4-days a week. It has not changed since I left to the best of my knowledge.

Four days. We couldn’t even afford five days a week. There were other effects to this besides four day weeks but I’m giving a good sound byte here.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#366

Post by auspex »

izzydata wrote: post #168
buildsjets wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is what I'd personally like to see. Anything not related to education should not be part of the education system. If some third party wants to establish various sport systems then that's fine. There are so many non-traditional ways and skills to teach kids that I think would be worth exploring, but sport doesn't even register on the scale of usefulness. Apparently we don't even teach finance in highschool yet or…

If you play competitive sports you would see there is a huge skill set that is learned via sports.

Teamwork, acting/thinking under pressure, detailed preparation, controlling nerves, performing in front of crowds (with high expectations), pride in your body and performance.

These are just a few high level/low hanging fruits learned from competitive sport.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#367

Post by jonp888 »

brightball wrote: post #198
taeric wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Other sports play a lot more games. Football has a predictable and consistent schedule, Friday nights in the fall. The limited number of home games (only 5 or 6 usually) also keeps involvement at a level that's not overwhelming for the student body. Additionally, football teams can support a lot more players than any other sport with rosters typically 50 players or more. Especially in smaller schools, this…

> Lastly, football is the most diverse sport in the US. There's a role for everybody

I don't know whether to laugh or cry that you would unironically write that about a Sport that excludes 50% of the population.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#368

Post by acid__ »

sndean wrote: post #155
Steltek wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to anecdotally back you up, in Massachusetts with the #1 public schools in the country, I hear and see nothing about football. I think I hear more about the HS plays and concerts than HS football. The last football funding discussion at the town level was whether to fund better helmets to protect against CTE or make the players' parents pay for it, so the town isn't seen supporting/encouraging brain damage to c…

And to add another anecdote, the overall #1 high school in the US in Virginia (by some rankings at least) doesn't have a football team. Sports like cross country get more attention.

They had a football team when I attended ~10 years ago.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#369

Post by mcv »

humanrebar wrote: post #361
mcv wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> School ideally goes at an appropriate pace to challenge them. I think it's impossible for school to go at an appropriate pace for everybody, because all students are different and struggle with different things. Half will be bored, the other half struggling to keep up. And in my son, those halves definitely overlap. In primary school, he did every possible gifted program they had and then some, skipped a grade, and…

I think that's true for the given model of homogeneous, large classroom instruction. I suspect we'll see major revisions in that model in the coming century, at least for those with resources.

He's in a Montessori school which is supposed to emphasize independent work and planning, but he still has tests and has to hand in assignments, and he clearly fails to plan them or work independently on them. I did a lot better with the homogenous large classroom instruction I got back in the day.

Or at least I did better in school. Once I went to university and had to plan everything myself and work independently on it, that's where I started failing. Maybe it's better to fail early? I don't know.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#370

Post by mort96 »

kbelder wrote: post #332
mort96 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally had the president suggesting that wearing surgical masks caused increased transmission and that drinking bleach might cure COVID. And the talking point about how it was no worse than a flu was extremely widespread in one part of the spectrum. It's obviously not a strict binary, but the insane ideas were common enough to talk about them as a "side".

>You literally had the president suggesting ... that drinking bleach might cure COVID That's at best a huge misuse of the word 'literally', and at worst you're claiming an insane idea. Like you condemn.

You're right, he suggested injecting or ingesting disinfectant. My bad.
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