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How NYC doomed in-person education, a thread. @ProfEmilyOster (of Expecting Better fame) writes a great article about priorities and how certain areas chose to reopen https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/school-rankings-framing-slightly (1/?)
Basically, all activities have a risk factor and a reward factor; opening parks is low-risk and high-reward; opening indoor dining is high-risk and high-reward; opening schools is low-risk and high-reward, esp for younger kids. (2/?)
(I know people disagree on the risk of opening schools but in NYC we have a ton of safety measures - universal masks, social distancing, etc. - and there is very little, if any, evidence of in-school transmission) (3/?)
But the issue is that municipalities and states didn't consider the risks and rewards when opening - schools are open where everything is open, and schools are closed where everything is closed. (4/?)
NYC is not the exception to this. We did great - amazing, really - over the summer. Mask wearing was near universal and you could see more and more people wearing masks as the summer progressed. People took this seriously. We all had PTSD. (5/?)
But then sometime in August people got antsy. People got upset. People started pushing to open indoor dining. People wanted schools open. (6/?)
. @NYCMayor pushed to open schools. Credit where credit is due, it was messy, it was anxiety-inducing, I was the most stressed I had even been in my entire life (and I am a lawyer who took 1L finals and the bar exam), but he did it. It was a symbol of the City's rebirth. (7/?)
It was the only large urban school district in the country to reopen. And...it was a success! Not that many kids opted in, but 280,000 kids showing up for school is still 280,000 kids. That's larger than most school districts. (8/?)
(and yeah it's disproportionately white kids, but white kids are only 15% of the entire system so the majority of kids showing up are students of color. That's just math) (9/?)
But: people forget that schools were supposed to open Sept 8. They didn't. The @UFT threatened to strike, so school reopening was pushed back. And back. Elementary schools finally opened Sept 29. (10/?)
And on Oct 1, indoor dining opened. (11/?)
Everyone knows that indoor dining is high risk. Everyone knew that indoor dining would increase transmission. Don't worry, the Mayor said. If the positivity rate goes above 2%, we'll reassess indoor dining. (12/?)
The cutoff the shut schools down is 3% (13/?)
We've surpassed 2% positivity. Indoor dining is still open; @NYCMayor says indoor dining should be "re-assessed" but hasn't told us how or when it will be re-assessed. (14/?)
We're now teetering close to 3% positivity. Unlike the cutoff for indoor dining, the cutoff for schools seems to be non-negotiable. @NYCMayor has said, repeatedly, that he will not reconsider. Parents frantically wait every day to hear the positivity rate announced. (15/?)
I cannot express to you the anxiety associated with not knowing whether today will be my daughter's last day of school. For me and for her. This "will it or won't it" drama has to end. (16/?)
NYC is not unique. As @ProfEmilyOster writes, "very few, if any, places in the US did the “right thing”. Everyone made the same mistake, it just manifested differently in terms of the outcomes." (17/?)
. @ProfEmilyOster continues: " If we can recognize that, I wonder if we can all organize to make the same point that schools should get higher priority." (18/?)
By opening indoor dining at the same time as schools, and by reneging on his promise to close indoor dining at 2% while holding fast to his promise to shut schools down at 3%, @NYCMayor doomed in-person education. (19/?)
It makes no sense. @NYCMayor really stuck his neck out to do the right thing and opened the only large urban school district in the country, and that was all for...nothing? So people could have a pizza served to them indoors? (20/?)
And just to be clear, I'm not saying indoor dining should be closed. But it makes no sense to shut down schools (low risk, high reward) so that people can enjoy their rigatoni ala Norma in a restaurant. (21/?)
If you've read this far, please follow @KeepNYCSchools1 to help us #keepNYCschoolsopen. The end.
