Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk • Hacker News Board

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#601

Post by jdminhbg » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #485

RestlessMind wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having government direct a mobilization is not acceptable. Then you would expect divergent performance in the D-controlled states (eg. California) vs the R-controlled states (eg. Texas), no? So far, I see all types of states having similar outcomes. > ... good leadership ... but we chose someone who is committed to division, ... I'm no fan of our current leader, but let's be honest Obama failed to properly launch a…

Performance is in fact divergent by party; see e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/hso3sf/oc_... . Blue counties are doing worse than red in both state cohorts due to population density, but counties of either party are doing worse in R states. Blue states were worse early on, mostly due to New York City being quickly overwhelmed, but now that's not the case, because D governors (e.g., Newsom) are…

> Blue states were worse early on, mostly due to New York City being quickly overwhelmed, but now that's not the case, because D governors (e.g., Newsom) are generally leading responsibly, and R governors (e.g. Kemp) are... not.

The relevant metric is not "amount of time doing relatively better or worse." You can get all over with quickly like NY did, but they ended up with 8x the deaths of FL. NJ has 3x FL's. AFAICT, "leading responsibly" here means simply having (D) after their names, as these governors' policies were catastrophically bad.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Post by Mountain_Skies » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #590

chrisseaton wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a child refuses to do anything when they were physically in school what was being done about it then? You can’t physically force someone to learn then and you can’t now. Not sure anything’s changed really. All they did before was remove disruptive children and now I guess they remove themselves. Remains an unsolved problem!

They were less likely to refuse the work. For one, kids are herd animals and when other kids are doing work, it motivates the slacker. For the other, teachers actually make them - most kids just kinda don't want to do it and will if pushed by teacher or motivated by system of rewards. Second, doing work at home alone all the time is much demotivating for even good kids. And parents are less fun to explain things then…

I can't say for sure but it was my impression that many of these students don't have parents at home during the day. The school system my gf works for is in an area with several meat processing plants, which I assume are considered essential. There are also many undocumented workers in that area. For those who were doing jobs that weren't considered essential, they probably can't rely on being able to collect unemployment and had to go find other work. It's a lot to ask of middle school age children to be self motivated especially if their friends around the neighborhood were outside playing or coming over to hangout, regardless of lockdown orders or not.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Post by CuriousSkeptic » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

dlivingston wrote: post #318

cool_dude85 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you're from, but in many places, "society and government" has not failed people the same way it has in the US. Even within the US there are some places where local and state government have performed much better than places like Florida or NYC. That is to say, the problem is not, conceptually, "society and government", but instead, the American society and American government we have today. Don't give…

What we need is a plan and a leader that will pull us out of this gridlock and death spiral that we're in. We need a diagnosis of what exactly is going wrong, a concrete plan of action, and mass participation. My diagnosis: - Hyper-partisanship is causing politicians and the electorate to harden into uncompromising tribes. This hyper-partisanship also serves to increase the size and scale of the fringe wings of both…

A really deep dive of this topic can be found here: https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/story-of-us.html

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Post by panda88888 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

justwalt wrote: post #542

DenisM wrote: post #219

The Los Angelos teachers added a few other requests [1]. The introduction starts with: [...] LAUSD educators clearly want to get back into schools with their students, but the underlying question at every step must be: Given broader societal conditions, how do we open physical schools in a way that ensures that the benefit outweigh the risks [...] And then proceeds to the following recommendations, among many others:…

Is “undocumented students and families” a euphemism for people aren’t in the US legally?

Yes.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Post by watwut » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #493

mynameisvlad wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe there are any states currently issuing stay at home (which is different than SIP) orders. It also has 100% not been an overreaction. It saved countless lives by preventing spread. That whole flattening the curve thing and how well countries that have actually followed through and did not open early should show you how effective it has been.

It would be interesting to see the data of which is more effective. I'm currently biased towards believing that masks were highly effective and SIP orders mostly are not (because people still leave for groceries, for example) . If we create the false dichotomy of Masks vs SIP I would recommend Masks

Shelter in place works everywhere except in America, which is always special.

And if people go to buy food, that totally negates lack of contact everywhere else, including restaurants, concerts, offices, schools, sport clubs and so on.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Post by Avicebron » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #449

spideymans wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States government is completely and utterly dysfunctional when it comes to serving the needs of its citizens. The government rarely goes out of its way to help its citizens, and the rare times it does something to help, it does so incredibly begrudgingly, intentionally making the process as painful as possible. The pandemic payouts are a wonderful example of the government going out of its way to make help…

This is entirely at the feet of the Republican party. They're the ones who have declared states are on their own and have suggested (and this is not a joke) that the next round of "relief" must include a capital gains holiday. There have been missteps from the left, but the Democrats overall approach has been to serve the needs of citizens in general while the Republicans have been eager to continue their program of…

This isn't quite true, yes the Republican party has some pretty clear pro-business idealogy that hurts the citizens. No doubt. But it was a Democratic party that pushed for the hollowing out of american businesses to overseas locations and bailed out a morally bankrupt wall street with no public consequences other than a federal reserve patch job

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Post by rayiner » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

monkeyfacebag wrote: post #491

rayiner wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re not a “country.” We’re 50 different states with a federal government, which doesn’t have public health as one of its assigned roles. This isn’t an ideological point, it’s a bare recitation of fact. Somehow, other federal republics like Germany managed to engage in an effective pandemic response while leaving most of the work to the states. For example, while Germany eventually had a mask order everywhere, the s…

wait, what is the CDC then? I am not trying to argue with you. I haven't heard the take that the US government doesn't have a public health role and am looking to learn.

So there is theory and practice. In theory, public health is a purely state issue. In practice, it’s a mostly state issue. But there is a real legal limit here: the federal government has no general police power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_(United_States_co...

> In United States constitutional law, police power is the capacity of the states to regulate behavior and enforce order within their territory for the betterment of the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of their inhabitants.

This is not an unusual principle. Germany has a similar principle, which is why Angela Merkel didn’t issue a mask order either.

The federal agencies are best understood as having a coordinating role for when inter-state issues are involved. This CDC PowerPoint (which predates Covid) explains: https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/docs/phl101/PHL101-Unit-5-16Jan09-S...

See the first bullet on Slide 8: “State and local governments carry out most communicable disease surveillance and control under the police power.”

See Slide 10: “Most powers for public health surveillance, investigations, and interventions derive from state and local law.”

The federal government provides “expert public health assistance” and regulates “disease carriers who cross state lines.”

So when we talk about things like tracing protocols, where does that fit? The CDC can provide expert advice about what sorts of testing protocols are effective. But the state governments must actually develop and execute the surveillance and intervention: testing patients, quarantining them, etc. The federal government is supposed to assist insofar as patients might move between states.

This is how everyone has always understood the division of labor in public health to be set up. Countries like Germany have similar legal structures, and have managed just fine. Even countries like Japan, where the central government does have a general police power, still delegates things like testing because the local governments are more nimble.

Only in America would be ignore the clear division of labor that’s in place during a pandemic.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Post by isthispermanent » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

ihumanable wrote: post #529

mtgp1000 wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Telling people that only 1% of them will die so it's all okay is telling people you don't care about them - they notice, they're not dumb. No no no no no. It's high time we stop treating everything as black and white in this country. It's not just callously disregarding the dead - it's about determining whether the literal and figurative loss of life caused by a lockdown is worth the loss of life caused by the virus…

> countries like Sweden didn't lock down at all and are doing fine. Interesting, Sweden suffered more deaths than their neighbors and does not appear to be any better off economically. Sweden Has Become the World's Cautionary Tale - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c... Sweden had no lockdown but its economy is expected to suffer just as badly as its European neighbors - https://www.cnbc.com…

Except for your NYT article, these are all pieces from more than 2 months ago. And the NYT has been exceptionally poor at reporting on covid with an even hand. What it fails to mention is that though Sweden's economy will contract by the same amount as it's Scandanavian neighbors, about -8%, it's a huge win compared to UK/Italy/France which will contract by 22-30%.

src: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-16/one-econo...

It's irresponsible to believe that journalists and editorial organizations are able to cut through their own emotions and biases during what is one of the most tense times in recent history. Everyone has an opinion. The only thing without an opinion are the data.

For Sweden that data is pretty great: - 15 deaths in the past 7 days - ~1200 cases

src: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

If you only want to compare Sweden to its neighbors you're cherry-picking what you want your argument to say. Sweden's strategy divorced them from their neighbors and put them in the boat with us. We are apples to apples. Sweden to Norway, when they took up the strategy, became apples to oranges. Since we are both of the same strategy it's entirely reasonable to point to Sweden and say "hey, it's about as bad there as it is here and they didn't go hard lockdown and kids are still in school".

It's not like we can go back in time and follow New Zealand. That ship sailed five months ago.

To get a real look at the data I strongly recommend people get on Twitter and follow any of these accounts to get a good grasp on the overall situation as told by the numbers and as a bonus you'll get: - how deaths are reported and what that means for the narrative - cases and their level of significance - hospital census, dwell, and coding

@ethicalskeptic @aginnt @boriquagato @natesilver538 (we don't agree on how to handle this, but he's been fair in reporting data as it should be understood) @MLevitt_NP2013 (Nobel laureate) @AlexBerenson

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Post by lubujackson » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

usaar333 wrote: post #481

politelemon wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do they have the budget for counseling when students and teachers pass away? It pains me to admit that this didn't even occur to me as part of the topic of teachers being sent back. The human aspects of students-teacher relationships. I feel I've been desensitized to this after exposing myself to a constant stream of news, and now I'm thinking further about what other aspects lie behind other headlines. Thank you f…

It's a human aspect, but to be blunt, it's not a significant consideration as long as you aren't opening schools in an area with high community transfer (e.g. Houston today). IF you additionally filter out high risk-group teaches (known pre-existing health conditions, older than 65, etc.) excess death risk is quite low. (e.g. in the Bay Area, dying in a car crash remains far more likely (~10x) if you meet the criteri…

At least 30 teachers have died of COVID in NYC alone. That seems significant for a viral outbreak that is nowhere near containment or exhaustion, and if I was a teacher over 40 I would have serious reservations knowing it is extremely likely I will almost certainly catch the virus eventually.

But you can say the same for tons of occupations - flight attendants, cashiers, barbers. People will either be ignorant/dismissive of the risk or forced to take risk to feed themselves. I think the real change will have to be less preciousness/protectiveness of the value of human life, sadly.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Post by hosh » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

centerthiz99 wrote: post #372

hosh wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my conclusion that the system has failed as well, and it comes from things that are intrinsic to the system itself. Our civilization and systems are set up for failure. When "success" and "wealth" is determined by how much resources you can extract from the land and people, and how much control over access to those resources, it incentivized centralization and control over basic necessities. This would be food,…

Centralization? In America? You mean how the tax authority distributes the work to Intuit and HR Block? How housing is distributed to private owners, financiers, and realtors? The problems we’re experiencing are due to the opposite of centralization. Arguments against it are ideological conservatism. Post office was a model of efficiency and distribution for an org that size until the GOP saddled it with debt. In fac…

Yes, centralization.

Let's start with housing. We have this idea of property laws and property rights. Before the rise of civilization, we didn't have such laws. People squatted and lived off of the land as needed. There are also blended model. The Homestead Acts allowed people to claim territory, which, after certain requirements are met, would pass into their hands as legal ownership.

Property, then, is an example where the registration of ownership is centralized to the legal mechanism of the government.

Or, let's take a tomato. Like the kind I can get from Wendy's. That tomato probably came from California or Mexico. (Or during the winter, from the hothouses in Canada). It is grown there and then shipped unripen across country. There are multiple actors involved. You can argue that, because the government is not involved, this is not centralized.

The kind of decentralization I am talking about is a tomato that I grow in my backyard. That can be watered from rainwater harvesting. That can be fed by compost from other parts of my garden. Whose seeds I can save, and I can replant. Every generation, those tomatoes become more adapted to my biome (low desert). After the initial setup, there is no money involved to intermediate between me and the tomato. It is between myself and the land, and the local ecology.

> Connect to the mindset of local and you’ll see central shared effort is how local thinks. It’s where those broader ideas of federal centralization grew from!

I have no idea what you mean by this. I don't consider shared effort at the household or neighborhood level to be that centralized. That speaks more about coordinating efforts, and cooperating together.