Goldtent TA Paradise

LETS JUST FORGET ABOUT THE DEVESTATING AFFECT OF SCHOOL CLOSURES…PLEASE LETS MOVE ON

1. Fullgoldcrown says:

   November 4, 2022 - 8:42 am at 8:42 am

   The Associated Press ran a very interesting story last week headlined, “Online school put US kids behind. Some adults have regrets.” It’s interesting standing alone, for what it reveals about our so-called “expert” class, but also because in hindsight it telegraphed the new “move on” amnesty narrative.

   First, the statistics from around the country really show Florida — which rejected the experts’ advice to keep schools closed — as a standout among large-population states. According to the AP, the relative share of 2020-21 school year average student time spent in virtual learning was:

   California: 71.2%

   Washington: 59.2%

   Texas: 11.3%

   Connecticut: 10.7%

   Rhode Island: 9.5%

   Florida: 3.2%

   Experts are baffled that areas under democrat rule fared the worst. Again. It’s probably Trump’s fault.

   For example, from March 2020 to June 2021, the average student in Chicago lost 21 weeks of learning in reading and 20 weeks in math, equivalent to missing half a year of school. Nationally, kids whose schools met virtually in the 2020-2021 school year performed on average 13% worse in math and 8% worse in reading, compared with schools that met in person, according to recent a study by the aforementioned Professor Emily Oster.

   The socialist utopia of California, which mandated the highest levels of pandemic virtual school, and which spent the most money on schools during the pandemic, fared the worst. This headline appeared in the journal EdSource back in March:

   Thanks, experts! What would kids do without you?

   We’ve learned another thing about experts, beyond the fact that they are more than useless, they’re outright dangerous if you give them ANY power or authority at all. On top of that, experts are cowardly bullies, who should be resigning in disgrace, but instead obviously intend to trying to bluster it out. P.G. Wodehouse described the phenomenon well; it’s like when you catch your native guide with his hand in your cigar case, and he says he was just tidying them up for you.

   Our public health experts have now tidied up almost all of our cigars, and the case is practically empty.

   But things got even more interesting when I realized the story was really battlespace preparation for the new amnesty narrative. The AP noted that, quite unfortunately, the discussion among educators has become “inflammatory,” involving “debate” and “sharp disagreement.” More conflict, sadly. The main disagreement seems to revolve around the “fear the term [learning loss] might … cast blame on teachers.”

   Not blame! Blame is toxic to experts, and politicians for that matter. They simply can’t stand blame, not at all. They’re quite allergic to blame, actually.

   The AP said it interviewed over 50 people for the story, and some public health officials and educators darkly “warned against second-guessing the school closures.” Austin Beutner, ‘former’ superintendent in Los Angeles, said “It is very easy with hindsight to say, ‘oh, learning loss, we should have opened.’ People forget how many people died.”

   No! Wrong, Austin. WE DIDN’T FORGET. We remember it very well. We remember that the people who died were almost all (1) very old with (2) multiple comorbidities, and (3) that covid barely affected kids, who simply do not usually suffer from high-risk comorbidities like diabetes, morbid obesity, dementia, and hypertension.

   And we also remember that YOU KNEW all of that information, but you gaslit us and told us to shut up and closed the schools anyway, all while we were screaming at you to stop during school board meetings.

   We forget NOTHING.

   Some superintendents said they wish they could’ve shifted the blame onto other people. Tony Wold, ‘former’ associate superintendent of West Contra Costa Unified School District, east of San Francisco, said “Schools should never have been placed in a situation where we have choice. With lessons learned, when you have a public health pandemic, there needs to be a single voice.”

   A single voice who could’ve taken the blame, he means. But in his haste to shift the blame, Wold didn’t realize that he was also admitting they are all defective morons who never should’ve been trusted with kids lives in the first place.

   We’d already figured THAT out. But thanks for admitting it.

   Now, watch this next part. Midway through the article, the AP summarized the debate like this: “Many adults are pushing to move on, to stop talking about the impact of the pandemic — especially learning loss.”

   “Pushing to move on … and stop talking about learning loss.” And there is was, leaping off the screen: MOVE ON!

   Just like we thought. The new narrative.

   The AP then proposed a bunch of harebrained solutions to the learning loss problem, which most of its experts conceded was massive in scope. One expert advised, “we need something on the scale of the Marshall plan.” Something BIG. And, oddly, all the AP’s suggestions involved dumping a lot MORE money on schools, and were all completely impractical, like holding all-day weekend tutoring for all students.

   But, for some reason, nowhere in the story appeared the patently obvious idea to just cut out bizarre diversity and social education, and focus on STEM. That’d get you an extra two days a week right there. Plus, you could cancel “teacher workdays” and goofy holidays like Columbus Day, Martin Luther King Day, and Kwanzaa, or whatever it’s called; and teachers can just prepare their lessons on weekends and evenings.

   But what do I know? I’m just a lawyer, not an expert with an “education degree.” I’m betting nothing will change except teachers’ union demands for higher administrative salaries.

2. Chartsmaster says:

   November 4, 2022 - 9:00 am at 9:00 am

   “California has the lowest literacy rate of any state”. How else do you explain them voting over and over for politicians such as Pelosi, Harris, Newsome, et al.?

3. pedro_deleon says:

   November 4, 2022 - 10:24 am at 10:24 am

   My son spent 3 years in grade school in one of the better San Diego area public school systems. This was 20 years ago. It was quite eye opening. He was young still, but it took him 4-5 years in a better Colorado school to recover from the low expectations they set in CA. Spelling and writing skills were particularly neglected, and only now as an adult are those skills coming around for him.