outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I think "all school staff who want vaccines have been vaccinated" is a much better benchmark than the nebulous guidelines put forth by the CDC.

"really rich" people have their kids in school already. It's called private school. They're open.

Yep

very strange view of of "public health" in this country. either all schools should be shut because there's a communicable disease or they shouldn't be.

yeah i had no idea private schools in the US were allowed to be open, that’s... totally insane to me

They have the money for small class sizes, upgraded HVAC systems, etc. And no pesky teachers' unions trying to keep their members alive.

Private schools should be banned, I’ve been saying this

agree with that fwiw

yeah i had no idea private schools in the US were allowed to be open, that’s... totally insane to me

it is insane! someone needs to have a word with these people about what public health _is_.

yeah i had no idea private schools in the US were allowed to be open, that’s... totally insane to me

Private schools should be banned, I’ve been saying this

Join the transatlantic club.

absolutely private schools should be banned and their wealth redistributed to public schools. but the way politicians and journalists are currently talking about teachers unions can be used to further undermine funding for public schools and create more schools on a privatized model. it's true what DJI says, private schools can afford to manage COVID risk well, and public schools can't, which is a fucking disgrace in such a rich country.

i say as a traitor to the public school system, but i've seen both sides, and it would make you want to puke

fwiw easily the worst educational institution i've ever worked in (facilities, quality of teaching) was a private american ivy.

i'm just talking about high schools. several baltimore city high school buildings didn't have heat for multiple winter days last year.

nobody who writes about the going back to school debate for the times sends their kids to baltimore city public high schools. btw the data on Baltimore city public school families is in, and black families want to send their kids back at much lower rates than white families and Latino families.

I think the other thing that would be great would be to force all school PTA money into a district-wide pot shared by all the schools.

i know it is unreasonable to expect every American to know the kind of constraints American public schools operated under before the pandemic, but i don't think it's unreasonable to expect journalists to

(btw, the kids still attended school with the buildings unheated. the Sun ran pictures of kids in parkas, hats and gloves chilling in science class.)

people keep saying this is a rich country but it's not really anymore? it's a poor country that has become good at one thing, legitimizing massive public theft.

well, three people are unconscionably rich and some other comfortable elites avoid using public services which helps contribute to their atrophy. obvs all these people are living off others' labor.

My boyfriend's kids both go to Catholic schools and they've been in-person all year, apparently no one remembers that one of the APs at his daughter's school was a healthy 40-something father and one of the first educators to die of COVID last winter/spring (admittedly before schools were doing much of anything to protect ppl).

I think the other thing that would be great would be to force all school PTA money into a district-wide pot shared by all the schools.

― DJI, Friday, February 26, 2021 12:06 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is often proposed in NYC, but never with any seriousness that I can detect. The world would end first.

I definitely think forcing everyone to attend public schools would force public schools to be a lot better. You’d also probably need radical changes at the state level for this to be meaningful because it’s too easy for tiny municipalities to each have their own separate schools. I mean, I live in one now. But I recognize that what’s best at the policy level might be counter to the individual interest I’d pursue given the choice.

there's a podcast about that iirc

Also I don’t want to thread jack this into an Ed policy thread but I looked at the PTA idea in detail and the total amount of money raised by the handful of schools with rich PTAs is pretty small and would become not that meaningful spread across the entire city, at least in NYC. Better to just increase funding.

yes. like, divert the defense budget.

what is more in the public interest than educating children? (i am biased.)

However small it might be there is no way on god's green earth that rich white parents would tolerate the funds they raise going to underserved communities, ie Black children. Absolutely no way.

xp Yes I can recommend at least two excellent podcasts on this matter. :)

PTA money isn't that meaningful spread out, but it makes a big difference to the schools that have a lot of it. I agree though - shut down private schools.

the whole issue is you can never rely on individual elites to do the right thing. just divert federal funds. but there is no political will to help poor kids, mostly black and brown, who American political elites ignore and whom much of the white electorate looks on as undeserving.

i know you all know this but that david brooks op-ed broke my brain and now it's all i rant about.

like public schools have been in crisis for decades! afaict noone with any power has cared?

I went to a community board meeting in Bay Ridge as a representative of my (majority minority) school and put flyers on the table for our community-based program that secured extra funding for the most left-behind kids in the district, and a local (Republican) elected leader spoke AGAINST US because "why should we reward underperforming schools while our children's GOOD schools are going unrewarded for their success?"

i have become so boring. i can hear how boring i have become, but i can't shut up.

oh, i steamed about that one for days. he either mentioned baltimore in it or linked? it made me so angry. xp re: brooks

xxp Rolling explaining conservatism...

I mean if you want to blunt the impact of wealth you have to redistribute wealth. Targeting the PTA funds strikes me as low bang for your buck.

oh, i steamed about that one for days. he either mentioned baltimore in it or linked? it made me so angry. xp re: brooks

― superdeep borehole (harbl), Thursday, February 25, 2021 7:19 PM (twenty-two seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

David Brooks, defending Black lives against evil teacher's unions!

i am still working through my PTSD from reading it obvs

anecdotal but around the same time i saw someone tweet that their kid hadn't had asthma attacks while out of school. kids and teachers were exposed to so much even pre-covid and that sentient bag of shit never cared.

people keep saying this is a rich country but it's not really anymore? it's a poor country that has become good at one thing, legitimizing massive public theft.

― map ca. 1890 (map), Thursday, February 25, 2021 7:10 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is kind of my point when i say the ivys are under-resourced. the resources that (presumably?) used to fund world class physical infrastructure and teaching resources at the best universities in the world are no longer there. or at least not at the level of the other countries i've taught in (uk, aus, germany).

and if they're not at the ivys then we're screwed. i don't mean to say we should fund the ivys better or that we particularly need this insight to tell us that public schools are in trouble.

yep. neither did Larry Hogan. everyone in Baltimore city could die and he'd be thrilled because he knows we didn't vote for him.

yes, that's a fair point, caek. the problem pretty pernicious at this point.

larry hogan today said we are getting more than our share of vaccines while 2/3 of our allotment is going to people who don't live here

he can keep going on meet the press and being asked why he's so cool though

WHY WON'T JOURNALISTS CALL HIM ON HIS BULLSHIT PR???

sorry that is wildly off topic but he is so full of shit!

isn't this the Baltimore/Maryland/fuck Larry Hogan politics thread?

i am mad at larry hogan every day of my life

not getting vaccines to mostly Black Baltimoreans for a disease that's killing them at higher rates than everyone else is...tantamount to genocide. maybe not in intention, but in effect.

xp sing it!

FUCK YOU YOU STUPID RICH HAM

OBVS YOU'RE NEVER GETTING ELECTED WITH THAT FACE; MIGHT AS WELL TRY TO DO THE JOB YOU ACTUALLY HAVE