Remote learning has been a failure per CMS

[CRA]

On 1/29/2021 at 2:32 PM, Whatev said:

 

In terms of treating all kids in the same manner causing more problems?  This is why school choice may be an even bigger issue in the near future.  Parents that are seeing a failed public school product will move to homeschooling or private schools to provide what they feel is a better education.  Homeschool filings tripled in 2020 from the prior year.  As we see more and more of teachers that choose not to go in-person, obvious grades are falling rapidly, lost students, and counties just writing off EOG/testing grades, you're going to see 2021 a continued increase in homeschooling.  

Well, I was addressing the mindset of making all kids repeat their grade this year.  Which would be a blanket action that does more harm than good. 

I got no problem with homeschooling.  Private schooling.  Whatever.   People should have choices in all avenues of life. I'm sure the trend of home schooling, private, etc will continue to grow. 

But I want to live in a nice world.  Which means the public education system and the investment in it remains vital.   And I only want tax dollars going to public education.   

All schools are different.  But I will say, my children's elementary school teachers this year have done a fantastic job given the hand that was dealt.    And yeah, it has been a nightmare for them, us and our children.    Two separate statements.   Teachers have no control over the pandemic wrecking our normal way of life. 

[d-dave]

I talked about this in a TB post, but I've also been thinking a lot about it (I dunno, my job I guess) as we get ready to return to in person instruction at my school.

COVID has shown how fragile our country is.  Most of us depend on jobs that have been severely impacted by shutdowns.  Many people are dealing with the physical, emotional, and financial disasters that COVID inflicts and leaves on the survivors.  We are truly interdependent upon each other, despite the most furious responses from bootstrappers!

At this point, in person school should be a goal.  A reward, if you will, for people getting their communities in order over the vaccine.  People should also know that in person school right now is not real school.  No hands on assignments, no small group work, no relating to your peers.  It's kind of like prison.  Or more generously, it's a place where your kids go to be supervised doing online work.  Fun?  Right?

Teachers and school staff should have been way up the list of people who needed to get vaccinated.  Right now, schools are having real trouble keeping teachers in their classrooms due to the rampant community spread and the need to quarantine. 

Healthy schools are vital to the success of the community.  They need to be treated as such.  That doesn't let parents off the hook because they need to be engaged with their kids.  When I was in my methods class, a speaker from a local school system came and and talked about the social contract that exists between schools and communities.  The gist was that they needed to work hand in hand.

Right now, there is such an adversarial relationship between communities and schools.  It needs to come back together.  People need to realize that schools are here to help.

[Anybodyhome]

On 1/29/2021 at 2:32 PM, Whatev said:

Parents that are seeing a failed public school product will move to homeschooling or private schools to provide what they feel is a better education. 

Neither of these is even a remote possibility in the underserved communities of color.

[Whatev]

17 hours ago, Anybodyhome said:

Neither of these is even a remote possibility in the underserved communities of color.

I know.  Which is why the divide between the haves and have nots will expand.  Only individuals from underserved communities of color that will benefit will be “sponsored” athletes to private schools by endowments or private donors to prop up their sport programs.

[Zaximus]

On 1/28/2021 at 9:52 AM, Anybodyhome said:

Here's what's not being said:

"I'm tired of my kid being home and I have to adjust my schedule. Put 'em back in school so I can get on with my life."

"I can't afford day care and I depend on the school for that."

"It's not my job to teach my kids or make sure they're getting their studies done."

 

 

This.    People are mad their free babysitter isn't at their beck and call right now.    It's really ironic because a lot of them are the first to cry out against the big "S" word with helping out your fellow man.  It's the same crap when snow days happened but obviously a larger scale.    But there is a larger social issue with this if people would look at it differently.    It's pointing out that, pre-covid even, the system is just broke, from school to a normal family spending their life working (both parents mostly) and having little time for their children.

 

18 hours ago, d-dave said:

I talked about this in a TB post, but I've also been thinking a lot about it (I dunno, my job I guess) as we get ready to return to in person instruction at my school.

COVID has shown how fragile our country is. 

Yup, everything is fragile.   I wish people would be jumping on the "hey maybe it's time to fund education in this country more than the MIC".     Really, people should be seeing a lot of cracks in our country but instead are narrow minded.  

[Ja Rhule]

I like how people with no kids provide their $0.02 on home schooling during pandemic haha

[Zaximus]

4 minutes ago, Ja Rhule said:

I like how people with no kids provide their $0.02 on home schooling during pandemic haha

Well when it comes to a lot of people, it really IS a babysitting thing as to the complaints but I understand that it is stressful for them.    Like I said, snow days are kind of the low level example and we should have expected this from that.    Also, as long as people with no kids still pay taxes for other people's kids to go to public school (personally I'm ok with) they have a right to say what they want.    It's really a wide society issue right now that will impact the future.    I think the proper thing to take from it is we need to invest more in education as a country.

But also, this pandemic has been unprecedented.    How can you prepare for something like the last year?   Though at this point, it's time to be prepared for the future in case more illnesses develop like this.    Invest more in making this work, invest more in your teachers, get teachers vaccinated ASAP.    Also wouldn't hurt if our government was helping people out more this last year.   It's a big combination of fail over the last year with bad leadership all around at the top.     

[Ja Rhule]

17 minutes ago, Zaximus said:

Well when it comes to a lot of people, it really IS a babysitting thing as to the complaints but I understand that it is stressful for them.    Like I said, snow days are kind of the low level example and we should have expected this from that.    Also, as long as people with no kids still pay taxes for other people's kids to go to public school (personally I'm ok with) they have a right to say what they want.    It's really a wide society issue right now that will impact the future.    I think the proper thing to take from it is we need to invest more in education as a country.

But also, this pandemic has been unprecedented.    How can you prepare for something like the last year?   Though at this point, it's time to be prepared for the future in case more illnesses develop like this.    Invest more in making this work, invest more in your teachers, get teachers vaccinated ASAP.    Also wouldn't hurt if our government was helping people out more this last year.   It's a big combination of fail over the last year with bad leadership all around at the top.     

My friends and family are all teachers and they said they can see amazing progress from some kids but complete drop from the other and it all depends on parents involvement in child’s education.  School in my opinion provides program but parents must make sure child follows that program.  My friend is teacher and have kids of her own and she said it’s been a struggle but she is for staying home until pandemic is gone.

There were times when my kids were up until almost midnight doing homework cause we had no time for them and they were struggling so we had to find time.  It’s sucks but it is what it is.

[d-dave]

On 1/29/2021 at 2:32 PM, Whatev said:

Parents that are seeing a failed public school product will move to homeschooling or private schools to provide what they feel is a better education.  Homeschool filings tripled in 2020 from the prior year.  As we see more and more of teachers that choose not to go in-person, obvious grades are falling rapidly, lost students, and counties just writing off EOG/testing grades, you're going to see 2021 a continued increase in homeschooling.  

This has been a thing for a LONG time, prior to the pandemic. 

Also, keep in mind that most teachers don't have a choice about remaining virtual compared to in-person. 

One thing that sticks out to me in this debate has been how the proponents of returning to in-person always talk about the grades, failure, getting behind and a litany of other things which do no matter.  I'm in my 17th year of teaching, and I've realized that the most important lessons aren't learned from direct instruction.  It's all of the socializing, dealing with crap from peers and teachers, learning to function, and how to learn a skill.  They won't use 90% of what they learn, but they will be taught things the rest of their life.  That why content based testing is such a poor metric for success.

In 17 years, I've seen my fair share of kids who had perfect attendance who did not learn how to function.  They might have great grades, but fail out of college.  Academics don't matter if the kids don't learn how to function at home.

When we talk about the funding gap between inner city schools and suburban schools, it has much more to do with the type of experiences and general attitude of the school more so than having the newest textbooks or computers running out the ying-yang.  Kids remember experiences.  They develop skills over time (several school years). 

Those things are being missed.  But it comes down to if the kids really mattered, then COVID would have been handled better from the get go.  School funding wouldn't be an issue, and teacher training wouldn't be concentrating so hard on the TESTING.

[Whatev]

But without testing and monitoring of progress, merit scholarships on academic accomplishments or even just college acceptances become more subjective.  We've already seen how colleges act when admissions policies are put into the hands of humans with agendas.  My niece was valedictorian of one of the schools in the top 10 in the state across the board.  She didn't get into the school she wanted (Ivy league).  She got into the top state funded school though and she'll do great.  She was captain of one of sport teams as well.  Active with camp for children in summers.  Then they see a David Hogg get into Harvard.  

Honestly, I wouldn't know where to start dealing with the issues with public schools.  Too many distractions put onto teachers by administration and too many non-education centric policies believing that supersedes the basics/classic education.  There are public schools and districts that boast a majority of students who aren't at grade(s) level of reading yet we're promoting them.  This is a snowball that's disturbing.  Couple that with parents that don't give a crap and we end up with what's being seen in Chicago where kids are living out GTA.  And it's not just Chicago.  

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/01/29/chicago-carjacking-14-year-old-charged/

 

[Whatev]

32 minutes ago, Ja Rhule said:

My friends and family are all teachers and they said they can see amazing progress from some kids but complete drop from the other and it all depends on parents involvement in child’s education.  School in my opinion provides program but parents must make sure child follows that program.  My friend is teacher and have kids of her own and she said it’s been a struggle but she is for staying home until pandemic is gone.

There were times when my kids were up until almost midnight doing homework cause we had no time for them and they were struggling so we had to find time.  It’s sucks but it is what it is.

Some are legit.  But you also have two extremes.  One, kids just aren't showing up and doing anything.  And two, kids are cheating at levels never seen before.  There was a recent article where a school board is arguing that grades for homework, quizzes, and tests shouldn't be factored in as much if they can pass the end of year exam and show they know the material.  Ever thought they could be cheating on that one exam?  Showing you know the material throughout is a pretty good indicator of someone's grasp of a subject.  

 

[Ja Rhule]

12 minutes ago, Whatev said:

Some are legit.  But you also have two extremes.  One, kids just aren't showing up and doing anything.  And two, kids are cheating at levels never seen before.  There was a recent article where a school board is arguing that grades for homework, quizzes, and tests shouldn't be factored in as much if they can pass the end of year exam and show they know the material.  Ever thought they could be cheating on that one exam?  Showing you know the material throughout is a pretty good indicator of someone's grasp of a subject.  

 

The teacher actually email multiple times asking the parents to stop taking students tests cause she knows which students get the subject and which one are clueless.

[Whatev]

1 minute ago, Ja Rhule said:

The teacher actually email multiple times asking the parents to stop taking students tests cause she knows which students get the subject and which one are clueless.

Look.  We had the woman from Full House spending 100s of thousands to cheat the system to get her girls into universities.  We have payoffs to SAT proctors looking past people having someone take the SAT for them or outright adjust their scantrons.  You don't think parents, now armed with the ability to step in and help their child cheat isn't going to happen?  It's naive to think they won't and school systems/teacher's unions don't seem to care.  Upper echelon schools/universities still doing virtual have spent lots of money on systems that monitor the kids IN the virtual screen and shut down tests if they feel something's not right.  This isn't the same for joe schmo's kid in public schools.  

[Davidson Deac II]

I don't know that many parents with school age kids, as my son graduated college, and most of our friends are the same age as me.  

I do know 1 or 2 though that are excelling with remote learning.  Fewer distractions, and they are not being bullied every day.  So there are some advantages to it.