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This op-ed is a great example of the wrong-headed scientism of school-must-open-now advocates.
A thread. https://www.vox.com/2021/2/15/22280763/kids-covid-vaccine-teachers-unions-schools-reopening-cdc
A thread. https://www.vox.com/2021/2/15/22280763/kids-covid-vaccine-teachers-unions-schools-reopening-cdc
The article starts with a gesture towards inequity and learning loss. I've tweeted about this line of argument before. It makes me wary b/c the "widening" inequities are so wide in the first place for structural reasons that many who invoke this argument are or supportive of.
Schools are funded inequitably, and resources ranging from technological devices to experienced teachers to high quality infrastructure are diverted primarily to schools in wealthier districts. The author of the article likely moved to his neighborhood in part for this reason.
This is another fallacious line of argument I've seen a lot. But low transmission is not zero. And if there is transmission, there will be death. An epidemiologist of all people should understand that risk is about populations. Most teachers will be fine, sure, but some will die.
How many teachers lives is it ok to sacrifice?
Stunning.
I dare say, you were never an ally of teachers if your supposed support of them may disappear over this.
A great many of the teachers who are fighting against going back are, in fact, scientists. This haphazard wielding of the word "science" as a bludgeon is galling.
I dare say, you were never an ally of teachers if your supposed support of them may disappear over this.
A great many of the teachers who are fighting against going back are, in fact, scientists. This haphazard wielding of the word "science" as a bludgeon is galling.
It's worth noting, also, that the author is not only anti-teacher, he's also anti-union. If other industries had unions as strong as the teacher union, this would be happening more. But the erosion of labor protections and our failed federal response mean people have to work.
The op-ed next relates specific issues that the author is upset about. You can read them if you want, but I'll only say this: he's engaging in the kind of normal-distribution-centric scientism that Nicholas Nassim Taleb talks about in his work. The risk here is open-ended.
When risk is open-ended, it pays to be overzealously safe. Don't make a big bet when the cost of getting it wrong might be unpredictable and incalculable. Teachers aren't just being 'anxious,' they're being reasonable in the face of unknown and unknowable risk.
The end of the section is, again, galling. Do you really support organized labor? Are teachers really being myopic?
And... If your empathy is conditional on people agreeing with you, it's not fucking empathy, dude.
And... If your empathy is conditional on people agreeing with you, it's not fucking empathy, dude.
These countries otherwise did things exactly the same as the US, so this is clearly a reasonable source of evidence. /s
Schools exist in communities. You can't compare outcomes for schools in countries that took real action on COVID early on to the US.
Schools exist in communities. You can't compare outcomes for schools in countries that took real action on COVID early on to the US.
Not to be nitpicky, but since this guy is accusing teachers of being anti-science, it's worth noting that he's playing fast and loose here. In most sciences the "Gold Standard" would be a randomized control trial. What the author describes here is not even remotely an RCT.
Again, low isn't zero. And, additionally, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. How was transmission measured? What were the methods for this study?
And we can certainly guarantee, if we open schools around the country, that there will be complete and total compliance with masking in schools, and that no one will be exposed to or contract the virus because their colleagues didn't follow the rules. /s
What frustrates me about these incessant arguments is that they're focused on the wrong things. Schools aren't to blame for this, our government response is. We should be giving people money to stay home, and extra if they have kids.
Is there any evidence to suggest that the reason for increased anxiety and depression among kids - trends, I'll note, that predate COVID by a decade - are because of school closures alone? Perhaps, even with schools open, there would still be a lot of kids stressed out by COVID.
Also, we should be thinking carefully about what we mean when we say "learning loss," because a lot of that is measured by standardized tests that, frankly, are full of shit to begin with. If you want to close those gaps, give working class people money and health care.
Lastly from this section, the repugnant inequalities that shouldn't fester any longer predate COVID by centuries. Reopening schools will not eliminate or reduce inequality. It may halt short-term learning gaps (a drop in the bucket), but structural racism and classism remain.
Exactly. Plus we don't know what the exact risk is; it's open-ended. And there's a big difference between zero risk and small (even very small) risk, especially once you're talking about ~4 million teachers (not to mention other staff).
Even a minuscule 1 in 10,000 chance of death, say, among 4 million people, is 400 dead. If each teaches 100 students, and has ~50 colleagues at their schools... that's a lot of trauma.
Again, the author shows that he is misdirecting his frustrations by focusing on teachers. Why not an op-ed about how galling it is that getting people vaccinated is taking so long? Or how wrong it is to grant COVID vaccine patents to for-profit pharmaceutical companies.
As a person who has studied and worked in education for over a decade... Just, lmao.
There is a prevalent trend in American liberalism to make schools and education responsible for fixing all of our problems. This is a perfect example of that thinking. Schools are not designed to and will not solve any of the problems in the second sentence.
Yikes. Notice that he starts from the assumption that Black and Latinx communities are wrong.
If you want to earn trust, start with respect. Start by listening, not dictating.
And remember, those communities have been harmed by public health institutions for many, many years.
If you want to earn trust, start with respect. Start by listening, not dictating.
And remember, those communities have been harmed by public health institutions for many, many years.
The rhetoric of this conclusion summarizes the piece well. Invoke the God of Science to bludgeon those you disagree with. Invoke the God of Education without understanding anything about the education system. Take the moral high ground despite an immoral argument.
The core of the re-open schools argument is that the number of teachers (and, again, other staff) that will die from re-opening schools is low enough that it's OK to do. "Negligible" risk for 4 million could still mean the deaths of hundreds or thousands.
