Lot of liberal pundit handwringing to the effect of "we can close schools now that we know of the great harms to kid's mental health" which, yes, but... (CTU maybe aside) is anyone pushing closures that aren't solely prompted by staff shortages due to their own infections?
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Like pundits seem to be fighting the last war. Excepting SFUSD, they've been mostly back for a year. And even SFUSD isn't headed toward indefinite closures.
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Suppose you think that school closures were a disastrous, invasion-of-Iraq magnitude (or perhaps greater) policy decision. Shouldn't that merit some further reflection?
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You think this was a policy decision (which of course is totally a decentralized one) equivalent to the deaths of 460,000 people and the destabilizing of an entire region? And...do you think parents and educators have not been reflecting, ffs?
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Yeah, I think depriving tens of millions of school children of an in-person education for a year or longer is absolutely on that magnitude. No question.
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Replying to @NateSilver538
I mean, just for starters, where excepting SFUSD were kids kept out of school for a year. Please account for the "tens of millions." And, often, it was their own parents pushing for remote (or at least remote options) until vaccinations were available.

Jan 6, 2022 · 3:12 AM UTC

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Replying to @ClaraJeffery
There are about 50 million schoolchildren and 20 million college students in the US. They experienced a spectrum of disruptions from modest to severe. The total amount of learning loss was extremely large.
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I guess you can say "well, it was worth it, because we prevented some number of COVID cases". Or you can say "we were operating under the fog of uncertainty and sometimes people fuck up under those circumstances". But these were VERY high-stakes, high-magnitude decisions.
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Replying to @ClaraJeffery @NateSilver538
Weird that you’re so stuck on the erroneous idea that only SFUSD kids were deprived of in person learning for so long. This chart shows the fraction of in person learning almost exactly a year ago. Lots of closures. (Source: cai.burbio.com/school-openin…, page has snapshots over time)
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Replying to @ClaraJeffery @NateSilver538
Jersey City kids were out of school from 3/20 till this past Sept. They had the option to go back in the spring but there were 2-3 kids per class & class was mostly directed to a computer for virtual kids. I don’t have the answers, but it was mentally destabilizing for my teens.
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Replying to @ClaraJeffery @NateSilver538
The poorest kids, frequently from minority backgrounds, without parents to enforce at-home learning, suffer the most. It’s just indefensible.
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