[tayo42]

Seems like he's being contrarian at times.

> what we have before us is a symbolic gesture, it appears to be style over substance

I think the problem with being idealistic is people will see this leader,(especially in liberal mecca that is the sf bay area or how ever those people talk now) will latch on to this as a reason to do keep acting irresponsibly and justify their behavior.

> Less overall mobility, means less spread. The take home message here is: STOP MOVING!

This is why all the counties should act together, otherwise people just go to the open place to do what they want. The adults act like children and need to be treated that way.

> I continue to strongly believe our schools need to be open. The adverse effects for some of our kids will likely last for generations.

This comes off as dramatic. Like is missing a year of 4th grade going to be a problem for anyone? I barely remember school up until 11th grade at this point. Generations? Why is he saying that?

I agree with this though

> That the State considers pro sports a critical infrastructure (essential) activity undermines this whole rubric in my mind.

[frakkingcylons]

> Like is missing a year of 4th grade going to be a problem for anyone?

Yes definitely. I've been tutoring students in 5-7th grade for about two years, most of them benefit from tutoring because they have knowledge gaps missing from previous school years (for whatever reason). Before March this year, all the tutoring was in-person and it was relatively easy to keep them engaged and they made good progress. Now that I'm doing this over video calls, their attention wanders much more easily. Motivating them to do work is very challenging nowadays.

[remote_phone]

He said generations worth of damage. Come on. It might hurt a kid for her SAT if it was this or next year but to think she would have long term damage from a couple of shitty years of school, that’s preposterous. Kids are made of sterner stuff than this.

[nostromo]

Yes, most kids can catch up after a missed year of content.

Many won’t. There’s a lot of data about how students fall behind in a compounding way: they start to feel dumb compared to their peers; start to think school isn’t for them, or that they just aren’t smart enough to ‘get math’ — fast forward a few years and they’ve dropped out completely.

[monodeldiablo]

But if their peers are missing school, too, I'm not sure how that research is relevant. Is there research showing that, when the whole class misses in person school, there's appreciable damage done?

Allow me a counter example: My significant other was a war refugee and had severely disrupted schooling from the age of seven to about nine years of age.

Yet her generation had higher graduation and matriculation rates than their parents. Indeed, their achievement rates were in line with other countries in the region that didn't experience war.

I'll readily concede that, for children in an abusive home, less time at school is dangerous to their wellbeing. But the hand wringing about long term learning damage to all kids seems overwrought and unsupported by any evidence I've seen.

But I'm more interested in being informed than winning arguments on the internet, so if you can point me in the direction of studies, I'd much appreciate it.

[sokoloff]

I benefited from my parents’ achievements (scholastic, work ethic, and financial support). My kids will benefit from mine in the same way. It’s not hard to imagine that a year of subpar schooling could cast a multi-generational shadow on the most vulnerable.

[edmundsauto]

Do we really think missing 8% of required schooling is that dramatic? I can’t be the only person who thinks the education being afforded the folks hit hardest is minimally valuable.

School sucks fir the vast majority of kids. It’s a warehousing system so parents can both work.

[sokoloff]

I don't have much doubt that this will increase educational inequality and it being only 8% of compulsory education might understate things, given the "stacking" nature of each year building on the foundations set in prior years.

If you miss learning addition well, subtraction and multiplication is going to be hard. If you can't subtract and multiply, then learning division is going to be hard. If you can't multiply and divide, algebra will be impossible, but many life tasks will also be more difficult.

[edmundsauto]

Isn't it possible that it's the elite students who will be hurt the most? Suppose they are getting 100% value from education. If a less privileged student is only getting 20% value from education, a 10% relative decrease only makes them 2% worse off.

My point is not that this is the right interpretation, it's just that I don't think it's settled about how much it will impact students, and which groups will be impacted disproportionately. Points about nutrition, getting out of abusive homes, etc., are all interesting and relevant and outside the scope of what I mean, which is purely focused on education outcomes.

[s1artibartfast]

>This comes off as dramatic. Like is missing a year of 4th grade going to be a problem for anyone? I barely remember school up until 11th grade at this point. Generations? Why is he saying that?

A year off probably won't have much impact on children with families with the capability to care for and educate them at home. This is not the case for all demographics. For some students, a year off school literally means nutritional insecurity during a time when brains are developing and the only stable environment they have is gone.

My friend is a first grade teacher and has about 5 students who are homeless. It shouldn't be a shock that they are not attending class via zoom.

[mlyle]

> Like is missing a year of 4th grade going to be a problem for anyone?

Yah. There's a whole big subset of the population that barely manages to stick with school at baseline. Educational interruption in other circumstances has been shown to have bad outcomes. We're trying to do better this time, but the school system as a whole is overtaxed.

I'm a middle school teacher. Even with best practices for remote education, I've seen all kinds of negative impacts. It's going to take a whole lot of support to get these kids to anywhere near a normal curriculum.

[remote_phone]

Of course you will see negative impacts this year. Online education sucks. But assuming kids are back in school September 2022, will there be lasting effects? No. If there are gaps, they will be addressed because all kids will have suffered the same thing, it’s not like the one kid who got mono and missed 3 months of school by herself.

[JumpCrisscross]

> assuming kids are back in school September 2022, will there be lasting effects? No.

I’ve only looked at the data for literacy and its impacts on life outcomes. (I do charity in that space.) Something like being 6 months behind in third grade can materially predict high school graduation rates, SAT scores and incomes. Even if one controls for gender, race and income.

[remote_phone]

That’s if no one else is behind. This is different. Everyone is behind. This is more akin to being in school during a war. Some countries missed entire years of school and we’re fine.

[babesh]

This is bad reasoning. If everyone produces less by the same amount, then even if you produce no less than the next person, the overall production has gone down.

[edmundsauto]

This assumes public schools are so efficient that losing be 8% will be impactful? I just don’t see it.

[babesh]

I am worried about socialization besides schooling.

[mlyle]

Yes-- both general socialization with peers and social adaptation to the classroom.

Even the 12 year olds I work with who had many years of schooling have had to readapt to meet (greatly relaxed) expectations for in person instruction with several missed months. A whole bunch of 2nd graders with a wasted end of Kinder and 1st grade year is going to be chaotic.

Depression is on a big swing upwards. And there's kids in difficult situations who are not receiving help from caring teachers and social workers. There is going to be impact that lasts for a long, long time.

[64StarFox64]

Regarding schooling impact:

My interpretation of the statement is that compounding interest applies to education as much as it does to bank accounts. Missing 5k in contributions to retirement accounts at 25 and then making up for it with extra at 26 is very different than making up with an extra contribution at 46. Same applies to education, and if you're trying to make up missed "contributions" in 6/7th grade, you're already the educational equivalent of a 46 year old.

At risk of stretching a thin metaphor even further, this is to say nothing of Social Security (long-term structural impact of system-wide attempts to catch up half a generation of students on 12+ months of education).

edit: formatting/proofreading

[mehrdadn]

> The adverse effects for some of our kids will likely last for generations.

I came to comment the same thing about this quote. I don't understand how he comes to this conclusion either. Anyone know?