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Comment by asdff | Hacker News Reader

Lots of kids in LA seem to be spending all day skateboarding 20 people deep on the less crowded streets, playing full court basketball and soccer matches with hundreds of spectators at the supposedly closed public parks. Summer break began when LAUSD went online for a lot of kids.

And its no wonder. 15% of students have yet to be in contact with their teachers during this survey period (1). In south central, 16% of students lack basic internet access. It's hard to imagine this perspective for a lot of the HN demographic, where we imagine internet has been ubiquitous in the U.S. for decades, but this is still not the case for low income areas in one of the largest cities in north america.

1. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-22/getting-...

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Wasn't it obvious from the start that that would be the result? The idea that children should study at home during the school closure is ludicrous. I'm almost 40, have a Master's degree and have self-studied my whole life but I often have trouble being efficient when I'm home. So no way children seven to fifteen years old can do it.

Maybe children with academic parents will get some home-schooling, but children from poor backgrounds won't. Those are the ones who will be paying the price of the lock down. Two, three months without schooling will significantly hamper their development.

When my state decided to go to 'e-learning' for the rest of the year, those of us who are located in rural, or low-income districts were terrified. The high-income districts couldn't be more excited; they're biggest headache was making sure each of their students' school issued laptops were appropriately tagged before being handed out.

This will further bake in the inequities already present in our garbage education system. Those that have, will have more, better experiences due to involved parents (because they have flexible or even just able-to-be-completed remotely jobs). This will be an enrichment period for those students. If I had a high achieving middle schooler at a high income district, this would be amazing for their development. For those that don't have, they're losing 3-6 months of education, at a minimum. For my child, even with two highly educated parents, due to a lack of resources and access to technology, this will be a loss.

Source: My career in rural, urban, and suburban education, both k-12 and higher education.

If it's really so great for the high income students, then maybe the schools there should be shut down permanently so the money can be redirected to where they are necessary.

Then the dual income parents would have to find another place to put their kids in during the day.

The only real reasons schools exist in the first place.

I don’t know what your feelings on qz.com are but it disagrees.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/1314814/universal-educat...

> Factory owners required a docile, agreeable workers who would show up on time and do what their managers told them. Sitting in a classroom all day with a teacher was good training for that. Early industrialists were instrumental, then, in creating and promoting universal education.

We shouldn't confuse aspiration with environmental constraints. Just because some company says their product, XYZ, was designed to change the world and increase IQ doesn't mean you can go around stating that XYZ changed the world and increased IQ, or analyzing the various characteristics of the product solely in terms of the claims. Rather, in reality almost everything of substance about such a product follows from exogenous constraints--cost, feasibility, etc.

To explain the seemingly arbitrary and stifling demands of a typical Prussian-style universal education system, the obvious place to look first would be cost--instructors, facilities, organization, etc.

Also, the beginning of industrialization coincided with the end of serfdom in much of Europe. Were capitalists trying to create and exploit compliant workers, or were they trying to create workers, period? That is, there were no workers beforehand, just serfs or recently emancipated serfs, depending on territory. Social reforms were so wildly successful in Prussia that they swept the Western world, even places like the U.S. where industrialization (but not universal education) was already well under way. Was that because it produced virtuous, Christian workers, or just because it was efficient at improving basic literacy?

I'm a teacher, so I know I'm biased, but I definitely don't agree with this (and didn't even before I became a teacher).

First off, there's a sizable chunk of the US that can't access online learning, whether it's due to poverty or just living out in an extremely rural area where all you can get is satellite internet that may or may not work.

Second, there's something to be said to being there in-person learning something. Having the teacher explain it to you and go over it with you is something that just can't be done as well on video for all students. Yes, some can get it and do great with self-directed learning and video explanations, but some students do need the extra work that they can get in school; there's more to school than just babysitting, even if some parents (and others) don't think so.

That said, if we could guarantee students had internet access, I'd totally be for a flipped classroom, especially in math and science. Students could then practice with the teacher present and able to give feedback and correct understanding during the school day, without having to use two days for a topic (which is what I currently do; one day explaining a concept, the next letting students practice it with me answering questions).

If I recall my US history class, universal public education (in the US) was a Great Depression policy created to prevent children from taking jobs from adults.

Nope, by 1918 every state had mandatory public schooling. And a significant push for education came from industry, which needed more educated workers, and had nothing to do with the Depression. The ability for teenagers to drop out & enter the workforce went unchanged throughout the depression (and long after). Though I have heard that places with job openings often reserved them for people with families to support.

By 1900, 34 states had compulsory schooling laws; four were in the South. Thirty states with compulsory schooling laws required attendance until age 14 (or higher). As a result, by 1910, 72 percent of American children attended school. Half the nation's children attended one-room schools. By 1918, every state required students to complete elementary school [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_Un...

Literacy & numeracy rates prior to widespread public schooling would disagree with you on this.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there are a couple of other reasons.

Middle-class families are not just the state's tax livestock.

> a high achieving middle schooler at a high income district, this would be amazing for their development

the builders of tomorrow are getting even better education right now? is that what you're saying? that sounds great

Would you like to continue your line of thought all the way and return to having poor children work in factories?

Are you only allowed to be a “builder of tomorrow” if you’re a high achiever from a high income district?

That would be a sad indictment of our society if true.

> That would be a sad indictment of our society if true.

You say that like it's evidence against (rather than for) it being true.

Let's assume it is true that richer areas have more builders of tomorrow. That's going to be true whether or not they get better schools. And giving them better schools does a disservice to the population. So "it sounds great" is severely misguided.

Giving better schools to students that highly achieve at least has some justification, but is probably unnecessary if we get all the schools up to 'competent' and have some money for various kinds of advanced placement programs.

I meant that "[You are] only allowed to be a "builder of tomorrow" if you're a high achiever from a high income district[.]" is, at least approximately (there are almost always exceptions of course) and in practice, true. I wasn't making any claim about whether that was good thing, either normatively or pragmaticly.

That is probably true though.

So that's the positive, but you completely ignored the negative. I know you did it on purpose, but I don't know why.

The kids who were already statistically bound for a positive outcome due to family and income are fine, and locking that in even tighter. The kids who have hurdles have EVEN HIGHER hurdles now.

why do people need to be consumed by the negative all the time? must everybody be an activist? what do you realistically expect people to do besides talk about it online? is this really the place to virtue signal?

> The high-income districts couldn't be more excited

This is a very unfair characterization. I live in a "high income district" and have a strong relationship with several of my kids' teachers.

None of them is "excited" about this, and neither is the district. It's a shitty situation and they're doing the best they can. That it's possible for them to do it is great but even in high income districts, you have kids who can't attend , and the impact of the delivery is weak compared to in-classroom (double for special needs kids).

Everyone is losing out, and some kids in rural or low-income districts are going to greatly suffer education-wise.

Few, other than with a dedicated non-working parent will benefit from this.

Speaking up for a household that has one “non-working parent”: they aren’t benefiting either. Nobody is.

We have three kids (8, 6, and 3) and my wife and I are just happy if we can get through the day without anyone breaking an arm, which I’m sad to say we failed at a few days back. Oops!

> Those that have, will have more, better experiences due to involved parents (because they have flexible or even just able-to-be-completed remotely jobs).

There's a lot of us that are able to do our jobs remotely, but are still struggling to home school our children. Sure, it's better for us than it is for people that must go in to work, but please don't portray it as some sort of utopia. It's physically, emotionally, and mentally draining doing your normal, full time job AND home schooling your child.

Plus, I'm a horrible teacher.

> This will be an enrichment period for those students

It certainly isn't for my child. We're trying; we're trying really hard.

> "Plus, I'm a horrible teacher."

not to minimize the struggle you and other parents face, but that seems to frame the problem as one of being able to structure the learning in a certain, standardized way.

kids are innate, natural learners. they'll learn things by you just letting them be a part of whatever it is you're doing, for even part of the day (totally understand needing a break from kids too). this kind of learning also reaches farther down into, and better engages, the whole brain vs. classroom learning. it's ok if they don't perfectly learn about past participles, acute triangles, and the magna carta this school year.

I am not able to involve my child in my job. If I tried to do so, I wouldn't get anything done. I'm either working with her or doing my work. We try to find a balance by setting her up with lessons for the day (some specified by her teacher, some by us), helping her out when she encounters hurdles, and checking in on her now and again to see how she's doing. Then we discuss what she did during day later that evening.

It's worth noting, her teachers have been great. As much as I'm frustrated by some of the online stuff, they're doing a great job with very little time to prepare for it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "excited". No one seems to be excited by the current situation. Parents in high-income districts aren't excited at either losing their jobs, or having to work from home, and still doing home-school on top of all of that.

I see the point you're trying to make about rural areas having it even worse, but it's inflammatory to paint the picture in the stark contrast you portrayed.

This is why officials in many states, even ones that were gung-ho social distancing like California and Washington, were reluctant to close the schools. It was predicted that a large number of kids would instead just be congregating together on streets, defeating much of the point of closing the schools. But they were caught between a rock and a hard place. If they didn't close the schools, the kids become an infection vector that undoes much of the sacrifice of having people wfh, avoid social gatherings, and cancel large events.

Small children aren't a significant infection vector. Sweden didn't close primary schools.

[Citation needed] Small children are absolutely a disease vector.

Any anyone who's worked in a school knows how quickly diseases spread there. Like, my district, and all the districts near us, routinely close down every February come flu season as kids come to school with it (or other diseases) and they spread like wildfire. We take 3 days off, give the school a deep cleaning and let the kids pass their infectious period or get to the doctor, and then come back. Diseases spread like wildfire in schools.

This paper[1] on a Lancet sister publication disagrees, on the basis of literature review, that in this specific case the schools are a major part of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Of course there are many caveats in the discussion section.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4...

From your source: "Recent modelling studies of COVID-19 predict that school closures alone would prevent only 2–4% of deaths" a 2-4% reduction in death rate implies quite heavily that children would be a disease vector.

Yes, and worse if the teachers die, since they're obviously at a higher risk of being in that extra 2-4% of deaths if schools do not close.

Sweden didn't close restaurants, shops, nor schools: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/26/845211085/stockholm-expected-...

It's refreshing that the attitude you're describing in parts of the USA aligns with what we saw and heard in AU -- almost every comment is about the health and wellbeing of the children, and rarely included any consideration of the risks to the administration and teaching staff at the schools, the public transport workers moving the children to and from the schools, or the risks (mostly from) the parents doing pick-ups and drop-offs.

"The idea that children should study at home during the school closure is ludicrous"

This sounds like a cultural failing, not some law of nature.

Let's not be too harsh. It's hard enough for the parents to WFH.

I think you're using poor as a proxy for uninvolved parents.

I'd actually be interested in the data if anyone has it. If you have no dad and mom is working then you're at a huge disadvantage no matter what.

These same kids ruin school for everyone else. Dead beat parents treat school like a day-care and ruins the learning experience for everyone else.

Also poor kids go to poor schools. 35 kids to a class, teacher who has mentally checked out 3 decades ago, gang activity in the halls, books are literally falling apart.

Going to a poor school sucks more than learning from home. Bullies and gang activities are rampant. School administration doesn't care because those stats make the school look bad. Yuck

I agree.

Source - hopped around 6 poor schools

I went to a poor school. 42 kids to some classes, not enough desks, couldn't bring the literally falling-apart history books home because we only had one classroom set of really old ones. Did full IB and went to Caltech and then got a PhD, myself. Another friend/classmate is an astrophysics prof now, and another runs social interventions to prevent gang violence for the city, and another is a DJ at our local music station, another's a veterinarian, people went to Princeton MIT Cornell and fine community colleges, blah blah blah. The people I just listed are men & women, black white Asian, from immigrant and non-immigrant parents.

There were definitely racial and socioeconomic biases baked into my high school, but despite being poor we have produced a great community and great people. High quality education can be provided even to poor kids, and it makes a difference. Public schools can make a difference.

Teaching yourself English from YouTube works for some, but it's not the norm. Education matters.

My entire childhood of homeschooling disagrees. No my parents are not academic.

Don't you think the situation might be a little different comparing parents who made a conscious choice to homeschool versus parents who were thrust into it with little to no warning?

I'm pretty sure the stats show that even parent(s) who are bad at homeschooling produce kids who score in the top 50% of their cohort.

Not having to deal with bullies, constant distractions, sharing the teacher with 30+ other kids, most of whom would rather be anywhere else, doing things at your own pace, is no small thing.

>constant distractions

The problem is that parents who are being thrust into the homeschooling role typically _do_ have constant distractions, including their day job, watching other siblings, worrying about their financial situation, etc.

Given that there is a change from the norm, yes it may be harder and there will be adjustments. But claiming that children cannot study at home during school closure is wrong. Also, a parent has a duty to educate his children. It should not be so foreign a concept.

> Two, three months without schooling will significantly hamper their development

Are you sure about that? Having gone through lots of school, I'm fairly certain that missing three months of it would have no negative effect on anyone's development.

Especially if it's not single students missing 3 months, but large groups of students.

As a generalization for people reading these comments, that may well be true. Heck, many might do even better than they would have under normal circumstances. But, for others on the edge, they may basically lose a year in school, maybe not graduate high school as a result, and have a poorer life as a result.

I asked a teacher friend of mine. Her thought is for most of her kids losing two months of school isn't going to matter much. Most kids have years to catch up. And a lot of kids get some learning at home just from their parents. She's more concerned for her students that are in trouble already due to bad home environments. Those students will need a lot of extra help.

In this case, we have an existing study. Some countries habitually have a three month gap, with schools closing at the end of spring and opening at the beginning of autumn. Overall, a three month gap in schooling results in sliding back by one month's worth of learning. So, missing three months of school results in being four months behind where students should be.

Source: http://www.ldonline.org/article/8057/

I believe the previous comment was implying that progress in school and personal development are not the same thing.

Not sure if this is just snark, or really just that cynical, but it seems clearly false regardless. The senior in high school missing their last 3 months probably isn't going to experience any negative effects, but there are plenty of younger students at various parts of the learning curve that will definitely experience negative effects.

Reading, especially early on it life, has been found to correlate with academic and life achievement. Kindergarteners and 1st graders who have parents or caretakers able to keep them reading and learning at home will be better off than those who don't. Even if the absence just causes some delays in learning, it can easily lead to bullying and self esteem issues.

Is it going to destroy their lives irreparably forever? No, probably not; but suggesting it has no negative effect (the opposite extreme) is also wrong.

Yes, I'm sure. On your seventh birthday, you have lived for 84 months. So three months for someone seven years old is as much additional life as 17 months is for someone 40 years old. That is how much time of both schooling and bonding with friends that they lose with no easy way to catch up. It's a fact of life that the older you get, the harder it becomes to learn new things so you can't just extend the kids schooling with an additional three months.

I'm positive the quarantine will be noticeable in student assessment programes. The longer the quarantine, the larger the drop in test results.

Check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_learning_loss

> So no way children seven to fifteen years old can do it.

You shouldn't generalize from your own experience like that.

To some, probably. I'm pretty sure the British government realized this from the start, but despite their efforts to resist school closures they were strong-armed into doing it anyway by the teachers and the press.

The poor British government, forced by its accountability to the public not to turn children into vectors that would kill their families?

Children aren't major vectors for this particular disease, though. It was pretty obvious even at the time, and the evidence for this has only got stronger - they just don't seem to transmit Covid-19 very well, not to parents or to other kids. Also, closing schools risks them all starting to socialize in much less controlled ways all day outside of school, as the comment that started this thread points out is already happening, which means that they might end up being more of a vector for transmission rather than less. Then there's the impact on key workers and nurses, the child abuse epidemic caused by not having schools as an early warning system...

Pressuring the government to do something that's a terrible idea on the basis that they must be wrong because they're the government isn't "accountability". It's making the world a worse place for profit.

I thought 6-8 weeks ago we didn't know that children aren't major vectors (let alone that it was pretty obvious), and I'm not even sure we know that now. Can you provide some of this 'evidence that has gotten stronger' for this claim please?

Suggesting that closing schools is pointless because they 'might' be more of a vector because their parents lack the competence to instruct or control their children seems unnecessarily pessimistic. Were I in a position of authoring public policy around this kind of event, I'd a) vigorously adopt the precautionary principle, and b) assume we could convince the parents and the parents could then convince their own children.

I'm confused by the last claim you make -- I thought the 'for profit' camp was very much against closing schools (or indeed closing anything for very long).

> Children aren't major vectors for this particular disease, though.

That's a big claim. Care to provide a reference?

Just because kids don't die of it does not at all establish that they don't transmit it.

This study says kids have the same viral load as adults: https://twitter.com/c_drosten/status/1255555995671150597

It's more about designated environment. If you think you can study in the same place where you play video games, it's not going to work unless you have extreme self confidence and control.

But if you build a discipline slowly and steadily, change what you associate your current environment with then you can effectively focus on things that should matter.

There is lots of evidence that videogames are helpful for kids' development. Complaining about videogames sounds a bit like adults in the 19th century complaining about kids wasting time playing chess or reading novels.

I think you are reading too much into the comment than there is. I didn't imply or said anything about video games.

Did you even read what the person you're replying to was saying, or did you ctrl f 'video games' and just assume anyone mentioning them is attacking them?

> I'm almost 40, have a Master's degree and have self-studied my whole life but I often have trouble being efficient when I'm home. So no way children seven to fifteen years old can do it.

I do have problems now that I'm older (than you even). Things were very different when I was K-12 age. We sure weren't rich, but I was naturally curious and had reasonable access to books. All I really needed from the school system was for them to stay out of the way.

That said, I was baked in my parents' near-reverence for education. There are a lot of parents who probably regard academics the way my parents regarded sports (i.e., as useless), and those kids largely aren't going to do well.

> Two, three months without schooling will significantly hamper their development.

Only within the rigid schedule set for them in the default school curriculum. I doubt they’re ultimately going to notice a difference of 3 months.

Teacher here (kindergarten/first grade). This is so important to underscore. Curriculum doesn't serve children or society if it becomes an arbitrary yardstick to measure children's development. Thank you for calling this out!

I'm a teacher in a low-income rural area in the South and, try as I might, there's still some students I haven't been able to get ahold of. They don't have phones, or just didn't join Remind for whatever reason, and their parents didn't give me an email address. Hell, I've tried calling some on the numbers the school has on file, or that they gave me, to no success. It's quite frustrating from the teacher's perspective too, as I really just wanna make sure they're doing OK and that they get their stuff turned in... Though our administration did pretty much assume to expect nothing once we went to packets/online work, despite how much they threatened to place any students who didn't do it in in-school suspension or even fail them.

> Summer break began when LAUSD went online for a lot of kids

Summer vacation is highly beneficial and better than typical schools in so many ways: getting to choose more of what you want to do and pursue your own interests, under your own motivation, without stressful testing and evaluation, at your own pace. You also get more exercise and the chance to play less structured games that aren't organized or controlled by adults.

But even if kids sit at home and play video games all day, I'm pretty sure their math, language, and problem solving skills will improve more than they would if they spent the same amount of time in a typical LA classroom.

I vividly remember 35 years my kindergarden having a leaking roof, and the ensuing 'chaos', with all groups together and all toys spread around, led to a sense of freedom and interaction and play I hadn't had otherwise. Similarly I fondly remember many stretches of extended free time during my school years but also times of pressure, boredom and a sense failure at school.

I believe that this sort of exceptional free time does wonder for the psyches of those kids. The sense of "occupying" the public parks that are usually dominiated by grown ups is something kids these days don't often have. Back in the days we still wandered around in groups and had a chance to explore a forest or whatever.

While Internet makes life a bit more convenient, there are books and telephones. We can do something vs just "no education is possible!"

For example, see "school of the air", an Australian rural education program that used to run over radio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Air

Australia has long been a world leader in distance education, likely because they had such a large problem, and a head start on solving it.

The kids will just retreat to their study? At a lot of homes, there are much bigger challenges than just internet access.

Yep. Post service is still working. People have been homeschooling their children long before the internet became ubiquitous.

Our school barely has enough books to cover three classes, let alone the entire grade. Likewise, I've tried calling students on the numbers their parents listed both on the syllabus and on the official enrollment forms have still have sometimes had it unanswered.

Internet in US is not "ubiquitous", but joke. Monopoly everywhere, data caps...

Yup. I can only get Spectrum in my apartment, the fastest plan available is claimed to be 100mbps and doesn't hit anywhere close to that in reality, throttles aggressively. 4G coverage is pretty shit here in LA too. Crappy coverage, slow, and drops the connection all the time.

My options are deal with this, move, or have no internet. Internet provider choices will weigh heavily when I'm apartment hunting after this lease.

I don't have land-line internet available at my home in greater DC metro. We survive on LTE hotspots. Praying for the success of StarLink!

Is this due to people being unable to afford it, or telecoms being unwilling to build infrastructure?

It's in the middle of a huge city. If nothing else, they could use mobile data hotspots. The school district has been handing those out to kids with no stable internet at home where I live in Oregon, or trying to, at least.

Oregon !== South Central

Not everyone has laptops, and the school may not have the resources to provide devices. Zoom is one thing, but doing any serious learning on a phone is difficult - and that's assume the parent is OK with letting the child use theirs for a large part of the day.

Yes, you would have to ensure that everyone has a device of some kind.

4G is not very reliable in LA.

The most valuable and scarce resource for many parents right now is time. Even parents who theoretically have "time" due to a recent layoff or furlough are under stress of trying to apply for various benefits while paying the bills somehow, so the task of organizing their kids' home academic schedule is just daunting, leaving aside the issues of lack of internet access or computers.

It was challenging for me and my spouse, despite both having jobs that switch to WFH and flexible schedules, plenty of computers, and internet access.

I think you replied to the wrong comment. I was asking about home internet availability.

Internet availability is an issue, as is device availability. Even poor families who have a computer may only have 1 for the whole family.

My impression is that it's a mix -- telecoms only want to upgrade wireline infrastructure where it's profitable (so, more affluent areas), and in my experience, in SF, there is some degree of NIMBYism about internet infrastructure at the street level ("green boxes" and the like) so even if the telecom is willing it can be hard to get consensus from the neighbors.

> telecoms only want to upgrade wireline infrastructure where it's profitable

true

> (so, more affluent areas)

no. criteria is population density, that's what makes it profitable.

Hahahahaha dream on, I’m in the middle of a pretty dense part of a city, but not a rich part, and I have exactly one internet option and it is ass.

Ray Nagin got released yesterday and I get cold sweats in bed thinking if Cox hires him back to unleash some new fresh hell

The US has an obsolete, anti-competitive regulatory regime. In many states, the system allows local governments to grant effective monopolies each to a cable video and telephone provider. So many communities have, at best, two internet providers, and cable video service is far from universal. So a lot of places only have DSL over copper phone lines and that's rarely at broadband speeds. In my community the monopoly phone provider is bankrupt and has not repaired lines, meaning not even DSL is available to some homes.

If education is a basic right/requirement, then so is internet access.

Are the parks actually closed? I only saw them closed for Easter weekend.

Yup! All parks are closed, but you can't even tell if you drove by say MacArthur park right now.

https://www.laparks.org/covid-19

“Parks still remain open for walking or running”

This is what I suspected. I couldn’t imagine parks and rec or LAPD not shooing people away and putting up physical barriers if they were actually closed.

If social distancing guidelines are maintained, that is. Note the next line about recreational group sports which are my biggest issues with the parks right now. It would take 1 cop to tell everyone playing basketball and soccer to go home, although with the trongs of spectators on bleachers maybe a couple cops on horses would be better.

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