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US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

reuters.com

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Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#61

Post by tropdrop »

throwawaysea wrote: post #19

In some ways I view this as an opportunity for society. I would be happy to have a return to decentralized schooling or alternate models with more choice, rather than a one size fits all model that is increasingly being co-opted by political actors to propagandize children with certain views or values.

And children who don't have parents with resources to "alternative models," deserve poor education? (I'm assuming you mean a stay-at-home parent who chooses to teach home-schooling because all that's necessary for the survival of this theoretical family is only 1 income earner, not 2).

For reference, this is NOT an insignificant percentage of the US population [1].

1 - https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-median-net-worth-of-us-...

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#62

Post by dragonwriter »

tyre wrote: post #47
imgabe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but it would require a constitutional amendment to enact. The Constitution is explicit about which powers the Federal government has and everything else is delegated to the states. Education is not one of them.

A large majority of the current US government is made up of things outside the constitution as written. The underpinning of most government agencies is the commerce clause, and even then there is a question of whether Congress delegating to administrative agencies is constitutional. For example, the FCC, the FDA, the FAA—these powers aren't in the constitution and I'm not saying that because there weren't cell phones…

> For example, the FCC, the FDA, the FAA—these powers aren't in the constitution

All three regulate different aspects of interstate commerce.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#63

Post by zaroth »

> Robert Hull, chief executive of the National Association of State Boards of Education, which represents states’ interests, told Reuters most class sizes actually will shrink when schools reopen. That is because of COVID-19 and the need for social distancing. One adaptation will be to have students come to school, on a staggered basis, only on certain days of the week, and possibly receive video instruction other days. He predicted that some of these changes would be permanent.

I have a 2nd and 5th grader, going into 3rd and 6th grade. I can say from first and second-hand experience that the social, emotional, and intellectual damage being caused to young children by closing schools is absolutely frightening. This is to say nothing of the tremendous cost to households who aren’t able to adjust work schedules around their children not being in school. Or even of the children where school is their respite and dependable source of a decent meal.

If there are days where my children are not allowed to go to school in the fall, those are days my kids and I will be spending protesting either in front of the school, or in front of the State House.

If from my ultra privileged position I can see significant emotional and intellectual damage being done to my kids from this policy, I have a hard time imagining the widespread costs and impact that closing schools is having across society.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#66

Post by scollet »

MattGaiser wrote: post #41
tengbretson wrote: post #25

It's odd to me that there is this bizarre certainty on hacker news that within 20 years the most common occupation, truck driving, will be nearly entirely obsolete, yet in an era where almost all human knowledge is available online for free, the idea that the education apparatus will either stay the same or continue to grow is somehow a given.

> where almost all human knowledge is available online for free And it has been so for nearly 20 years and changed very little. MOOCs are a failure as people will not finish them. Online certificates carry no weight with employers even if people do. We have promising prototypes of self driving trucks. We don't have such models for education.

There are promising models around learning and plenty of resources but I think the incentive is underdeveloped. This is not mentioning economic and political factors, but from a technical standpoint, the means are there.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#67

Post by jwilber »

Could also do with cutting police funding. A local city in WA spends 53% of their budget on police[0].

Imagine if just a fraction of that went to education?

I’d love to see solid studies on the efficacy/use of police budgeting. At a cursory glance, it’s an easy dataset with which to mislead: is crime going down because budgets are going up? Probably not. But without a solid study, we can’t say for sure.

Still, I think we can agree: 53% is way too high (NYC in 2017 was 8% [1]).

[0] https://mobile.twitter.com/jesusonah/status/1268650880800223...

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccar...

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#68

Post by DaniloDias »

tengbretson wrote: post #25

It's odd to me that there is this bizarre certainty on hacker news that within 20 years the most common occupation, truck driving, will be nearly entirely obsolete, yet in an era where almost all human knowledge is available online for free, the idea that the education apparatus will either stay the same or continue to grow is somehow a given.

I never seriously considered home schooling as an option. COVID has taught us otherwise. I’m pretty sure we’re all in on it for next year.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#69

Post by yalogin »

tyree731 wrote: post #4
viburnum wrote: post #2

You know who’s not laying off anyone? The military. Local funding of schools is ridiculous. Education benefits the whole nation. Educational investments shouldn’t be dictated by transient economic conditions.

> Educational investments shouldn’t be dictated by transient economic conditions. Could someone not make the same argument about the national defense? Education is funded largely by local taxes, and local tax revenues are being gutted, so there isn't much that can be done here without nationalizing public education.

Yeah but the US pays for national defense only to fund corporations continuously with unneeded weapon manufacturing so that the respective politicians in those districts can keep winning. There is really no national defense reasons there.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#70

Post by indemnity »

MattGaiser wrote: post #7
achn wrote: post #3

Wait, public schools for children are not funded by the government in the US?

They are not funded by the national government. They are mostly funded by city and county governments, with some money from state governments. Basically each city or county is mostly responsible for paying for the education of the children within its boundaries. EDIT: I am slightly off on the percentages. See the comment below.

Explains a lot about the state of primary and secondary education in the USA.

How can such a system not lead to massive disparities in quality and access to education, if there isn't a federal backstop to make up for differences in funding available from the state/county. Is there such a thing?

Glad I live in a country where schools get funding based on factors like socio-economic status of surrounding community (the poorer the community, the more funding from central government).

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