
Some school districts plan to end the year early, call remote learning too tough - itronitron
https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-school-districts-plan-to-end-the-year-early-call-remote-learning-too-tough-11588084673
======
neonate
[https://archive.md/QC6KH](https://archive.md/QC6KH)

------
eightysixfour
This situation has presented an incredible opportunity to flip the education
paradigm around and we are missing it. In my opinion, there are two different
opportunities that should be explored:

1\. Using the "best" teachers from the school district to provide lectures for
every student taking that course while the other teachers provide TA-esque
support to the students in their "section." If a student is struggling with
homework or to understand the lecture, they can go into a video breakout room
and get 1:1 support without interrupting others.

2\. Education has been focused on in-person lectures with home "work" for
decades. Given the current situation, it seems to make the most sense to
provide offline/prerecorded lectures and to use the class time to support the
students with direct help for their work. Students can listen to a lecture
without a live teacher, they cannot ask questions about their work without
one.

Are their holes in both of these? Sure. Are they as bad as just moving the
existing paradigm online? I don't think so.

~~~
kilroy_jones
Younger students (K-12) need interaction with other students and their
teachers, not lectures. I teach some of the most motivated and diligent
students you could ask for, but after 3 weeks of online learning they were
burnt out.

To further compound the issue, in many places students don't have reliable
internet access or a decent computer.

~~~
yay_cloud2
This has been my son's experience as well (Grade 4). We are on week 6 of home-
school, and by far the thing that energizes him, lifts his mood, and gets him
through his work is any interactions at all with his fellow students.

Most of his classmates are too young to have strong bonds outside of the
structure of school, so (I think) school needs to accept the power of these
bonds and facilitate social interaction between kids. De-prioritize the
output, and prioritize the process of learning things together.

~~~
WillPostForFood
_Most of his classmates are too young to have strong bonds outside of the
structure of school_

It is unfortunate, and a poor reflection on modern culture that 4th grade is
too young to form strong bonds outside of school. Kids are missing the after
school unstructured free/play time. Decades later, I'm sill best friends with
kids I went to school with in 4th grade.

~~~
chongli
This jumped out at me as well. When I was that age I spent my summers riding
my bike and roaming the city with my friends. The thought that kids today are
entirely dependent on the structure of school for socialization is incredibly
depressing. What have we done to society?

~~~
lotsofpulp
Moved into far flung suburbs separated by 4+ lane roads with large vehicles
traveling 50mph+ in order to sequester the kids in the “nicest” neighborhoods
so they only have well to do kids in their school.

------
metal13
I can't read the story, but I'm living this. And I don't blame folks for
finding it too tough.

It's crazy that so many commenters here seem to think that everyone is well
equipped to be a teacher with zero training or experience. It's hard.

It's even more crazy that no one seems to realize that most parents are acting
as teachers, while trying to maintain full time jobs.

This isn't just "teachers not adapting", or "we need VR". This is fundamental
to the fact that most households need two working parents just to survive.

~~~
ngngngng
> most households need two working parents just to survive.

Only because we created a world where every household had two working parents.

~~~
icelancer
My household doesn't need this, but my partner _wants_ to work. There's a lot
of situations where this is the case. A large percentage of women want to be
in the workforce and are not forced to be there.

~~~
ngngngng
I think it's very natural to want to work. Women having the option to work is
a wonderful thing, and we need to keep making progress towards equal
opportunities and pay.

I think a good amount of the problem then became, these new normal double
income households then decided they also wanted children. So we slowly
convinced ourselves that both parents can work while raising children, which
doesn't really work. Your child ends up being raised by day care.

It's a good example of having your cake and eating it too.

~~~
vl
> I think it's very natural to want to work.

AFAIK, studies and history demonstrated opposite to be true, if there is an
opportunity not to work and lead comfortable life, most people choose not to
work.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
If you have enough of a guarantee of leading a comfortable life (e.g. you
inherit a large fortune), then sure.

But for most people, leaving their professional career is hardly reversible in
the long term, and means becoming economically dependent on their partner.
Which only works if the couple stays together (and the partner keeps their
job).

I hope I can stay together with my partner for life but even if so, I wouldn't
be too comfortable if she left her career and became economically dependent:
what if I die early, for example? A career is a hedge against adversity.

Even staying together, if a big economic crisis comes, with two jobs it's
easier that at least one of us will keep their income than with one.

------
bstar77
I've been home schooling my son for the past 3 years. The reason why it's "too
hard" is because the traditional model of learning in public schools (in the
US) translates very poorly to home schooling. Once you stop focusing on
grooming for optimal test-taking, a whole world opens up.

Additionally, we don't do common core in our household, so my wife and I have
no issues teaching my son math (we settled on Saxon math). I neither have the
time nor energy to learn common core math in order to support my son.

~~~
TheHegemon
I'm unsure of what everyone's concern with common core is. It was way easier
to teach my kid's once I realized that it's just what I've always been doing
in my head without anyone telling me to.

It's just about breaking apart problems into digestible pieces.

~~~
thowthisaway
I don't have a problem with common core, I like that kids gets to see all the
different ways to solve a problem. The problem I see is that schools are
testing all the different methods instead of asking the students to use the
method to solve the problem.

~~~
steve_adams_86
This is a great point. I found myself both admiring and hating some of my
son's school work recently in that it illustrated and described mental problem
solving exceptionally well, then gruelingly pushed him to repeatedly explain
the model rather than simply use it. Pages upon pages of dissection and
regurgitation. My son could understand the model just fine, but was perplexed
as to why he had to go over it like that.

~~~
linuxftw
That's because public school uses memorization as a cheap stand-in for
understanding. It's easy to internalize 2+2=4, but it's impossible to
internalize the quadratic equation. At some point, you need to just know the
procedure and it's application, and most importantly, recognize when to use it
in novel situations.

------
pdx_flyer
As the spouse of a high school math teacher, I've seen how difficult it is for
the last month. Getting kids internet service, a computer or tablet to work
with, the software they need, and then just getting them to login and read or
do the work. It's a real challenge.

We tweaked my wife's setup and it works pretty well now, though she is
dreading if they choose to do live online learning in the fall, as that will
be something completely new to tackle. Currently she uses Google Classroom,
Desmos, and Kahn Academy for the teaching side. She plans and distributes
lessons in Google, uses Desmos for some interactive activities where Desmos
scripting allows her to check work and give feedback, and Kahn Academy as some
supplemental teaching to her notes. In addition she has certain hours everyday
for certain classes and uses an iPad + Google Meet to show notes to her
students and work problems they may have an issue with. So far that's been
working.

Live teaching would be a little more difficult with this setup but it could
work.

~~~
dorchadas
I'm a math/science teacher myself, and I've already decided the first thing
I'm gonna do is buy a nice big whiteboard if we do online teaching this fall,
to try to solve some of those issues. But I pray we don't have to do that, as
just so much gets lost doing it at home versus in person.

~~~
pfranz
Wouldn't whiteboard software be better? Like Khan Academy uses? I've been in
some physical whiteboard video chat lectures and it's rough; they rarely have
a lav mic (which means the audio quality is horrible and you have problems
hearing), you need enough space to frame the whiteboard properly with the
camera, they're difficult to light because they're reflective, you need to
write the correct size so it's legible, you have the problem you often have in
person where your hand or body blocks what is being written.

I find cutting to an infinite whiteboard and/or video picture-in-picture to be
the easiest way to convey whiteboard ideas. Teachers seem to get really adept
at writing with a mouse, but I would heavily suggest investing in a Wacom--
even a used 10+ year old Wacom would be sufficient.

~~~
pdx_flyer
Do you happen to know what that whiteboard software is and if it's available
for the iPad? My wife loves the Apple Pencil for writing her math notes
because it is so similar to writing on a document camera (which is what they
use in the classrooms).

~~~
pfranz
Oh, right! An iPad and Apple Pencil is probably more commonly available. I'm
not entirely sure about iPad software and integration with video chat. If it's
prerecorded she might be able to use whatever she wants and iPad's screen
recording.

What might be easier (if you have a compatible Mac) is to use Sidecar [1]. A
desktop app will probably have more options for drawing and more options for
integrating with video chat software.

[1] [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210380](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT210380)

I'm not familiar with the landscape of software out there. There's a whole
bunch, but I don't know what's good. Maybe a web-based whiteboard could be
done on her iPad while she streams video and shared from a desktop?

For reference, Khan Academy uses [2] SmoothDraw [3] (Windows Only) and a Wacom
Bamboo.

[2]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130429170548/http://khanacadem...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130429170548/http://khanacademy.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/329318-what-
software-program-equipment-is-used-to-make-khan-academy-videos-)

[3] [http://www.smoothdraw.com/sd](http://www.smoothdraw.com/sd)

------
basilgohar
Disclosure: I have worked with distance/remote learning as far back as 15
years and my wife homeschools our kids.

Schools (and pretty much everything else) were caught completely off-guard by
the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. Setting-up an online education
infrastructure takes a lot of work and requires significant mental retooling.
Teachers need to adapt as much or more than their students to the new
paradigm. Zoom, Hangouts, Teams, or Jitsi are not replacement for in-person
instruction.

Part of this is that in remote learning the curriculum materials and
assessments need to lend themselves to greater self-guidance than those of
brick-and-mortar books and other resources. This is not impossible, but also
not easy to do on short notice. I am not surprised that schools are finding it
simply too hard to put together packets, distribute them, and trying
supplement with video conferencing when the materials are based on a different
assumption.

I am optimistic that this will further the reach of remote learning, but I am
doubtful that the stagnant style of traditional education will shift to fully
embrace it. I foresee a lot more alternative educational institutions emerging
as the traditional schools very slowly adapt.

------
zaroth
I have a 7 and 11 year old (2nd and 5th grade). With very significant parental
involvement it is possible to keep them somewhat engaged and learning,
although it is very much sub-optimal.

They miss their classmates. They miss their teacher. They miss most of all the
routine, getting to go to school, and all the fun things they got to do during
the day. My 5th grader is very sad to be missing out on a graduation-like
experience with a lot of end-of-year events that would typically happen for
outgoing 5th graders before they leave for the middle school.

This isn't an "opportunity for a new normal". This isn't a situation which can
or will last "indefinitely". It is assuredly unhealthy for kids this age (to
say nothing of the rest of us) to be isolated from their friends and
communicating only over Zoom calls.

My kids are hurting in a suburb with a big back yard, mountains of toys, a
stay at home mom, and two dogs to play with. I can only imagine it must hurt
the least privileged children hardest of all to have lost access to their
school.

I don't expect there's much of any learning going on in general below the high
school level. Particularly for households which don't have parents who are
willing to dedicate several hours a day to basically run the lessons. I think
people who can honestly claim that their under-13-year-old is distance
learning without a parent assuming a basically full-time role of teacher, are
few and far between.

I wonder how curriculum will adapt to incoming students in the fall. X graders
who don't know approximately half of the X-1 grade material. Particularly for
younger students where classes are less likely to be grouped by ability,
anyone who _did_ actually successfully learn anything from March-July is just
going to have to sit through it being taught all over again to the majority of
students who _didn 't_.

~~~
eitally
+1. My next door neighbor is a 3rd grade teacher in a heavily hispanic &
underprivileged elementary school. She was telling me today that she still has
one student -- one of her best during normal times -- who hasn't been able to
get online yet. No internet access at home, lives at home with his
undocumented grandparents who immigrated from Central America when his parents
were killed by a gang, no one in the house speaks English. School has been
closed for >1mo now.

I was talking to my 5th grader's teach last weekend about the next year. She
doesn't know, either, but is assuming they're just going to bake in an extra-
long review period going into the year. Alternatively, at least in CA, they're
contemplating starting the next school year in July rather than August, to
provide more time for catch-up. To your point, though, what about the kids who
were able to keep pace throughout -- are they going to be forced to repeat
half a semester to maintain equity in the classroom? That would be terribly
unfair.

------
h2odragon
Our school district never had a hope of _implementing_ remote learning;
they're lucky to keep their WiFi working. Our daughter is in 6th grade this
year; all we've heard since the schools closed a statement that school
wouldn't be re-opening this year and a date range when parents could come pick
up bagged locker contents.

We're lucky in that we've homeschooled before (she went back to public school
for the company of other kids), and we've worked out ways to encourage and
help focus her natural curiosity already. I just gave her a Debian 10 system
and said "holler if you get stuck"; so far she hasn't.

------
grawprog
It took me a long time to see the value of school. All through elementary
school and high school I didn't give a shit, did what I needed to do to do
well, never really cared about things going on at school and didnt really have
many friends or anything.

When I got to university it was different, I cared and tried and got involved
with everything. It was a totally different experience. It made me regret the
way i was in high school a bit and kinda made me wish I'd been more involved.
It wasn't as pointless and ridiculous as I thought and there was no reason for
me not to other than my unwillingness to.

If I'd actually experienced these things, I might have gotten more out of high
school and not been so hostile towards it all for so long, when in the end
education only benefitted me and there's a kind of education you can only get
by taking part in things with people around you.

I know it's not the same, but I know there's lots of kids out there who didn't
wait as long as me and know now, well before I did, what they get out of
having other people around. As great as distance education can be, even if
you've got your classmates there on video or something, it's still not the
same as a group of students getting together and working on homework or
studying, the ones that do I mean, and even for the ones that just get
together, there's a lot of bonding and forming as people that happens that
just can't really be replicated outside truly free interaction with other
people. Even if you're all working on school work. It needs to be some kind of
natural free setting. Something's missing otherwise. Again, it took me a long
time to really get this.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
You're lucky you got to university. In many systems screwing up in high school
is the end for that, even the remedial programs are hard to get into. After
really doing poorly in high school (and prior) I was lucky to crawl my way
into a community college and get into an arts program and then transfer to a
university for an honors BA philosophy path after -- but I really wanted to be
in CS. But because of my high school math grades that was never open to me --
and will never be even now. I ended up dropping out of my BA in my 3rd year to
go catch the .com boom wave and get my first programmer gigs, and I'm still
doing it 24 years later. I work now at Google, surrounded by people who look
at me with blank stares when I describe my troubles with school.

This whole path is why I'm deeply suspicious of educational and career models
which make excessive claims to be 'meritocratic.' Measuring humans is hard,
and mostly we just measure the wrong things and pull the wrong motivational
levers.

University I think is better because you do mostly feel like you 'own' your
own educational path, and there's more room for individual learning choices.

------
awinder
There’s a lot of hope from school systems that they will just be back next
year, but hopefully there’s at least some behind the scenes work on making
remote learning work. I have a lot of admiration for teachers & students
working on switching over right now, in the event of further disruptions next
year, they’re going to be so much better prepared.

~~~
karatestomp
We're not in one of the harder-hit states but I have some insight into schools
here and admin-tier folks are already phrasing it as " _if_ we are back in the
fall". They seem to be planning for the possibility of having to start the
year with remote learning, or for a second shut-down if there's a rebound of
the virus in the Fall or Winter after things open back up.

------
Maultasche
The school my children attend have been doing a great job with online
learning. Teachers have been posting videos and worksheets on Google
classroom, they have regular zoom meetings, and they have various online
educational software the children can log into and learn things.

The problem is that my elementary school children (who are ADHD and on the
autism spectrum) have a hard time sitting there all day on the computer by
themselves and learning, so I have to break the day up into lesson time and
fun time and regulate that because they're too young to regulate themselves
yet. At school they have teachers and peers to interact with, which keeps them
interested.

So while working full time from home, I have to also support them in their
learning and keep them on task. I also have to help them login to various
things, set up zoom meetings, help them out with their work when they get
stuck, and get the computers set up for them to do their work. Juggling logins
and zoom meeting links gets complicated and time consuming.

If that were my only job, it would be manageable, but trying to work on my
work and manage them has proven to be quite a challenge. If they were at a
point in their lives where they could manage this all themselves, that would
be great, but they're not there yet.

So I think that some students can benefit greatly from online learning, but
others struggle.

For my kids, at home online learning is not as good as being with their peers,
but it's been a lot better than nothing at all.

I'm looking forward to summer when I don't have to balance both work and
managing their school work, but I do plan to keep giving them things to read
and math worksheets. Those are the things they can do well on their own.

~~~
beart
> have a hard time sitting there all day on the computer by themselves and
> learning

Is this how your local school is handling it? I can't even make it through
full day meetings as an adult and pretty much zone out after 20 minutes of any
online meetings I'm in now.

~~~
eitally
This is how _most_ schools are handling it. Some combo of things like Google
Classroom, zoom/webex/meet meetings, and various other apps & sites and online
activities. They prescribe book reading, art & PE, but those are hard to track
so they're typically not part of an online curriculum.

You also need to understand that if a kid has 2hr worth of work online, the
odds are good they'll sit in front of the computer all day unless someone is
supervising them. This is the real issue, especially for younger children.

------
tomohawk
Students learn in a variety of ways. I imagine most of the HN audience excels
at lecture based and book learning. To such an audience it makes sense that a
single gifted lecturer could immeasurably benefit students through remote
learning.

Many students will fail to thrive in such a scenario.

These students need different kinds of instruction. This is one thing that
leads to home schooling - the government school does not provide the needed
instruction methods, and the parents can either pay for private or do home
schooling (or move).

Source: many family members were teachers.

------
foofoo4u
Hmm. This is a shame. Having read "The Smartest Kids in the World: And How
They Got That Way" by Amanda Ripley, I learned that the United States is the
highest spender on technology amongst all OECD countries. You'd think with
such a big budget for tech, we'd do a better job of transitioning online. If
anything, based on this fact, we should be one of the best equipped in the
world for it.

~~~
beart
Even if the school has dozens of Chromebooks, half the kids may not have
internet or a safe space to study.

~~~
smileysteve
Some isps have provided hotspots for these districts, other school systems
have parked busses in wifi dead zones with hotspots.

Still others have connected hotspots with lunch pickups.

------
jaequery
I am curious to what differentiates the ones where remote learning is working
and to those that aren’t. Because I have been pleasantly surprised to see just
how well remote learning have been for my kids. Our kids aren’t really any
more or less disciplined as any other kids. They did whine and scared at first
but slowly got used to the whole change. They are 10 and 11 doing two hour of
zoom per day and the rest turn in homework via google classroom and flipgrid
for presentations .

~~~
texasbigdata
Wealth?

~~~
geomark
That's a big part of it. My kid goes to a British international school.
Starting in Year 5 all students are required to have a laptop. So when the
shutdown happened they all had devices already and were adept at using them.
Teachers had some learning curve but it only took about a week to get online
learning working pretty smoothly. Contrast that with public schools here that
just shutdown and said they would do classes online when most public school
kids here don't have a computer. Most have phones and a data plan so they are
trying to do lessons via Line or Facetime. But that seems to be very
ineffective.

~~~
eitally
Even in other places, that's an issue.

I'm in the San Jose Unified School District here in the Bay Area, and it's
hugely diverse. Because of that diversity, the district has been reluctant to
mandate any specific online ed requirements, so as not to appear
discriminatory toward the families who don't have the ability to participate
in online learning. In return, that actively harms the families who can.
Currently, all the assignments are "suggested", are ungraded, and the teachers
are only "suggested" to schedule 2 online class meetings per week. what this
means is that kids in families who are willing & able to maintain learning
pace are being told both that 1) here is the list of weekly assignments 2)
your teacher is only going to be marginally available, and 3) none of this
work is going to be graded.

This is the on time in my parenting experience where it's been 100% clear that
private schools have a night & day advantage over public schools and
districts.

~~~
geomark
That seems quite bad. It's a graphic example of how when it comes to public
schools, or public policy in general, things get dumbed down to the lowest
common denominator in the interest of "fairness" regardless of how unfair it
is for those who are ready and able to do more. I don't know how that would
get fixed, other than, as you said, moving to private. When you are paying
directly (versus indirectly via taxation) you can demand a lot more.

------
anigbrowl
California is considering starting the next school year a month early, in
July, to make up for the disruption, according to the governor today.

------
ec2y
Interesting article. I’ve taught three masters level classes this week and
even these motivated students can find it challenging. Most are OK with
passive listening, even if that’s not my favorite thing, and having some
discussion, but as with in person, there can be issues trying to flip the
classroom to make things more engaging and for pedagogical reasons. For
example, I noticed that over 10% dropped off the zoom session on Monday,
rather than discussing a case with other students in a breakout session for 15
minutes. I much prefer teaching in person where I can see their faces and get
some feedback about where they are in terms of learning, interest,
tiredness... and where I can more easily push them into doing group
discussions that are pedagogically useful and enhance their networking skills.
(Business students, not CS.)

------
aaron695
We know how much more 'Distance Education' costs to run than normal schooling.

Yet on a few weeks notice we somehow imagined it would work to move every
student over? Even if you increased the budget to match Distance Education it
takes years to train the teachers/staff and train the students.

And we believe this because we fetishize 'remote' anything and just want it to
work?

This also being the worst of remote, it's remote from home.

It's no wonder the world can't move forward.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
I have always learned on my own. I’ve spent the last couple of years pivoting
from being a development manager, back to engineering.

That may seem to be an odd choice, as I’m an excellent manager, but I don’t
like being a manager, and I _love_ engineering. I’m pretty good at that, as
well.

There’s really no curriculum for this kind of thing. Schools and training are
all about introducing people to a subject “from scratch,” which involves a lot
of “substrate.”

I did sign up for an introductory course on one tech that I’m working on, and
to which I have had little exposure; but, for the most part, it’s all been
self-teaching.

I really don’t know of a way to make that work with primary education. In my
case, it’s a very personal journey, fueled by motivation. I don’t think that
can be synthesized.

Of course, everything also needs to be measured, which brings in a whole
infrastructure for accreditation and metrics.

------
kumarvvr
One disadvantage of remote learning is there is no feedback for pupil
attention.

Its very easy for the student to be browsing, chatting or gaming with the
class going on.

The best way to learn will always be a focussed, distraction free, peer
supported classroom.

~~~
smileysteve
distraction free? students aren't distracted in the classroom? Whether it's
200 years of passing notes, calculators, a book, or the classmate next to you
the classroom has long had distractions.

~~~
kumarvvr
Yes, Of Course, but unlike in a home environment, distractions in classrooms
are quickly corrected.

------
fortran77
At least California has plans to do school in July instead of just giving up:

[https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/04/28/...](https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/04/28/newsom-
california-to-reopen-in-weeks-may-start-school-year-in-july-1280662)

------
dang
There's a related thread at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23010079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23010079).
Normally we'd merge threads that are that similar, but I couldn't figure out a
good way to do it, so maybe they're subtly different enough to keep both up.

------
ojbyrne
Seems related - California floated the idea of starting next year early:
[https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/28/newsom-school-may-
sta...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/28/newsom-school-may-start-in-
july-this-year/)

------
sys_64738
When schools reopen then smaller class sizes will need to be the norm with
social distancing in effect. More teachers will be needed so costs to tax
payers will increase. Online learning doesn't work for kids. It barely works
for adults. I'm not sure what else can be done.

~~~
dehrmann
I guess the concern would be kids as vectors? The death rates for people under
18 have been so low that that social distancing would be rather silly if it
weren't for them bringing it home.

~~~
elliekelly
You might find this recent NYT article[1] about the “birth of social
distancing” interesting.

TLDR - In the early 2000s a high school student did a project mapping the
“social network” of her school. Her father just so happened to be a scientist.
He used her school project to create a model that showed by closing the
schools during a pandemic in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, only 500
people got sick. Leaving the schools open would result in half of the
population infected. Closing schools is one of the most effective strategies
we have to prevent a contagion from spreading.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/politics/social-
distan...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/politics/social-distancing-
coronavirus.html)

------
satyg
It is tough because it's different. Don't throw in the towel, innovate. New
patterns /method will have to be used. This is an opportunity, if we figure
out how to do this right, education can reach everywhere in the world.Think
about the potential.

------
aazaa
The underlying current in this article and others recently posted on the topic
is that a return to in-person schools will happen next year.

Districts and states need to be asking themselves: "What if that isn't
possible?"

There's a lot we don't know about the virus. How long does immunity last? How
long will it take to get a vaccine? What happens if multiple flare-ups occur
as people rush back to work, parties, cruises, and the rest?

There's a growing sense that there's light at the end of the tunnel. That
light was achieved by strict measures that are melting away at a blistering
pace. Nobody knows what happens when you start loosening up.

One possibility is unavoidable: there are more active cases today by at least
an order of magnitude than there were when the restrictions were put into
place. Exponential growth hasn't been suspended just because people need to
return to normal.

Officials interviewed in this story didn't indicate what will be happening
_after_ instruction ends for the year. It might be a good time to assess what
worked and what didn't, then develop a plan and do teacher training for
distance learning for Fall 2020.

~~~
nradov
Of course it's possible to return to in-person schools. Some countries never
closed primary schools at all. Education is essential, and it's totally worth
accepting some risk.

~~~
g_langenderfer
public education's primary goal is daycare. That is not essential.

------
paypalcust83
This is really sad: schools giving up on teaching children. Not that it hasn't
happened before (NCLBA, impoverished districts), but it's still sad when
schools fail at their only job.

Where is their shame and self-respect?

~~~
karatestomp
They're seeing student and parent engagement fall off a cliff, and can't do
much about it. They had nearly zero time to prep for this and the schools are
all quite worried (not unreasonably) about being sued over equal-access laws
so are ambivalent about introducing "new" material anyway, so much of the
instruction's kinda worthless unless the teachers are ignoring their
districts' directions. Meanwhile lots of the teachers are at home with...
their own kids, who are trying to do remote learning, and they're trying to
keep _their_ kids' engagement from dropping off, while also teaching a
rapidly-dwindling set of students almost none of whom are still trying or even
"showing up", at this point.

So mostly, shame is absent and their self-respect is fine, thanks.

------
DoreenMichele
I can't access it. It's paywalled.

I was a homeschooling parent and, for me and my family, it was wonderfully
less burdensome than public school.

A snippet from a recent comment of mine which may be pertinent, though, based
on the headline and long experience with remote learning (I also have taken
college classes online):

 _Most people overestimate how much work they need to put into homeschooling.
They think they need to teach their kids like eight hours a day because that
's how long they are in school usually and they feel overwhelmed.

This is not true.

One article I read years ago indicated that after standing in line, changing
classes, doing lunch, having roll call, etc was accounted for, students in
public school spent between one and three hours a day on actual learning.

Similarly, under California law (back in the day), one legal option for
homeschooling was to hire a tutor for three hours a day. Not eight. Just
three._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22681334](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22681334)

~~~
zarkov99
This is very much consistent with my experience when tutoring my kids as well
as that of friends who home-schooled their children. One hour of one-on-one
tutoring is easily worth 3 or 4 hours of regular school time.

------
fortran77
The job may be too hard for the teachers. Will they give up their pay if they
end the year early? Will taxpayers--still paying all their property tax--get a
refund?

------
linuxftw
Public school is not optimized for learning, it's optimized for filling time
with nonsense.

If you care about your child's success, teach them how to do math. If they
don't know how to read, teach them how to read as well. Probably 2-4 hours of
instruction per day, at the absolute max end of the spectrum. Kids from the
age of 8+ should be able to accomplish tasks with much less instruction time,
and the bulk of the time will be individual effort. Of course, it's mundane
and isolating, so don't expect them to sit for hours on end doing school work
either.

~~~
zarkov99
Public school is what you get when you have one instructor per 20 kids with
wildly different backgrounds, parent support and aptitudes. You need 10x
better teachers with 1/20 of the load and much more involved parents. If you
get all that, and certainly technology is the only way to get it at scale,
then yes, kids can be done with academics in a small fraction of their day.
They should be spending the bulk of their time in play and exploration.

------
chrisgd
Great opportunity to discuss internet as a regulated utility

------
nradov
A better solution would be just to reopen all of the primary schools. Sweden
never closed theirs because it appears that small children aren't a
significant virus transmission risk.

[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642\(20\)30095-X/fulltext)

For those who think schools should remain closed, please explain what we
should do next school year when the pandemic is still ongoing? We obviously
can't leave schools closed indefinitely and there's no guarantee of an
effective vaccine anytime soon.

------
jaequery
I think we need a poll or survey about this. I don’t think it is as bad as the
article is portraying.

------
noway421
Too tough huh? I guess they are not getting a passing grade then.

------
pochamago
Is this solvable? Does something like a VR school make it work?

~~~
the_snooze
Access to reliable tech and infrastructure seems to be a big stumbling block.
VR doesn't solve some of the more fundamental issues, like students not having
reliable equipment and Internet connections, or the backend not being able to
support the demand (whether in terms of volume or flexibility to different
teaching requirements).

~~~
zarkov99
I personally do not think its a lack of high tech. A written schedule mailed
every week and the ability to email or call the teacher once or twice a week
would get you 90% of the value.

~~~
anon176
That is pretty much what they are doing right now in my state. Packets can be
downloaded every two weeks, or picked up if they do not have access. Teacher
does a zoom with the class a minimum of twice a week.

But with everyone WFH, making time to work with and teach your kids is
difficult. At least young students..

------
pasttense01
For a copy of the article NOT behind a paywall:
[http://archive.is/sOTkP](http://archive.is/sOTkP)

------
throwawaysea
Or maybe we just have the wrong teachers, who are unable to do anything but
blindly follow lesson plans and structures designed for in person classes?

------
zarkov99
I do not know about this. I have two kids, 7 and 10, and yes, its messy but
this is mostly because the teachers have not yet realized that they need to
adapt and simplify their methods and, most importantly, communicate properly
with the parents. With a few simple tweaks the kids could learn just as
effectively as they do in regular school, in fact probably more, provided the
parents are willing and able to step in.

~~~
jdmichal
The wife of one of my good friends was on the county school board for 12
years. According to her, it was an unspoken secret was that parental
involvement was the biggest predictor of / contributor to student success. The
reason it was taboo was because you absolutely cannot expect _anything_ from
the parents. It was political suicide.

I would put dollars on the table that such is already happening for every
parent that is willing and able to do it, because they were already doing it
before too.

~~~
zachthewf
I find it bizarre that that was taboo. It seems incredibly intuitive and
obvious to me.

~~~
Leherenn
The issue might be obvious, but the solutions certainly aren't.

If you cannot talk about the solutions, then you're probably better not talk
about the problem either.

