Re-opening Schools in the era of COVID

[Cuddles]

Show us an example of any other state in the U.S. where the governor has ordered schools not to share COVID data.

So much for data transparency in Florida which is the very foundation of proper governance. Are you really going to continue to claim that DeSantis is less than transparent with COVID data?

I find it hard to believe you don’t have a problem with this when your children attend schools in Florida.

cultists gonna cult. Remember when that first whistle blower was disparaged as deranged for having a dodgy sexual history?

Cultists just move goal posts:
"we can't trust the whistleblower; she's got TDS"
"who cares about the data, science is fake news anyway"

 

[Tsing Tao]

Show us an example of any other state in the U.S. where the governor has ordered schools not to share COVID data.

So much for data transparency in Florida which is the very foundation of proper governance. Are you really going to continue to claim that DeSantis is less than transparent with COVID data?

I find it hard to believe you don’t have a problem with this when your children attend schools in Florida.

I'm not about to go investigate every other state to see what states are censoring data or holding back in some fashion. I'm not even going to verify whether your claim about DeSantis doing it is legit or not. I simply don't give a shit.

If DeSantis isn't doing it and you're full of it (certainly not unheard of) then great. If he is, then I understand.

As for me having no problem with it, why would you believe I would have a problem with it? My child is at ZERO risk of COVID. The risk factor of my wife and I is near zero, and certainly no more or less than the garden variety flu. So why would i care again?

 

[Tsing Tao]

cultists gonna cult. Remember when that first whistle blower was disparaged as deranged for having a dodgy sexual history?

Cultists just move goal posts:
"we can't trust the whistleblower; she's got TDS"
"who cares about the data, science is fake news anyway"

A very "centrist" position you have.

 

[smallfil]

Extreme liberals have weaponized Corona Virus to try and limit education thru online websites. There is such as thing as unintended consequences. This is all a ploy by the teachers unions to destroy the charter schools competing against public schools. They are trying to defund the charter schools. Now, for the consequences. Anything taught online, the material can come from anywhere. Oursourcing anyone? Oh, it is coming. Administrators will do what will save them monies to give themselves huge pay raises including, the lackeys they have in tow. So, what is to prevent administrators from paying teachers in the third world countries without jobs from recording lessons in math, history, geography, economics, etc., all on video to be seen years down the line. You would not have need for any teachers would you? Also, parents faced with this choice can send their kids to online schools operated outside the US? Teachers can now be laid off en masse as they would be useless since, all the material can now be obtained online? Grading papers can be done by software applications recording answers by the students. What about the standardized tests, also, can be graded by software applications. Like the saying goes, "careful what you ask, you might just get it."

 

[Tsing Tao]

Extreme liberals have weaponized Corona Virus to try and limit education thru online websites. There is such as thing as unintended consequences. This is all a ploy by the teachers unions to destroy the charter schools competing against public schools. They are trying to defund the charter schools. Now, for the consequences. Anything taught online, the material can come from anywhere. Oursourcing anyone? Oh, it is coming. Administrators will do what will save them monies to give themselves huge pay raises including, the lackeys they have in tow. So, what is to prevent administrators from paying teachers in the third world countries without jobs from recording lessons in math, history, geography, economics, etc., all on video to be seen years down the line. You would not have need for any teachers would you? Also, parents faced with this choice can send their kids to online schools operated outside the US? Teachers can now be laid off en masse as they would be useless since, all the material can now be obtained online? Grading papers can be done by software applications recording answers by the students. What about the standardized tests, also, can be graded by software applications. Like the saying goes, "careful what you ask, you might just get it."

Like everything else, they're going to find that this backfires on them and student choice becomes all the rage.

 

[gwb-trading]

Extreme liberals have weaponized Corona Virus to try and limit education thru online websites. There is such as thing as unintended consequences. This is all a ploy by the teachers unions to destroy the charter schools competing against public schools. They are trying to defund the charter schools. Now, for the consequences. Anything taught online, the material can come from anywhere. Oursourcing anyone? Oh, it is coming. Administrators will do what will save them monies to give themselves huge pay raises including, the lackeys they have in tow. So, what is to prevent administrators from paying teachers in the third world countries without jobs from recording lessons in math, history, geography, economics, etc., all on video to be seen years down the line. You would not have need for any teachers would you? Also, parents faced with this choice can send their kids to online schools operated outside the US? Teachers can now be laid off en masse as they would be useless since, all the material can now be obtained online? Grading papers can be done by software applications recording answers by the students. What about the standardized tests, also, can be graded by software applications. Like the saying goes, "careful what you ask, you might just get it."

Defund the charter schools? You do realize that both the funding for charter schools (because more students selected them) and the number of charter schools have gone up in the U.S. since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

Similarly the number of students attending private schools instead of public schools has gone up since the beginning of the pandemic. This is because many private schools opened on-site for classes while public schools did not. In fact, the pandemic has been a boon for private schools.

Trying to claim that the COVID pandemic is s tool being used by liberals to destroy charter schools, private schools, and on-line education is simply demonstrating itself not to be true when the facts & figures are evaluated. All three areas have had extreme growth over the past 8 months.

 

[smallfil]

Defund the charter schools? You do realize that both the funding for charter schools (because more students selected them) and the number of charter schools have gone up in the U.S. since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

Similarly the number of students attending private schools instead of public schools has gone up since the beginning of the pandemic. This is because many private schools opened on-site for classes while public schools did not. In fact, the pandemic has been a boon for private schools.

Trying to claim that the COVID pandemic is s tool being used by liberals to destroy charter schools, private schools, and on-line education is simply demonstrating itself not to be true when the facts & figures are evaluated. All three areas have had extreme growth over the past 8 months.

Actually, I support the efforts of radical teachers union efforts to send education online. It would end the indoctrination of children into the so called merits of Socialism and Communist and to hate all things American. Teachers who support such nonsense will find themselves without jobs soon enough. Whatever the funding levels for charter schools, extreme liberals would certainly, try to remove it. I am sure the move to online education would succeed at some level because there are too many extreme liberal politicians already in power. All that remains is force people into it.

 

[Tsing Tao]

Trying to claim that the COVID pandemic is s tool being used by liberals to destroy charter schools, private schools, and on-line education is simply demonstrating itself not to be true when the facts & figures are evaluated. All three areas have had extreme growth over the past 8 months.

I don't think this is what liberals thought would happen. As with all other crises, liberals are very good at starting a fire, but not thinking about how they're going to put them out or where the fire will spread to. They suck at that.

 

[Tsing Tao]

What we are doing to our children with "Remote learning" is a disaster beyond pale. Those of you complicit in it should be ashamed of yourselves for what you are forcing children into. It is unlikely you will ever admit your massive mistakes prior to the ends of your miserable lives - such is the level of cultism on COVID.


‘Remote learning’ is a disaster, and terrible for children

At every pediatrician appointment for the last several years, I’ve been asked about how much “screen time” my kids are getting. I’m reminded by the doctor that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends children younger than two avoid digital media other than video chatting. And for children ages 2 to 5, the limit is supposed to be one hour of high-quality children’s programming per day.

It wasn’t just pediatricians sounding the alarm on the dangers of screen time. Every child expert for the last decade has warned about the dangers of too much: in young kids its impact on brain development, fine and gross motor skills; and for everyone its linkage to obesity and short attention spans. A growing kids podcast industry has sprouted trying to offer parents screen-free alternatives, and one of the most popular topics of conversation in parenting groups is weaning kids off of screens.

Those days of warning about screen time are gone.

Over the summer, the AAP released its recommendations for the coming school year and unequivocally pushed for “[the] goal of having students physically present in school.” And yet, despite their lengthy recommendations on the importance of reopening schools and details regarding how to do so safely, there wasn’t a single mention of how detrimental all-day online learning would be for children, especially those in elementary school.

The importance of in-person learning, yes. The detriments of distancing learning, no.

In countless homeschooling Facebook groups I’m a member of, we see new arrivals asking for guidance on where to begin homeschooling. These exasperated parents explain they are pulling the plug on distance learning because their kids simply can’t handle it. Friends post pictures of their children curled in a ball facing away from the desk after several hours, others describe screaming, sobbing and outbursts after children as young as five are left feeling fried after being expected to stay engaged six hours a day online.

What benefit is there to keeping kids tied to these screens all day, every day? How much learning is even happening? My friend Mary explained that she chose homeschool instead of distance learning this year because she didn’t want to be a “Zoom butler.”

Parents are spending big bucks on fancy home setups for virtual school
Another friend described all of the “impossible” technical expectations of her daughter’s teachers for students who have never used PowerPoint or even manipulated a mouse, and explained, “This requires full caregiver engagement.”

Rory Cooper, a father in Virginia tweeted this week, “I just got a brisk two-line email from my kid’s Kindergarten teacher informing us that our 5 [year old] isn’t participating in ‘virtual class’ and I’m fuming. He didn’t draw a monster. This is day 6. Note: they asked parents to not participate and let kids be independent. Nevertheless we are *very* much involved. BUT HE’S 5.”

Responding to a viral TikTok video showing a teacher spend five minutes trying to show a student how to unmute his mic, Noah Rothman, a father in New Jersey tweeted “On the other end [of the screen] are around 20+ children who are being told to click the chat box, fill out the form, submit the form, and click the mute button when done to tell the teacher they’re all set, but who cannot read yet so needs you to do it all for them.”

For older kids it’s also exhausting, but as teenagers do, they find a way around being glued to Zoom all day. The father of one teen told me most of the class time is spent trying to make sure everyone is paying attention. Another caretaker for kids distance learning told me about how students in local classes have figured out how to take a screenshot of themselves looking engaged and set that as their photo, set their computers to be muted, and then go watch television in another room.

Naomi Shafer Riley, resident fellow at AEI and the author of Be the Parent Please, a book with tough love for parents struggling with how to handle screen time told me, “Watching a young child on a screen for several hours at a time is like witnessing the life being sapped out of them. I don’t mean to exaggerate but we know that excessive screen time is correlated with higher rates of obesity, shorter attention spans, and a decreased ability to read emotional cues from other people.”

Meghan Cox Gurdon, the author of a landmark book, “The Enchanted Hour,” on the power of reading out loud in our distracted world told me, “What kids are getting from Zoom sessions tends to be so thin, so stretched from connection and feeling. It’s not a knock against teachers, it’s the medium, it’s just not good enough, not human enough.”

Gurdon recommends parents spend an hour a day reading to their children instead. She explains, “The brilliant thing with books — with poetry and nonfiction and storybooks and goofy picture books and classic novels and books at every level — is that you have curated language that is much broader than anything a teacher will say over Zoom or that you and your children may say to each other in the course of daily life.”

The answer to fixing education this year isn’t just reading out loud, but it is surprising how much even an older child can gain from the practice.

What’s clear is that distance-learning isn’t just a waste of time, it is actually doing harm to children. And worst of all, it is those we have entrusted with their safety that are putting it in jeopardy.

 

[Tsing Tao]

Illinois school district restricting any student who travels to a state on the travel ban list from virtual learning when they return. Please read that again.

If you travel to a state that is not approved by the county, when you get back you cannot learn from the safety of your home in a virtual environment.

How is this even remotely logical? Answer, it isn't. it is trying to force compliance illegally.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1306639602653040640