Here’s a basic point I’ve been making for at least a dozen years, including in my book, and will now do again: the educational function of public schools, while certainly of prime importance, is the secondary function of public schools.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the downside to staying open is potentially more than you allow. If it is really true 70% of students are staying home and there is no remote anything, that is a problem.
I'm not particularly in favor of closures. But there is that other thing on the other side of the ledger that is worth acknowledging. Isn't that half the point of this article, to concede the situation is complicated?
Well, as I said it isn't my preference. But if a large majority of students aren't going to come those two weeks anyway, at least they would get some instruction instead of no instruction if school is remote. Is an argument one could make. Not one I find compelling. But you said you wanted charity to opposing perspectives and I am attempting that here.
So are we talking about the poor kids or the middle-class-and-up kids? I think not specifying that will cloud the issue.
(My nephew had snow days last week, and apparently . . . did no work at all? Not even remote lessons? For the middle-to-upper-class kids like my nephew, "snow days" really shouldn't exist. You do the work at home or do the work at school.)
How long is this wave going to last? I am confident that numbers will be back down to December levels in RI by the end of January. "Two weeks" is feeling optimistic now that we're one week into this wave (in terms of school time). We're probably more like a week to 10 days from the peak here.
We truly have no idea what next week will be like in school. Will cases have doubled or quadrupled from a base of 10-20%? It is certainly possible. Maybe not?!? Nobody knows.
Anyhow, a lack of a baseline for when we could return is the problem. All the schools we are talking about were still running in December. How long to get back to that point?
Yeah, someone else mentioned (sarcastically, I assumed) corralling kids in the gym, and, well... why not? We use them for emergency shelters all the time. You'd need to get volunteers or some kind of extra supervision obviously, and it certainly might not work everywhere, but having at least *the option* of going to school, even if they're just playing games or watching movies, seems like it would be better than nothing in many cases. It would be nice to see people just trying different solutions, even if some ultimately don't work out.
The CPS are closed again tomorrow and the options at churches, rec centers, libraries are all a little different so would take a lot of planning for any parent. Yes, do not see how public institutions offer religious options as alternatives.
My experience is that there's very little time for explicit proselytizing. Maybe a pamphlet if someone remembers to bring them along. Definitely saying a prayer before a meal.
You could find out yourself by volunteering with one of their various drives. You'll likely need to bite your tongue as people say things you disagree with behind the scenes, but once they're at the point of making sure the homeless people eat a meal and/or have a place to sleep, there's things to do and you stay busy.
I'm warning you all right now, you better mind your Ps and Qs about this one, because I am in earnest. And if you decide to cancel your subscription because I'm hard on you here, just do it, don't tell me, I don't give a shit.
Edit: actually do what you want, I'm gonna mute this thread out of a desire not to ban or insult people. Sometimes that's the best move.
Not trying to be snide but your linked study looked at children's deaths during the first 12 months of the pandemic. That's pre-Delta and pre-Omicron. Pediatric hospital admissions are rising significantly ( see English data here https://www.ilpandacentrostudio.it/uk.html?s=09).
This is not to say that your point is wrong but that we shouldn't be so confident that children face minimal risk.
Risk to children remains absolutely minimal and I will no tolerate misinformation on this subject in the comments here. There is absolutely no responsible data or analysis that regards Covid as anything other than a tiny risk to children. So format your next comment appropriately.
Well, I agree this is hard. All sorts of things need to be balanced.
If there’s a 30% attendance rate at the school referenced in that Tweet, 70% of kids are not warm, fed, nurtured, learning at school or otherwise.
In places where the hospitals are full (and in my region, our hospitals have been over capacity and sending people elsewhere multiple times) it might just represent the greatest good for the greatest number to cancel school (and close bars, restaurants, casinos, bowling alleys, movie theatres, indoor sports) for a couple weeks when cases get too high.
It’s not good to do those things. It’s not desirable. It causes harms to some, to try to protect the well being of the group. It’s not neat or easy.
I agree, as someone who attended school gladly and enjoyed being around kind and sometimes nurturing adults there (and appreciated the food), that the attitude of “let them eat Zoom” is annoying and offensive and forgets our most vulnerable kids.
But yeah this is super complicated with so many competing needs. I do wish it were treated as such.
Why harm literally the most vulnerable? Poor children. They are the most vulnerable. Somehow they keep being the ones to sacrifice for the well being of the group. People like me can just click away on our laptops at home. Whose well being am I "sacrificing" for, then?
Yeah I mean when we got back from Christmas break I had three different students tell me that they got COVID over break. They said that it sucked, but I'm sure they'll be fine. However, one students' Dad was in the hospital presently (had just gotten off of a ventilator thankfully) and another had two grandparents hospitalized. Seems pretty bad.
I agree it is worse than it's commonly portrayed. The whole "covid is not bad for kids" was pre-omicron (for omicron the jury is still out, but there are way, way more pediatric covid patients showing up at hospitals now), and as you note, the kids don't live in a vacuum: they live with people who are often more vulnerable than they. I hope your students and their families will be OK.
Yeah when I said it's super complicated with many competing needs, I really meant: "we’re just going to periodically shut society down whenever there’s an increase in respiratory illnesses going forward." ;)
If you summarize someone's portion of the conversation by grossly oversimplifying it, as if I'm a germophobic dimwit who wants to "shut society down" henceforth when anyone has the sniffles, you're essentially creating a conversational opponent who doesn't exist. That's not what I said or what I meant. You're arguing with someone who isn't there. And so, what's the point?
Assuming you don't have a magic wand to make things all better, do you suggest the opposite simple thing: Keep everything open no matter what the cost? I would assume no. So what do you actually think would be helpful?
I’m of the opinion we should keep everything open. We have vaccines available to all who want one and more therapeutic treatments on the way. If you’re sick or immunocompromised or whatever else feel free to stay home and isolate.
And many of those 22 million kids that get free or reduced price meals come from single parent homes. School's closed means no paycheck that week. I'm sure the 2.2k Likes is worth it though.
I want schools open, so does my teacher-wife. The main problem they have been dealing with is that there just aren't enough healthy teachers. They are all vaccinated, but still every week a bunch get sick and need to isolate. Outbreaks in schools get publicized, so the supply teachers know where to avoid. The result is not having enough staff to run the school. Throw in a bunch of union imposed rules and it's a clusterfuck to organize. I don't know what to do about this.
The fact we've had 2 years to prepare and still haven't figured it out is infuriating.
It seems the primary thing people have been doing over the past 2 years is figure out how to blame the other party for whatever goes wrong, instead of reducing the number of things going wrong.
Interestingly, Josh Marshall had a recent subscriber-only post that (at least in many parts) took very much the sort of "you know, this is really complicated" tone you're looking for. A few excerpts:
– "Speaking just as a parent it has made sense to me that we’ve tried to test and isolate our way through the current Omicron wave. With widespread vaccination the stakes are simply much, much lower for the great majority of people involved. We also know more about how to do this. But we now have many schools that are spending almost all their time and resources testing, coordinating isolations and sending kids home from school with COVID. We shouldn’t act like it’s some kind of great breach of faith or war crime if a few of them decide to close for half a week.
"In the New York City public school system, in the week before winter break as cases exploded, lots of parents voted with their feet, holding kids back from school for the last two or three days before break. Many schools were down to 70% attendance. Some dropped to 50% or lower. Individual schools generally took an accommodating approach, many telling parents that they should do what felt safe to them and what made sense for their families. The schools would make sure homework was online so kids could keep up. This seemed to me like a realistic, wise course; flexible rather than doctrinal in a situation with many unknowns and considerable fear.
– "I was first prompted to write this post after reading a Twitter thread by Baltimore City Councilperson Zeke Cohen. He describes efforts by the Baltimore Teachers Union, parent groups, student groups and the city council to purchase masks and organize mass testing coming back from winter break. What was under discussion was a possible 4 to 5 day extension of winter break to make this testing possible since Baltimore is in the throes of its Omicron wave. Cohen describes being tweeted at by a public health professional from Johns Hopkins telling him that 'schools were the safest place and we didn’t care about kids' when this public health expert’s own institution has shifted to all remote for the Omicron wave."
– "Studies showing ‘learning loss’ and mental health impacts of remote learning are important but also a good deal less certain than their authors would suggest. These impacts are also harder than people let on to isolate from the broader experience of living through a pandemic – which lets all state for the record really, really sucks. I will say that even some of the people who I am aiming this post most squarely at have generated data that has helped us to understand, contextualize and act on the limited risk of school transmission and how to mitigate it. That is a huge help for all of us. They’re not the bad guys. It’s just that they have access to the biggest megaphones, the commanding heights of the culture and educational attainment that has allowed them to drown out and pigeon hole other voices and experiences which no less valuable and real. Each have different experiences and everyone is tired and a bit or much more than a bit broken."
"It’s just that they have access to the biggest megaphones, the commanding heights of the culture and educational attainment that has allowed them to drown out and pigeon hole other voices and experiences which [are] no less valuable and real."
I find this cheering. Except for the words after "experiences."
I want you guys to understand that, while I had it far better than many, I also grew up into a totally broken home in adolescence, and experienced getting locked out of my own home, sleeping in the garage, and having to ask friends to stay at their place for awhile. I was orphaned at 15 and anything resembling parental monetary support was gone by 17, after which I was on my own. So this is sensitive to me, and for that reason I'm bowing out of comments.
sounds like you should be the one commenting? tho I suppose you wrote the article.
It's not that it's not great to have a warm & safe place to go, but is a school the right option? It sounds like it was your only option? Tho I feel like so many teachers out there already feel overworked (under underpaid), I'm wondering if there isn't a better solution?
I too wish there was another option. Child poverty in the US is a massive problem. The schools are somehow supposed to solve all aspects of it : the food, the safety, the abuse investigations, the therapy, plus the learning and career development.
The schools seem like a good solution because most kids are showing up there (on pain of legal consequences for themselves or their families.) pre-pandemic that is. But some of the kids most in need were dropping out even pre-pandemic.
School was being used as an ad hoc social service agency. But that was never the first priority and it has taken a far second in the pandemic. The first priority was the attempts at teaching and learning.
The need for the social services is real but we made an error dumping it all on the schools. 17% of children having gone through child abuse investigation? That’s insane. Partly, that’s what happens when teachers are mandated reporters; they have no choice but to kick off an investigation every single time. But it’s easier to treat poverty than abuse, so the attention focuses on the families that are poor and abusive. Having the tools to reach the kids from rich & abusive families is harder; they won’t just show up for the free school supplies and pizza. They won’t go to the health fairs.
It’s way past time we build a social service system for kids and families that ISNT school based. We’ve created a society in which many people find it impossible to meet their basic needs and those of their children. The needs are desperate. The one part of this I’m not sympathetic to is that it has to be schools solving it. It shouldn’t be. Skills-training and information-teaching is not the same as social services.
There need to be more ways for teens to get emancipated and more places for them to go. Thousands and thousands of dollars go into trying to turn a ship of addicts away from the iceberg - we could just let the kids jump and swim to safety when old enough. Foster care and group home outcomes are bad because they’re under resourced.
Because we live in the world we live in, we have to “keep schools open” for the food, warmth and supervision. But I think it really is kind of backwards.
It wasn't that long ago in the U.S. when orphanages were places overwhelmed parents either turned over their children or had their children taken. I don't think it was good, but it was a fall-back. The orphan train movement (ended 1929) relocated over 250,000 children to give an idea of the scope.
Several friends of my parents had spent time in orphanages after one of their parents had died. I am not saying any of this was good, but there are no structures now that help in dire situations.
The foster care system is complex and you are correct--"It’s way past time we build a social service system for kids and families that ISNT school based."
We still had an orphanage in town when I grew up - it was open until the 90’s. You are correct that some of the kids there had parents in town that just couldn’t cope.
Sorry to see you go. I had a rough go as well in my teens, physically abusive alcoholic dad, mom killed my sister. Visits from CPS. Malnutrition diagnoses several times in childhood. Moved out just when I turned 17 my junior year of HS, lived in a storage room of an elderly lady's house in return for keeping the garden and pool maintained plus $100/month rent. Worked at an autobody shop just to eat. So many people have no idea how scary and mean life can be. 2am hungry mean. Working with people who don't make enough to pay rent and buy shoes for their kids. School is what gave me hope for the future. The friends there kept me going in the moment.
I have a teen kid with type 1 diabetes. She knows what a real problem is. I have been against school closures since Sept 2020, but I have reservations now. This omicron thing will peak soon, we have the therapeutics right around the corner. For the first time I am thinking can we just hold on for the next two weeks? Can people please be careful? Maybe I'm selfish. But the fear is real and panicky when you are the father of kid with diabetes faced with a major virus when hospitals are full or short staffed.
The crux of this whole thing is how long this wave of infections will take to get back down to the previously bad but tolerable levels. I'd say 2-4 weeks, but that's also assuming places that peak later will wait until things are actually getting out of control, which is counterproductive in its own way.
Also, when do we think a wave like this will happen again? This time next year? Never? I don't think it will ever be like this again -- particularly in the northeast where Omicron fell directly on top of our Delta wave AND the holidays.
Well, I look to Zvi Mowshowitz and his omicron posts for a pretty thoughtful update on covid projections, probability based as they are. I figure if Scott Alexander defers to him then I will as well. Looks like two weeks.
But the bigger point is therapeutics will then be widely available, and that should end the threat to our hospitals going forward.
Ironically we have been foolishly locking down when we shouldn't and now that there is arguably a good case in some instances to lock down we don't have the social capital left to pull it off anymore. So here we are, face tanking right into the teeth of the worst wave by orders of magnitude. We are not a very measured or thoughtful people.
My school system allows kids to be full-remote if they want, and that seems the way to let the middle-class-and-up families manage their risks while still leaving the schools open.
For what it's worth, it makes you the right person to have written this. I grew up in a dysfunctional home too, and I know how hard it can be when things dredge that shit up. Knowing you'd have to deal with that and choosing to write the piece anyway is a testament to your character. From one broken kid to another, you have my sincerest gratitude for doing it.
Ditto. In spite of bullying that I endured at my school growing up, it was still a safer and more nurturing space for me than my home.
I especially valued the exposition regarding how those who have grown up in a safe, warm, nurturing environment rarely include those who haven't or who are not in that type of environment in any political calculus that they make. It does make you feel quite invisible sometimes. I get the rage about this but I would hazard that many don't. And, it's always the kids that pay for this ignorance and hand-waving.
The issues of kids facing abuse and neglect are often, well, neglected. It's awkward to face a hardship that doesn't nicely map onto an identity category today, and there's maybe even a whiff of corny conservative 'protecting the children' vibes turning people off. But they are some of the least able to advocate for themselves, and so the most in need of others to speak on their behalf.
I wonder to which degree Freddie's and other writers' opinions on whether school is a "warm, safe place where they can be stimulated and looked after" or "child prison" (Scott Alexander in his review of "The Cult of Smart") is shaped by their own school experiences. Freddie recently wrote about how high school movies seem to him to paint an overly bleak picture of the social environment that is a high school. Scott frequently goes on about how school bored him out of his mind academically. Personally, I have the complementary experience: I was socially awkward, sometimes bullied and lonely throughout my school career, but I genuinely enjoyed most classes. I liked just being able to lean back and soak up interesting stuff, no effort required.
Now all of this makes me wonder: do we have good data on how many children enjoy the social/academic aspects of school and how many do not? Do we have good data on which share of students feel "warm and safe" and well-fed at school as opposed to threatened and scared? Which share of at-risk children are more scared of abuse in school or at home? Which share feels bored and which feels overwhelmed academically?
I suppose if so, Freddie has probably covered it in "The Cult of Smart" (which I admit I have not read). If not, is there a particular reason not to do studies that simply ask children about this? Are there methodological issues I don't see?
Taking the thought of "how about we ask the children" a bit further: what is your stance on the vote for children? What is the state of this debate in the US in general? My home country Germany will probably allow sixteen year olds to vote in national elections (they already have the vote in some local elections) under the new government. Furthermore, there is a real chance (I'd say 10-25%) that the German constitutional court will in the near future strike down ANY restrictions on the vote for children, meaning that children can vote from the age of 0, possibly with the assistance of their parents (the legal ratio for this is, that the constitutional court has found unconstitutional any measure that restricts voting based on cognitive competence and has upheld the right of even severely mentally disabled people to vote assisted by their personal/legal representatives).
The whole lockdown calculus (for better or worse) would look completely differently politically if the group arguably most affected by it had the power of the vote (especially in a gerontocratic country like Germany).
My cousin is a therapist for children with trauma. A lot of her patients came from homes where the parent(s) were opioid addicts. The neglect those kids experienced is unimaginable.
Not to downplay the distress faced by kids who hate school for various reasons—but we aren’t talking about asshole parents verses asshole kids. Freddie is talking about situations where kids are dirty and hungry, potentially facing severe physical or even sexual violence.
My mom teaches in one of the wealthiest districts in my state. Some of HER students couldn't get consistent internet/computer access. If her kids--mostly the children of wealthy software devs--can't get remote learning working consistently...
My friend, who teaches in one of the poorest districts, lost about 80% of his kids after lockdown. They became unreachable, probably either homeless or thrust into the position of being sole provider for their families.
My best friend, a 6th grade teacher, has talked about how many kids they lost track of during lockdown. Or some kids would log on but ignore the request to turn on their cameras--thus teachers not knowing if they were actually even there. Now that they're back he says a huge number of kids are having behavioral problems that are two years too young for their age.
That said, their school also had 30 kids out with Covid, and the teachers are dropping, too.
You know, he hasn’t talked about going back to remote at all. He’s fully vaxxed and boosted and he said as of last week he’s eating a protein bar in the hall for lunch rather than eating in his room with the kids. He’s resigned to the fact that we’re all going to get it at some point. His wife is a pediatrician. I’m their daughter’s godmother and I also am her babysitter while they’re at work. And 30 mins ago I just tested positive. So we’re all in a pickle.
Omicron is so infectious that I think closing the schools is nearly useless; if you don't catch it from your kid you're gonna catch it at work, and if not that, than from your spouse who had 4 different possible vectors.
The only place I’ve been that all of them haven’t also been (that is, my husband and three sons, and my best friends and their baby daughter—they all tested negative today) is Walgreens for my booster shot last week. So maybe that’s where I got it? Who knows. But remember: while today it is me, we all shall fall.
All the teachers I know have reported similar issues: the ones who teach high school are reporting seniors suddenly unable to do tasks like stand in line for lunch, while my mom is having to teach 5th graders how to tie their shoes again.
Teacher here. Forced to quarantine for 10 days (my school
Is changing to 5 days Monday). How do we keep the schools open amidst large staffing shortages in the next few weeks? I am talking 15-20% of the staff out potentially.
This is the the first step: how do we do it. My guess? Focus on the primary goal: shelter and support, on case by case. Take the pressure off of the kids and teachers to also make sure the kids are on a learning track.
Put a quarter of the kids in the gym and let them play dodgeball. I understand why this doesn’t happen, but in a reasonable system under extreme circumstances it should be a good enough solution.
Right? Use the theater, music, or art rooms to combine classes if necessary so the teachers who are there can teach a larger number of students - even an atrium can be used! Gymnasium can be used for half the time for dodgeball, half the time for study hall alongside the library and cafeteria. There are so many potential solutions, none perfect but all better than going remote to deal with staff out sick.
I’m in a career where the kick off for any project includes brainstorming risks and developing contingency plans. Why did no one on the county, state or federal level develop plans for a mild but widespread illness?
My question would be: why are we only asking what to do about staffing shortages now? Was none of this foreseeable? Why did we spend a year at home only to open schools and hope for the best rather than come up with contingency plans for pandemic surges, both during covid and future pandemics? What makes me most upset is that the schools blew all trust by saying they would keep kids home for 2 weeks and turning it into year and now we can’t trust that 2 weeks means 2 weeks. Kids are still not recovered from the first extended lockdown of schools. The plan should NEVER have been “keep schools closed until covid risk is gone” it should ALWAYS have been “how can we make it as safe as possible to keep schools open and accessible?” and should have included options during surge state to have safe and warm spaces for kids to go when many had to be out sick and staffing was reduced. We could be doing things completely differently but instead in my school district it was “no in person school” until it was “school exactly like it was before”.
"My question would be: why are we only asking what to do about staffing shortages now? Was none of this foreseeable? Why did we spend a year at home only to open schools and hope for the best rather than come up with contingency plans for pandemic surges, both during covid and future pandemics?"
Strongly agree. The thing that has been percolating in my mind over the last several months is how it's possible that we've been this worried and treated COVID as this much of a crisis for as long as we have, and yet we are *still* not really prepared for it, and still not taking radical steps to ensure we can operate *through* it. The time for radical steps was June 2020 as far as schools are concerned. There was a lot of hasty action around school between March and June of 2020; that was understandable given the dearth of information and understanding. By June, we had much better information (though of course imperfect), and the goal should have been to determine what needed to be done over the next 3 months to reopen schools through the pandemic. Instead, it feels like we've been on cruise control since then, and the only "solution" is the same hasty solution we had initially: close down schools and go virtual learning, a solution with Freddie here has already shown to be inadequate and disproportionately harms those who are already most disadvantaged.
Thank you for this Freddie. I agree with all of it. We need more people advocating for vulnerable kids.
The only thing I’ll add is that while I see some people arguing that we need to “protect kids” from covid, I see more people arguing that *teachers* will die if we open schools. Since the teachers’ unions are the ones with the power to shut down school in many places, this is an important part of the debate.
But our kids have to come first. We prioritized teachers for the vaccine for this reason.
And the protect the teachers from what? I'm sorry to the hysterical out there, I just don't think "never getting exposure to COVID" is a reasonable policy at this point. Almost everyone is gonna get it, it's up to you to get vaccinated
Teachers are publicly deciding whether to be "essential front line" workers or more privileged WFHers. But it's not just COVID they're afraid of. Skeleton staff with lots of students results in discipline problems the likes flights attendants are seeing with adults on the airlines.
This week schools around me went from 1-2 COVID cases a week for the past year and a half to... we don't even know how many because they stopped telling us. Definitely 20% of all students testing positive upon return in some schools. Before this week, there really wasn't much risk of getting COVID as a teacher. After this wave, we'll be back to having a good chance of not getting it, and realistically this is probably the peak of peaks, even if this drags on for a few more years.
That's happening in my city, and it's very sad. I suspect (but don't know) that it's not only the union, but also the administration. That is, if the administration were more flexible, they and the union might work out a better compromise that protects the more vulnerable teachers while keeping schools open.
But I say that mostly because my knee-jerk impulse is to criticize the unions, not because I disagree with you. I have to remind myself (and it's hard to do it) that there is probably another side to the story, or the story is more complicated than I probably realize. The teacher's union, at least in my city, hasn't covered themselves in glory, or they're failing at the public-messaging part of their job.
Yes!!!
"warm and safe" - which inner city school did you go to? 😂
Mine wasn't even that bad and there were plenty of people getting jumped and beaten up every day.
I think yesterday Nellie bowles said 20% of Chicago students read at grade level? May as well just start building prisons now..
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the downside to staying open is potentially more than you allow. If it is really true 70% of students are staying home and there is no remote anything, that is a problem.
where do you want the kids to go
I'm not particularly in favor of closures. But there is that other thing on the other side of the ledger that is worth acknowledging. Isn't that half the point of this article, to concede the situation is complicated?
Sure, it's complicated. Please inform me: what would two weeks do to change the underlying situation?
Well, as I said it isn't my preference. But if a large majority of students aren't going to come those two weeks anyway, at least they would get some instruction instead of no instruction if school is remote. Is an argument one could make. Not one I find compelling. But you said you wanted charity to opposing perspectives and I am attempting that here.
So are we talking about the poor kids or the middle-class-and-up kids? I think not specifying that will cloud the issue.
(My nephew had snow days last week, and apparently . . . did no work at all? Not even remote lessons? For the middle-to-upper-class kids like my nephew, "snow days" really shouldn't exist. You do the work at home or do the work at school.)
How long is this wave going to last? I am confident that numbers will be back down to December levels in RI by the end of January. "Two weeks" is feeling optimistic now that we're one week into this wave (in terms of school time). We're probably more like a week to 10 days from the peak here.
We truly have no idea what next week will be like in school. Will cases have doubled or quadrupled from a base of 10-20%? It is certainly possible. Maybe not?!? Nobody knows.
Anyhow, a lack of a baseline for when we could return is the problem. All the schools we are talking about were still running in December. How long to get back to that point?
Given what we know about prior waves, schools should be the last thing to close.
Allow the hospitals to function?
The list of "Safe Havens" I posted (from city of Chicago this week) are mainly church-related. If churches are recommended by a city government this indicates to me that the city could set up alternative sites that are-- safe, warm with food. Why aren't they doing this? Here is the list again: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QnHk18Ht6TeEhnjBPXioogAcVPblj5b8BAEJ7LOY89U/edit#gid=1005925679
Yeah, someone else mentioned (sarcastically, I assumed) corralling kids in the gym, and, well... why not? We use them for emergency shelters all the time. You'd need to get volunteers or some kind of extra supervision obviously, and it certainly might not work everywhere, but having at least *the option* of going to school, even if they're just playing games or watching movies, seems like it would be better than nothing in many cases. It would be nice to see people just trying different solutions, even if some ultimately don't work out.
I'm so skeptical of church charity. Here, take this free thing, and Jesus while you're at it.
The CPS are closed again tomorrow and the options at churches, rec centers, libraries are all a little different so would take a lot of planning for any parent. Yes, do not see how public institutions offer religious options as alternatives.
My experience is that there's very little time for explicit proselytizing. Maybe a pamphlet if someone remembers to bring them along. Definitely saying a prayer before a meal.
You could find out yourself by volunteering with one of their various drives. You'll likely need to bite your tongue as people say things you disagree with behind the scenes, but once they're at the point of making sure the homeless people eat a meal and/or have a place to sleep, there's things to do and you stay busy.
I grew up in a church that did a lot of volunteer work.
I'm not into it.
I'm warning you all right now, you better mind your Ps and Qs about this one, because I am in earnest. And if you decide to cancel your subscription because I'm hard on you here, just do it, don't tell me, I don't give a shit.
Edit: actually do what you want, I'm gonna mute this thread out of a desire not to ban or insult people. Sometimes that's the best move.
Don't mean to over comment, but this story from ProPublica is extremely relevant and worth the read, long though it is.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-students-left-behind-by-remote-learning
Not trying to be snide but your linked study looked at children's deaths during the first 12 months of the pandemic. That's pre-Delta and pre-Omicron. Pediatric hospital admissions are rising significantly ( see English data here https://www.ilpandacentrostudio.it/uk.html?s=09).
This is not to say that your point is wrong but that we shouldn't be so confident that children face minimal risk.
Risk to children remains absolutely minimal and I will no tolerate misinformation on this subject in the comments here. There is absolutely no responsible data or analysis that regards Covid as anything other than a tiny risk to children. So format your next comment appropriately.
Is that censorship?
And let's see some links to the latest children's data, you know, just to prove it's not.
If you think covid is a danger to children you watch way to much fear porn and don’t read enough statistics
> Pediatric hospital admissions are rising significantly
Sure, they're going up, because there is like 3x as many cases out there for everyone.
So going from 3 kids in the county in the hospital to 9 is a 200% increase, while simultaneously being something not worth shutting the schools.
Well, I agree this is hard. All sorts of things need to be balanced.
If there’s a 30% attendance rate at the school referenced in that Tweet, 70% of kids are not warm, fed, nurtured, learning at school or otherwise.
In places where the hospitals are full (and in my region, our hospitals have been over capacity and sending people elsewhere multiple times) it might just represent the greatest good for the greatest number to cancel school (and close bars, restaurants, casinos, bowling alleys, movie theatres, indoor sports) for a couple weeks when cases get too high.
It’s not good to do those things. It’s not desirable. It causes harms to some, to try to protect the well being of the group. It’s not neat or easy.
I agree, as someone who attended school gladly and enjoyed being around kind and sometimes nurturing adults there (and appreciated the food), that the attitude of “let them eat Zoom” is annoying and offensive and forgets our most vulnerable kids.
But yeah this is super complicated with so many competing needs. I do wish it were treated as such.
Why harm literally the most vulnerable? Poor children. They are the most vulnerable. Somehow they keep being the ones to sacrifice for the well being of the group. People like me can just click away on our laptops at home. Whose well being am I "sacrificing" for, then?
Because you don’t just twirl your mustache like an evil villain and “harm the most vulnerable” for kicks, in a vacuum, without context.
Closing the schools for two weeks is arguably better than overflowing the hospitals again.
When the grandmother of the vulnerable kid has a heart attack and can’t get an ambulance or a hospital bed, that harms the vulnerable kid.
“The most vulnerable” are also harmed when the hospitals are full.
And if the teachers are sick en masse, do you just round up the kids and stick them in the gym for the day?
It’s not like the alternative in places that are considering some remote teaching is a halcyon educational experience.
I could go on and on, but basically: It’s complicated.
Yeah I mean when we got back from Christmas break I had three different students tell me that they got COVID over break. They said that it sucked, but I'm sure they'll be fine. However, one students' Dad was in the hospital presently (had just gotten off of a ventilator thankfully) and another had two grandparents hospitalized. Seems pretty bad.
I agree it is worse than it's commonly portrayed. The whole "covid is not bad for kids" was pre-omicron (for omicron the jury is still out, but there are way, way more pediatric covid patients showing up at hospitals now), and as you note, the kids don't live in a vacuum: they live with people who are often more vulnerable than they. I hope your students and their families will be OK.
How much does closing the schools keep down community spread?
If we're not closing the indoor restaurants and the bars, we're not serious about stopping community spread.
So we’re just going to periodically shut society down whenever there’s an increase in respiratory illnesses going forward?
Yeah, that's the maximalist spirit!
Yeah when I said it's super complicated with many competing needs, I really meant: "we’re just going to periodically shut society down whenever there’s an increase in respiratory illnesses going forward." ;)
If you summarize someone's portion of the conversation by grossly oversimplifying it, as if I'm a germophobic dimwit who wants to "shut society down" henceforth when anyone has the sniffles, you're essentially creating a conversational opponent who doesn't exist. That's not what I said or what I meant. You're arguing with someone who isn't there. And so, what's the point?
Assuming you don't have a magic wand to make things all better, do you suggest the opposite simple thing: Keep everything open no matter what the cost? I would assume no. So what do you actually think would be helpful?
I’m of the opinion we should keep everything open. We have vaccines available to all who want one and more therapeutic treatments on the way. If you’re sick or immunocompromised or whatever else feel free to stay home and isolate.
And many of those 22 million kids that get free or reduced price meals come from single parent homes. School's closed means no paycheck that week. I'm sure the 2.2k Likes is worth it though.
I want schools open, so does my teacher-wife. The main problem they have been dealing with is that there just aren't enough healthy teachers. They are all vaccinated, but still every week a bunch get sick and need to isolate. Outbreaks in schools get publicized, so the supply teachers know where to avoid. The result is not having enough staff to run the school. Throw in a bunch of union imposed rules and it's a clusterfuck to organize. I don't know what to do about this.
The fact we've had 2 years to prepare and still haven't figured it out is infuriating.
It seems the primary thing people have been doing over the past 2 years is figure out how to blame the other party for whatever goes wrong, instead of reducing the number of things going wrong.
Interestingly, Josh Marshall had a recent subscriber-only post that (at least in many parts) took very much the sort of "you know, this is really complicated" tone you're looking for. A few excerpts:
– "Speaking just as a parent it has made sense to me that we’ve tried to test and isolate our way through the current Omicron wave. With widespread vaccination the stakes are simply much, much lower for the great majority of people involved. We also know more about how to do this. But we now have many schools that are spending almost all their time and resources testing, coordinating isolations and sending kids home from school with COVID. We shouldn’t act like it’s some kind of great breach of faith or war crime if a few of them decide to close for half a week.
"In the New York City public school system, in the week before winter break as cases exploded, lots of parents voted with their feet, holding kids back from school for the last two or three days before break. Many schools were down to 70% attendance. Some dropped to 50% or lower. Individual schools generally took an accommodating approach, many telling parents that they should do what felt safe to them and what made sense for their families. The schools would make sure homework was online so kids could keep up. This seemed to me like a realistic, wise course; flexible rather than doctrinal in a situation with many unknowns and considerable fear.
– "I was first prompted to write this post after reading a Twitter thread by Baltimore City Councilperson Zeke Cohen. He describes efforts by the Baltimore Teachers Union, parent groups, student groups and the city council to purchase masks and organize mass testing coming back from winter break. What was under discussion was a possible 4 to 5 day extension of winter break to make this testing possible since Baltimore is in the throes of its Omicron wave. Cohen describes being tweeted at by a public health professional from Johns Hopkins telling him that 'schools were the safest place and we didn’t care about kids' when this public health expert’s own institution has shifted to all remote for the Omicron wave."
– "Studies showing ‘learning loss’ and mental health impacts of remote learning are important but also a good deal less certain than their authors would suggest. These impacts are also harder than people let on to isolate from the broader experience of living through a pandemic – which lets all state for the record really, really sucks. I will say that even some of the people who I am aiming this post most squarely at have generated data that has helped us to understand, contextualize and act on the limited risk of school transmission and how to mitigate it. That is a huge help for all of us. They’re not the bad guys. It’s just that they have access to the biggest megaphones, the commanding heights of the culture and educational attainment that has allowed them to drown out and pigeon hole other voices and experiences which no less valuable and real. Each have different experiences and everyone is tired and a bit or much more than a bit broken."
Link to the full post:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/who-are-the-ivy-league-glossy-mag-freedom-fighters-lecturing-you-about-schools
"It’s just that they have access to the biggest megaphones, the commanding heights of the culture and educational attainment that has allowed them to drown out and pigeon hole other voices and experiences which [are] no less valuable and real."
I find this cheering. Except for the words after "experiences."
A-fucking-men
I want you guys to understand that, while I had it far better than many, I also grew up into a totally broken home in adolescence, and experienced getting locked out of my own home, sleeping in the garage, and having to ask friends to stay at their place for awhile. I was orphaned at 15 and anything resembling parental monetary support was gone by 17, after which I was on my own. So this is sensitive to me, and for that reason I'm bowing out of comments.
sounds like you should be the one commenting? tho I suppose you wrote the article.
It's not that it's not great to have a warm & safe place to go, but is a school the right option? It sounds like it was your only option? Tho I feel like so many teachers out there already feel overworked (under underpaid), I'm wondering if there isn't a better solution?
I too wish there was another option. Child poverty in the US is a massive problem. The schools are somehow supposed to solve all aspects of it : the food, the safety, the abuse investigations, the therapy, plus the learning and career development.
The schools seem like a good solution because most kids are showing up there (on pain of legal consequences for themselves or their families.) pre-pandemic that is. But some of the kids most in need were dropping out even pre-pandemic.
School was being used as an ad hoc social service agency. But that was never the first priority and it has taken a far second in the pandemic. The first priority was the attempts at teaching and learning.
The need for the social services is real but we made an error dumping it all on the schools. 17% of children having gone through child abuse investigation? That’s insane. Partly, that’s what happens when teachers are mandated reporters; they have no choice but to kick off an investigation every single time. But it’s easier to treat poverty than abuse, so the attention focuses on the families that are poor and abusive. Having the tools to reach the kids from rich & abusive families is harder; they won’t just show up for the free school supplies and pizza. They won’t go to the health fairs.
It’s way past time we build a social service system for kids and families that ISNT school based. We’ve created a society in which many people find it impossible to meet their basic needs and those of their children. The needs are desperate. The one part of this I’m not sympathetic to is that it has to be schools solving it. It shouldn’t be. Skills-training and information-teaching is not the same as social services.
There need to be more ways for teens to get emancipated and more places for them to go. Thousands and thousands of dollars go into trying to turn a ship of addicts away from the iceberg - we could just let the kids jump and swim to safety when old enough. Foster care and group home outcomes are bad because they’re under resourced.
Because we live in the world we live in, we have to “keep schools open” for the food, warmth and supervision. But I think it really is kind of backwards.
It wasn't that long ago in the U.S. when orphanages were places overwhelmed parents either turned over their children or had their children taken. I don't think it was good, but it was a fall-back. The orphan train movement (ended 1929) relocated over 250,000 children to give an idea of the scope.
Several friends of my parents had spent time in orphanages after one of their parents had died. I am not saying any of this was good, but there are no structures now that help in dire situations.
The foster care system is complex and you are correct--"It’s way past time we build a social service system for kids and families that ISNT school based."
We still had an orphanage in town when I grew up - it was open until the 90’s. You are correct that some of the kids there had parents in town that just couldn’t cope.
This seems to be forgotten as a way children were helped. Maybe it wasn't optimal, but it was a place of last resort and better than homeless.
Sorry to see you go. I had a rough go as well in my teens, physically abusive alcoholic dad, mom killed my sister. Visits from CPS. Malnutrition diagnoses several times in childhood. Moved out just when I turned 17 my junior year of HS, lived in a storage room of an elderly lady's house in return for keeping the garden and pool maintained plus $100/month rent. Worked at an autobody shop just to eat. So many people have no idea how scary and mean life can be. 2am hungry mean. Working with people who don't make enough to pay rent and buy shoes for their kids. School is what gave me hope for the future. The friends there kept me going in the moment.
I have a teen kid with type 1 diabetes. She knows what a real problem is. I have been against school closures since Sept 2020, but I have reservations now. This omicron thing will peak soon, we have the therapeutics right around the corner. For the first time I am thinking can we just hold on for the next two weeks? Can people please be careful? Maybe I'm selfish. But the fear is real and panicky when you are the father of kid with diabetes faced with a major virus when hospitals are full or short staffed.
The crux of this whole thing is how long this wave of infections will take to get back down to the previously bad but tolerable levels. I'd say 2-4 weeks, but that's also assuming places that peak later will wait until things are actually getting out of control, which is counterproductive in its own way.
Also, when do we think a wave like this will happen again? This time next year? Never? I don't think it will ever be like this again -- particularly in the northeast where Omicron fell directly on top of our Delta wave AND the holidays.
Well, I look to Zvi Mowshowitz and his omicron posts for a pretty thoughtful update on covid projections, probability based as they are. I figure if Scott Alexander defers to him then I will as well. Looks like two weeks.
But the bigger point is therapeutics will then be widely available, and that should end the threat to our hospitals going forward.
Ironically we have been foolishly locking down when we shouldn't and now that there is arguably a good case in some instances to lock down we don't have the social capital left to pull it off anymore. So here we are, face tanking right into the teeth of the worst wave by orders of magnitude. We are not a very measured or thoughtful people.
Has Zvi said the therapeutics will be available enough? I thought we're going to be supply-constrained for the next several months.
My school system allows kids to be full-remote if they want, and that seems the way to let the middle-class-and-up families manage their risks while still leaving the schools open.
For what it's worth, it makes you the right person to have written this. I grew up in a dysfunctional home too, and I know how hard it can be when things dredge that shit up. Knowing you'd have to deal with that and choosing to write the piece anyway is a testament to your character. From one broken kid to another, you have my sincerest gratitude for doing it.
Ditto. In spite of bullying that I endured at my school growing up, it was still a safer and more nurturing space for me than my home.
I especially valued the exposition regarding how those who have grown up in a safe, warm, nurturing environment rarely include those who haven't or who are not in that type of environment in any political calculus that they make. It does make you feel quite invisible sometimes. I get the rage about this but I would hazard that many don't. And, it's always the kids that pay for this ignorance and hand-waving.
Thank you Freddie.
The issues of kids facing abuse and neglect are often, well, neglected. It's awkward to face a hardship that doesn't nicely map onto an identity category today, and there's maybe even a whiff of corny conservative 'protecting the children' vibes turning people off. But they are some of the least able to advocate for themselves, and so the most in need of others to speak on their behalf.
I wonder to which degree Freddie's and other writers' opinions on whether school is a "warm, safe place where they can be stimulated and looked after" or "child prison" (Scott Alexander in his review of "The Cult of Smart") is shaped by their own school experiences. Freddie recently wrote about how high school movies seem to him to paint an overly bleak picture of the social environment that is a high school. Scott frequently goes on about how school bored him out of his mind academically. Personally, I have the complementary experience: I was socially awkward, sometimes bullied and lonely throughout my school career, but I genuinely enjoyed most classes. I liked just being able to lean back and soak up interesting stuff, no effort required.
Now all of this makes me wonder: do we have good data on how many children enjoy the social/academic aspects of school and how many do not? Do we have good data on which share of students feel "warm and safe" and well-fed at school as opposed to threatened and scared? Which share of at-risk children are more scared of abuse in school or at home? Which share feels bored and which feels overwhelmed academically?
I suppose if so, Freddie has probably covered it in "The Cult of Smart" (which I admit I have not read). If not, is there a particular reason not to do studies that simply ask children about this? Are there methodological issues I don't see?
Taking the thought of "how about we ask the children" a bit further: what is your stance on the vote for children? What is the state of this debate in the US in general? My home country Germany will probably allow sixteen year olds to vote in national elections (they already have the vote in some local elections) under the new government. Furthermore, there is a real chance (I'd say 10-25%) that the German constitutional court will in the near future strike down ANY restrictions on the vote for children, meaning that children can vote from the age of 0, possibly with the assistance of their parents (the legal ratio for this is, that the constitutional court has found unconstitutional any measure that restricts voting based on cognitive competence and has upheld the right of even severely mentally disabled people to vote assisted by their personal/legal representatives).
The whole lockdown calculus (for better or worse) would look completely differently politically if the group arguably most affected by it had the power of the vote (especially in a gerontocratic country like Germany).
I like lowering the age to 16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7d6VCFeGHI
And at the end of the clip? Mature Audiences...
My cousin is a therapist for children with trauma. A lot of her patients came from homes where the parent(s) were opioid addicts. The neglect those kids experienced is unimaginable.
Not to downplay the distress faced by kids who hate school for various reasons—but we aren’t talking about asshole parents verses asshole kids. Freddie is talking about situations where kids are dirty and hungry, potentially facing severe physical or even sexual violence.
My mom teaches in one of the wealthiest districts in my state. Some of HER students couldn't get consistent internet/computer access. If her kids--mostly the children of wealthy software devs--can't get remote learning working consistently...
My friend, who teaches in one of the poorest districts, lost about 80% of his kids after lockdown. They became unreachable, probably either homeless or thrust into the position of being sole provider for their families.
My best friend, a 6th grade teacher, has talked about how many kids they lost track of during lockdown. Or some kids would log on but ignore the request to turn on their cameras--thus teachers not knowing if they were actually even there. Now that they're back he says a huge number of kids are having behavioral problems that are two years too young for their age.
That said, their school also had 30 kids out with Covid, and the teachers are dropping, too.
Not sure if you can answer this but how much does your friend think the student behavioral issues are pushing teachers to want to back to remote?
You know, he hasn’t talked about going back to remote at all. He’s fully vaxxed and boosted and he said as of last week he’s eating a protein bar in the hall for lunch rather than eating in his room with the kids. He’s resigned to the fact that we’re all going to get it at some point. His wife is a pediatrician. I’m their daughter’s godmother and I also am her babysitter while they’re at work. And 30 mins ago I just tested positive. So we’re all in a pickle.
Omicron is so infectious that I think closing the schools is nearly useless; if you don't catch it from your kid you're gonna catch it at work, and if not that, than from your spouse who had 4 different possible vectors.
The only place I’ve been that all of them haven’t also been (that is, my husband and three sons, and my best friends and their baby daughter—they all tested negative today) is Walgreens for my booster shot last week. So maybe that’s where I got it? Who knows. But remember: while today it is me, we all shall fall.
All the teachers I know have reported similar issues: the ones who teach high school are reporting seniors suddenly unable to do tasks like stand in line for lunch, while my mom is having to teach 5th graders how to tie their shoes again.
Teacher here. Forced to quarantine for 10 days (my school
Is changing to 5 days Monday). How do we keep the schools open amidst large staffing shortages in the next few weeks? I am talking 15-20% of the staff out potentially.
This is the the first step: how do we do it. My guess? Focus on the primary goal: shelter and support, on case by case. Take the pressure off of the kids and teachers to also make sure the kids are on a learning track.
Put a quarter of the kids in the gym and let them play dodgeball. I understand why this doesn’t happen, but in a reasonable system under extreme circumstances it should be a good enough solution.
Haven't a lot of those requirements been incredibly relaxed during the pandemic?
This was my thought as well.
Let high school students get class credit for supervising.
Right? Use the theater, music, or art rooms to combine classes if necessary so the teachers who are there can teach a larger number of students - even an atrium can be used! Gymnasium can be used for half the time for dodgeball, half the time for study hall alongside the library and cafeteria. There are so many potential solutions, none perfect but all better than going remote to deal with staff out sick.
I’m in a career where the kick off for any project includes brainstorming risks and developing contingency plans. Why did no one on the county, state or federal level develop plans for a mild but widespread illness?
My question would be: why are we only asking what to do about staffing shortages now? Was none of this foreseeable? Why did we spend a year at home only to open schools and hope for the best rather than come up with contingency plans for pandemic surges, both during covid and future pandemics? What makes me most upset is that the schools blew all trust by saying they would keep kids home for 2 weeks and turning it into year and now we can’t trust that 2 weeks means 2 weeks. Kids are still not recovered from the first extended lockdown of schools. The plan should NEVER have been “keep schools closed until covid risk is gone” it should ALWAYS have been “how can we make it as safe as possible to keep schools open and accessible?” and should have included options during surge state to have safe and warm spaces for kids to go when many had to be out sick and staffing was reduced. We could be doing things completely differently but instead in my school district it was “no in person school” until it was “school exactly like it was before”.
"My question would be: why are we only asking what to do about staffing shortages now? Was none of this foreseeable? Why did we spend a year at home only to open schools and hope for the best rather than come up with contingency plans for pandemic surges, both during covid and future pandemics?"
Strongly agree. The thing that has been percolating in my mind over the last several months is how it's possible that we've been this worried and treated COVID as this much of a crisis for as long as we have, and yet we are *still* not really prepared for it, and still not taking radical steps to ensure we can operate *through* it. The time for radical steps was June 2020 as far as schools are concerned. There was a lot of hasty action around school between March and June of 2020; that was understandable given the dearth of information and understanding. By June, we had much better information (though of course imperfect), and the goal should have been to determine what needed to be done over the next 3 months to reopen schools through the pandemic. Instead, it feels like we've been on cruise control since then, and the only "solution" is the same hasty solution we had initially: close down schools and go virtual learning, a solution with Freddie here has already shown to be inadequate and disproportionately harms those who are already most disadvantaged.
No one's in charge.
I understood it during Trump, because no one elected Trump thinking "yeah, this guy will run things great!"
But what's been the excuse for the past 11 months?
gosh, if only public schools had gotten $129 billion last year to figure this out
Thank you for this Freddie. I agree with all of it. We need more people advocating for vulnerable kids.
The only thing I’ll add is that while I see some people arguing that we need to “protect kids” from covid, I see more people arguing that *teachers* will die if we open schools. Since the teachers’ unions are the ones with the power to shut down school in many places, this is an important part of the debate.
But our kids have to come first. We prioritized teachers for the vaccine for this reason.
And the protect the teachers from what? I'm sorry to the hysterical out there, I just don't think "never getting exposure to COVID" is a reasonable policy at this point. Almost everyone is gonna get it, it's up to you to get vaccinated
Teachers are publicly deciding whether to be "essential front line" workers or more privileged WFHers. But it's not just COVID they're afraid of. Skeleton staff with lots of students results in discipline problems the likes flights attendants are seeing with adults on the airlines.
This week schools around me went from 1-2 COVID cases a week for the past year and a half to... we don't even know how many because they stopped telling us. Definitely 20% of all students testing positive upon return in some schools. Before this week, there really wasn't much risk of getting COVID as a teacher. After this wave, we'll be back to having a good chance of not getting it, and realistically this is probably the peak of peaks, even if this drags on for a few more years.
That's happening in my city, and it's very sad. I suspect (but don't know) that it's not only the union, but also the administration. That is, if the administration were more flexible, they and the union might work out a better compromise that protects the more vulnerable teachers while keeping schools open.
But I say that mostly because my knee-jerk impulse is to criticize the unions, not because I disagree with you. I have to remind myself (and it's hard to do it) that there is probably another side to the story, or the story is more complicated than I probably realize. The teacher's union, at least in my city, hasn't covered themselves in glory, or they're failing at the public-messaging part of their job.