Don’t do it, but don’t force parents to pay for closed schools, either.
“Fund students, not systems.” Yes.
9 thoughts on “Forcing Schools To Reopen”
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Don’t do it, but don’t force parents to pay for closed schools, either.
“Fund students, not systems.” Yes.
Comments are closed.
One serious issue about school closure is that when both parents worked, the day care costs were low if the kids were in school.
Once the schools closed that changed. And all the summer activities that parents signed their kids up for, do not exist. And there was no day care.
So couples that had kids and where both worked because the kids were in school were in a tough bind.
This was especially difficult for single parents.
It would be nice if this whole virus episode brought us back to one parent working/one home with commensurate lowering of costs but it’s not guaranteed and even if it does happen it takes time.
What about parks and beaches? Public buildings (and for that matter, public workers that are getting paid while not working)?
Why should taxpayers pay for … literally….nothing?
You’re paying for the maintenance of facilities you aren’t permitted to use, but will be there for future generations to enjoy.
As for the public workers, probably cheaper to keep paying them to do nothing (or at least a lot less than they normally do) than to furlough them and have them clog up already overtaxed unemployment systems. And then there’s the union contracts… At least that’s the rationalization I’d give if I was a politician being asked about them.
Besides, it makes gov’t look more “compassionate” than those horrid small businesses and restaurants who just got rid of people who they can’t afford to pay to do nothing.
” And then there’s the union contracts… ”
That might be a good reason to lay them all off and exit the union contract. Then, when ready to re-open, hire non-union workers.
Schools at all levels (from public elementary schools to the Ivy Leagues and graduate schools) have declared that online education is the equivalent of brick and mortar building schools with butts in the seats.
OK, so why do we have these child and adult warehouses? After all, we have been told since March that online education is just as good…just fine.
Well, we don’t need these warehouses for online education – and frankly, we don’t need a bunch of ‘teachers’ for it, either. We need the very best teacher we can find for each subject that needs to be taught. And thanks to online education one subject matter expert in first grade fingerpainting can replace a hell of a lot of finger painting teachers spread across a bell curve from mediocre to that expert.
So it is with arithmetic, spoken and written english, history, sciences such as are taught in schools… Find the best person or people and put them to doing what they do best.
We don’t need a huge bureaucracy for that. We don’t need multiple teachers spread across that bell curve for multiple grades – we don’t even need grades. If a precocious child is able to complete the work it doesn’t matter what grade they are in – as long as they complete the work.
And computers are ideal for this: They never get tired, they never get frustrated, they never attempt to rape their charges, they don’t go and push personal biases and call it science or history or art…Children may be bullied online, but the only physical abuse they would take is from their siblings or parents.
While the schools themselves have destroyed the reason for their existence we have had an example of this for a decade or more in the Khan Academies – education so good that many teachers (no doubt on the left side of the bell curve) have assigned it’s lectures and quizzes as homework to students. And who can do a far better job than happens in school.
Time to end the great experiment in Prussian / US public education, that doesn’t do a particularly good job of preparing children for their next grade, for college, for a job, for life… We don’t need legions of teenagers who respond like Pavlov’s dogs to bells, who are acculturated to showing up on time and standing in line to be psychologically and physically abused.
There are times where special equipment may be required (science lab experiments, for example) but that can easily be dealt with with home craft projects. There are even books on kitchen chem labs…
There is no rational reason to keep kids chained to their desks, with a syllabus programmed ever downward for the least intellectual student. Time for a new paradigm, one of success.
I’m supportive of your new paradigm but there are issues to be dealt with. No home kitchen lab will replace a high school senior physics lab.
But even if you find a way around that, you have a serious problem with questions:
If I watch a video and I have a question, how do I get it answered? If you have just one good teacher making one video that’s not enough.
For K-12, many (most?) of the parents can answer the question. But not always. Lots of educated parents are not going to be able to answer a question in 12th grade advanced placement calculus.
Problem is even worse if you have a parent who can’t even read.
The one good teacher cannot answer all the question of a nation of students. You’ll have to have some method for dealing with that.
So then maybe you have a bunch of teachers in regions where the student can get online and ask their question.
Do those teachers have to be certified? The Teachers Union will of course, say yes. But do they really need a teaching degree – they are not handling a class of 30 all day – they are answering a question on 3rd grade multiplication.
So again while I am supportive of the idea, I think that to be a general thing, some tough problems have to be dealt with.
I’m also certain that people left to themselves will find an answer. The moment government or unions anoint themselves as the sole solution finder you get mediocrity….at best.
Give all that tax back to parents. Let them find a charter. Shut all schools and universities. Failed experiment.
The various states spend $x dollars per year on student education – to fund public schools…
Instead of all the angst over funding public vs. charter vs. private/religious schools, why not just make that amount of money available to the parents each year (or semester, or whatever) and let them direct it to the school of their choice? That way the government is not in a position of funding bad education, and schools will compete for the money: Competition is good.
I see a far more important reason not to send kids back to school. The vast majority of the minority kids that go to school live in multi-generational homes or are being raised by grandma and grandpa or great aunt’s and uncles. These people are the last stable individuals in these children’s family line. We will literally be killing off the only care givers they have when they bring the virus home with them. This will be far worse than the nursing home debacle. We will be sending these kids who already have a slim chance of making a success of themselves to live with the parents that left them on grandma’s doorstep to begin with.