NY Times: Pandemic School Closures were Harmful and Useless

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/upshot/pandemic-school-closures-data.html

History is coming for the into-2021 school closure champions.

@sh76 said
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/upshot/pandemic-school-closures-data.html

History is coming for the into-2021 school closure champions.

Who's that sh?

Come on, I know your natural instincts tell you to blame the pansy libbies, but our leader was too busy yelling about rigged elections that hadn't happened yet. Too chicken to make a decision.

Meanwhile we ran out of teachers. Maybe instead of a blame game, it could be lessons learned. Enact clear national guidelines, prepare schools for situations where immune compromised kids or caregivers had a means for learning, make sure teachers unions are on board with the plan, don't vote for demagogues who only care about their self image.

@wildgrass said
Who's that sh?

Come on, I know your natural instincts tell you to blame the pansy libbies, but our leader was too busy yelling about rigged elections that hadn't happened yet. Too chicken to make a decision.

Meanwhile we ran out of teachers. Maybe instead of a blame game, it could be lessons learned. Enact clear national guidelines, prepare schools for situations wher ...[text shortened]... s unions are on board with the plan, don't vote for demagogues who only care about their self image.

To start with, I'm not blaming any specific political philosophy. I'm blaming the people who kept schools into the 2020-2021 school year (and especially beyond that). I don't care what their other political beliefs are.

And we didn't "run out of" anything. Of course teachers who were given the option of going to work or staying home and getting paid the same were going to opt to stay home in large numbers. We didn't need to give them that option. We could have told them to show up to work or lose their incomes. You know, like every other job.

@sh76 said
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/upshot/pandemic-school-closures-data.html

History is coming for the into-2021 school closure champions.

Of course school closures were and are harmful, so is amputating a limb but it’s better than dying of gangrene.
Without the context of the harms that would have been caused without severe lockdown which is something we’ll never know because there were far too many people and organisations ignoring the shut downs and distancing / mask mandates

@kevcvs57 said
Of course school closures were and are harmful, so is amputating a limb but it’s better than dying of gangrene.
Without the context of the harms that would have been caused without severe lockdown which is something we’ll never know because there were far too many people and organisations ignoring the shut downs and distancing / mask mandates

somehow you think your post addresses SH.’s post?

@kevcvs57 said
Of course school closures were and are harmful, so is amputating a limb but it’s better than dying of gangrene.
Without the context of the harms that would have been caused without severe lockdown which is something we’ll never know because there were far too many people and organisations ignoring the shut downs and distancing / mask mandates

The article addresses that element as well:

That was largely unknown in the spring of 2020, when schools first shut down. But several experts said that had changed by the fall of 2020, when there were initial signs that children were less likely to become seriously ill, and growing evidence from Europe and parts of the United States that opening schools, with safety measures, did not lead to significantly more transmission.

“Infectious disease leaders have generally agreed that school closures were not an important strategy in stemming the spread of Covid,” said Dr. Jeanne Noble, who directed the Covid response at the U.C.S.F. Parnassus emergency department.

If only we had listened to Trump

@wildgrass said
Who's that sh?

Come on, I know your natural instincts tell you to blame the pansy libbies, but our leader was too busy yelling about rigged elections that hadn't happened yet. Too chicken to make a decision.

Meanwhile we ran out of teachers. Maybe instead of a blame game, it could be lessons learned. Enact clear national guidelines, prepare schools for situations wher ...[text shortened]... s unions are on board with the plan, don't vote for demagogues who only care about their self image.

who gives a fuk about teachers. americans already ask them to shield their kids with their bodies during mass shootings, to buy school supplies out of their own money, to live on measly salaries.

what's asking them to come to work during a pandemic?

@sh76 said
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/upshot/pandemic-school-closures-data.html

History is coming for the into-2021 school closure champions.

the article itself says "there is a debate when exactly was safe to open schools", your big brain comes up the grand interpretation "pandemic school closures were useless and harmful"


You're the smart right winger on this forum, huh? Well, considering who you have for competition...

@sh76 said
The article addresses that element as well:

That was largely unknown in the spring of 2020, when schools first shut down. But several experts said that had changed by the fall of 2020, when there were initial signs that children were less likely to become seriously ill, and growing evidence from Europe and parts of the United States that opening schools, with safety me ...[text shortened]... eanne Noble, who directed the Covid response at the U.C.S.F. Parnassus emergency department.

oooh, several experts. more than 1 definitely.

i am convinced.

" when there were initial signs that children were less likely to become seriously ill,"
first of all less likely doesn't mean jack. It's still a problem. Children could and did become seriously ill

Secondly the point was to limit as much as possible the movement of people, to limit the spread between as many people as possible. To slow down how many people get sick so the hospitals don't get overrun. Which many already were.

You didn't think of that, did you? Maybe if you didn't prance around with a NY times opinion piece who went through the trouble of citing one expert's opinion in one paragraph of an article that mainly whined how american children aren't as good at math as they were before the pandemic.

@sh76 said
To start with, I'm not blaming any specific political philosophy. I'm blaming the people who kept schools into the 2020-2021 school year (and especially beyond that). I don't care what their other political beliefs are.

And we didn't "run out of" anything. Of course teachers who were given the option of going to work or staying home and getting paid the same were going to opt ...[text shortened]... n. We could have told them to show up to work or lose their incomes. You know, like every other job.

We could have told them to show up to work or lose their incomes. You know, like every other job.

Normally I would agree, but times are changing. Technology and a strong job market is changing the way people work. It's no longer "like every other job" since an increasing number of people work from home - pandemic or no.

reading these posts by the libs here it is easy to see why they walk around with their hands out hoping the govt will give them a handout of someone else’s money.

@mott-the-hoople said
reading these posts by the libs here it is easy to see why they walk around with their hands out hoping the govt will give them a handout of someone else’s money.

The people most in possession of other people's money is corporate execs and Republicans.

@sh76 said
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/upshot/pandemic-school-closures-data.html

History is coming for the into-2021 school closure champions.

The article has a chart showing the decline in math test scores for grades 3 to 8. It shows that even in schools that did not close at all in 2020-21 or were closed, at most 10% of the time, scores declined anyway by .35 of a grade equivalent. Schools that were closed 90 to 100% of the school year showed a .57 grade equivalent drop.

The obvious conclusion is that most of the decline wasn't caused by school closures, but by the effects of the pandemic itself.

And although the article tries to discount the cost in sickness, hospitalizations and deaths that the school closures avoided ( disingenuously concentrating on the effects on kids rather than the millions of teachers and other school staff that would been exposed to a deadly virus and who would have exposed others in turn), it miserably fails to make a logical argument that these costs would have been worth bearing to avoid such a, at most assuming a year long remote learning program, 22 grade equivalent drop in test scores (which seems minor).

@sh76 said
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/upshot/pandemic-school-closures-data.html

History is coming for the into-2021 school closure champions.

It is, of course, incorrect to describe what happened as "school closures". The schools remained open for remote learning. And teachers, like many others during the pandemic, continued to "do their job" from their homes or other places without being exposed to, and exposing others to, an increased risk of sickness and death.