NY Times: Pandemic School Closures were Harmful and Useless

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

not true…the money was not given to them and they did not steal it. as opposed to you bottom dwellers being given my tax dollars

black

@no1marauder said
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 ...[text shortened]... ng a year long remote learning program, 22 grade equivalent drop in test scores (which seems minor).

only an idiot could read that chart and say lockdowns were a good thing

@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.

Many economic studies support the statement that the pandemic exacerbated a pre-existing teacher shortage, previously stemming from the curriculum culture wars. The pandemic brought "hybrid" learning and requests by parents for distance learning for kids, and many teachers quit, took early retirement or died, so there was an immediate need to hire more teachers than were available.

Of course, "we" didn't need to give teachers the option to stay at home. they're employees like the rest of us. But... Who is we? Where were the national leaders? Word is that the trump white house had a policy to do as little as possible so they wouldn't get blamed for anything, leaving the school superintendents scrambling to appease diverse interests of working parents, scared grandmas, and underpaid teachers.

You wanna blame the teachers? How do we fix for next time?

@mott-the-hoople said
If only we had listened to Trump

You refer to the man who was president of the branch of government that controls DHHS, the CDC and DOE?

I can only imagine the mental gymnastics your brain is doing to not only absolve his responsibility, but to suggest he had better ideas but his employees didn't want to listen to him?

@mchill said
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.

Work from home doesn't work for elementary school teachers. That's proven.

@wildgrass said
You refer to the man who was president of the branch of government that controls DHHS, the CDC and DOE?

I can only imagine the mental gymnastics your brain is doing to not only absolve his responsibility, but to suggest he had better ideas but his employees didn't want to listen to him?

You might want to check some of the latest polls…seems an overwhelming majority agree with me. 😉

@mott-the-hoople said
You might want to check some of the latest polls…seems an overwhelming majority agree with me. 😉

Err... Wrong thread?

The question was, since trump controlled the CDC and the DOE, why didn't any of his own employees listen to him? He tweeted "open the schools" while he controlled the organizations capable of making that happen.

@no1marauder said
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.

Here's the solution for those too afraid to live life, stay home forever and always.

You'll be safe there.

@wildgrass said
Err... Wrong thread?

The question was, since trump controlled the CDC and the DOE, why didn't any of his own employees listen to him? He tweeted "open the schools" while he controlled the organizations capable of making that happen.

Agreed wildgrass, the only thing Trump did wrong during the wuflu drama was bend to the so called power tripping experts. History has totally vindicated the anti-lock downers.

Never again, people need resist more next time, a lot more.

"Next time?" you ask. That's right, the next time they pull this stunt you better grow a pair.

' "Emergencies" have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded' Hayek

@wajoma said
Here's the solution for those too afraid to live life, stay home forever and always.

You'll be safe there.

The only reasonable conclusion to the data presented is how trivial the costs of such preventative measures were compared to the benefits in lives saved, hospitalizations averted and sickness avoided.

Those who advocated such life saving measures are completely vindicated by such reality based data rather than the Dream World feelings of fanatics like yourself who deny the ability of society to protect its members from deadly diseases based on a non-existent "right" of an individual to spread sickness if he chooses to.

@no1marauder said
The only reasonable conclusion to the data presented is how trivial the costs of such preventative measures were compared to the benefits in lives saved, hospitalizations averted and sickness avoided.

Those who advocated such life saving measures are completely vindicated by such reality based data rather than the Dream World feelings of fanatics like yourself who deny ...[text shortened]... eadly diseases based on a non-existent "right" of an individual to spread sickness if he chooses to.

You have to prove a person is spreading sickness, you can't lock people up because they might.

Apart from that the wuflu was rife in among fully juiced up people.

If you feel unsafe stay home. People that are happy to interact with each other can go about their business, goobermint has no role in that.

Stossel

YouTube

@no1marauder said
The only reasonable conclusion to the data presented is how trivial the costs of such preventative measures were compared to the benefits in lives saved, hospitalizations averted and sickness avoided.

Those who advocated such life saving measures are completely vindicated by such reality based data rather than the Dream World feelings of fanatics like yourself who deny ...[text shortened]... eadly diseases based on a non-existent "right" of an individual to spread sickness if he chooses to.

The data showed the "preventative measure" was not effective. Theres a whole section of the article saying that school closures did not work as a strategy to slow transmission.

@wildgrass said
The data showed the "preventative measure" was not effective. Theres a whole section of the article saying that school closures did not work as a strategy to slow transmission.

I read the article; it gives nothing but conclusory statements at odds with reality regarding the health benefits of school "closures".

No one can possibly seriously deny that moving to remote learning rather than in-person learning saved lives and lessened the incidence of hospitalizations and sickness. The only question is how much of this misery you would be willing to accept to avoid a trivial drop in test scores (the data given says even an entire change from one to the other for a full year only caused an approximate two month decline in scores).

The type of "cost-balance" analysis the authors and people like sh76 have proposed have consistently overrated the costs and ignored the benefits. It's good to see an analysis that FINALLY admitted that the pandemic itself had a negative effect of learning regardless of what local school boards did but there is still no realistic assessment of the health benefits obtained by a policy of remote learning at least until the vaccine was widely available.

@wildgrass said
The data showed the "preventative measure" was not effective. Theres a whole section of the article saying that school closures did not work as a strategy to slow transmission.

an entire section? in a nytimes opinion piece? based on out of context quotes and unsupported claims?

say no more, i am convinced.

@zahlanzi said
an entire section? in a nytimes opinion piece? based on out of context quotes and unsupported claims?

say no more, i am convinced.

I mean, it's not opinion. The referenced articles in the NYT are highly rigorous scientific research from major medical journals. Sometimes needs to be dumbed down for the rest of us, but you're welcome to read them and provide a real rebuttal of the findings.