Sunday, July 05, 2020

Closing Schools Was a Grievous Error

Education leaders across the country are trying to determine whether and when they can safely reopen K-12 schools. What everyone needs to realize is that for students under 16 years of age schools never should have been closed. These students should return to their classrooms for summer school right away.

Older students also can return to school but need to observe the same precautions as adults under 65: washing hands, not touching their faces, and so forth.

Sweden never closed schools for those under 16 and public health authorities in neighboring Norway and Denmark now acknowledge that Sweden made the correct decision.

Globally, according to a research review published recently in The Lancet, a leading medical journal, the number of Covid-19 deaths prevented by school closings has been vanishingly small. The same can’t be said about the closings’ educational effects, which have been devastating.

Regular public schools were not prepared to switch to distance learning. Teachers were not trained; equipment was not in place, and as UNESCO put it in a report on school closings’ adverse effects, parents were “unprepared for distance and home schooling.” This was “especially true for parents with limited education and resources.”

During the lockdown, only one-fifth of the school districts surveyed by the Center for Reinventing Public Education—including districts in many of America’s most populous cities—required their teachers to provide live online video lessons to students.

Validly measuring student performance was even more challenging. Scheduled tests, especially those serving as gateways to selective colleges or validating promotion to higher educational levels, were disrupted. Online exams risked being unfair to students without the needed computer technology and internet connections—and may have made cheating all too easy. Giving pass/fail grades for online work encouraged lazy students not to do much of anything and punished hard-working students by not giving them letter-grades reflecting their accomplishments and efforts.

We know from both research and experience that students learn only if they spend enough high-quality time on task. They need to concentrate on what they need to know, within a well-designed curriculum. Their efforts need to be focused on studying that leads to their mastery of the subject-matter. Most children need a skilled and knowledgeable in-person teacher to accomplish this and, according to a study from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, do not do as well in an all-virtual setting.

A survey of public-school students in Broward County, Florida on online learning during the lockdown found that 48% did not foresee completing their school work for the week, 45% had trouble focusing, 40% spent less than three hours per day on schoolwork, 81% joined video classes only a few days a week, and 52% didn’t feel motivated enough to do schoolwork. And that’s in a district with considerable experience with online learning.

Usually, as Fordham Institute president Michael J. Petrilli points out, only those who are “high-achieving, self-motivated learners” with considerable family support at home succeed in schooling that is online only. This is not to deny that a number of programs that blend online and classroom learning performed well pre-Covid-19. It is instead to emphasize that with the current state of the art there are drawbacks to education that is completely virtual.

The shutdown also has increased the existing achievement gap between children from well-educated families and those from less-educated families. We already have, under regular conditions, a “slide” in skills and knowledge after summer vacation. That summer slide hurts children from less well-educated households the most. We know from a Canadian study that prolonged teacher strikes (say, four weeks) can dramatically reduce student performance, particularly in math. The effects of the lockdown will be worse than the summer slide.

Because of the lockdown, a study from Brown University’s Annenberg Institute shows, students will begin the 2020-21 school year with about 70% of what they should have learned in reading this year and with less than half of what they should have learned in math. The loss in math will be even worse in lower grades.

Those who are worried about re-opening shouldn’t be panicked. Multiple studies have shown that the overwhelming majority of children under 16 are at low risk for contracting the virus. If K-12 students do get it, they typically have mild cases. The vast majority of U.S. teachers also are under the age where they are considered high risk for getting Covid-19, as has been pointed out by number-crunching historian Guy de la Bédoyère.

Children have been super-spreaders for some diseases (such as the flu), but not Covid-19, according to the Swiss health ministry and a report from Australia. Many countries in Europe and elsewhere already have re-opened their schools. This has not resulted in any notable increase in Covid-19 cases among students, parents or staff.

There is, however, a new, very rare childhood respiratory disease (multi-system inflammatory syndrome) that seems to be associated with coronavirus. The key is detecting these rare cases, not letting them divert us from re-opening.

The school lockdown has been a grievous error. We now must find ways to live with the consequences. Children should return to their classrooms now if their school has its protective practices worked out and attend make-up classes in brick and mortar buildings during the summer. They should be given tests to see where their learning needs to be re-started. Many may have to repeat this past year’s grade next fall.

Children have only one childhood in which to master skills and knowledge so they can fulfill their potential. Contrasting the tiny public-health risks with the devastating educational deprivation, it is imperative that public officials let America’s children return to school now.

SOURCE 






The NEA’s Massive Money Grab and the Facts

Last week I reported on the American Federation of Teachers plea for more money to flow into government-run schools because of the Covid-19 crisis. Not to be outdone, the National Education Association has now weighed in, claiming that untold billions will be needed because “the nation stands to lose 1.89 million education jobs over the next three years, according to a new analysis.”

In its reopening guidelines, the union uses the word “invest” frequently because it insists the pandemic has “brought unprecedented challenges to our schools, our economy, and our nation’s families….” And their plan goes beyond just ensuring that teachers keep their jobs. For example, the union says that “policymakers must invest not only in education but also in addressing issues surrounding education: mortgage and rent cancellation for families in economic crisis; school-based community food programs; increased local hiring to provide jobs for unemployed adults….”

The point is that the unions have always claimed that we need to spend more on government-run schools. But now, with the advent of a pandemic, they are in overdrive.

Importantly, Rick Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, brings things back to earth in “The Schools That Cried ‘Wolf’,” a spot-on National Review piece. While Hess acknowledges the seriousness of the effects of Covid-19, he suggests that it’s difficult to take all the doom-and-gloom seriously. For example, he writes that long before the current crisis, United Teachers Los Angeles president Alex Caputo-Pearl “was urging his teachers to strike in order ‘to get the basics for [Los Angeles] students.’ Of course, Caputo-Pearl neglected to mention that the Los Angeles Unified School District was spending $18,788 per student, average teacher pay in Los Angeles was $78,962, and many of the district’s frustrations were due to UTLA’s unwillingness to adjust employee benefits, which had grown an astounding 138 percent between 2001 and 2016.”

Hess adds, “…the U.S. today boasts a teacher for every 15 students, and a school staff member for every eight — none of which suggests classrooms are ‘overcrowded’ (unless it’s because staff keep bumping into one another).” It was not always this way. The above photo shows my 3rd grade class picture in 1956 – before education became featherbedding central. Please note: 43 kids, a teacher and no aide. The school had a principal but no AP. We all learned.

Kennesaw State University economics professor  Benjamin Scafidi finds that the number of teachers increased nationwide about 2.5 times faster than the uptick in students between 1950 and 2015. Even more egregious is the fact that the hiring of other education employees – administrators, teacher aides, counselors, social workers, etc. – rose more than 7 times the increase in students. Scafidi writes, “If the increase in ‘all other staff’ alone had matched student enrollment growth between FY 1992 and FY 2015—the most recent staffing data available—then a cautious estimate finds American public schools would have saved almost $35 billion in annual recurring savings. That is $35 billion every single year from 1992 to 2015, for a cumulative total of $805 billion over this time period.”

As you can see from the inflation-adjusted figures, we have increased our education spending over 17-fold in the last century. Also, using data from the Digest of Education Statistics, the Cato Institute’s Andrew Coulson, found that we tripled our spending between 1970 and 2010 – and had absolutely no academic progress to show for it.

Sadly, too many people buy into the lies, in large part because major American newspapers support the union narrative. Hess notes, “As researchers Arthur Peng and Jim Guthrie observed a decade ago, ‘If one relies on newspaper headlines for education funding information, one might conclude that America’s schools suffer from a perpetual fiscal crisis, every year perched precariously on the brink of financial ruin, never knowing whether there will be sufficient funding to continue operating.’” As Mark Twain is alleged to have said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

Most recently, Corey DeAngelis and Matthew Nielsen revealed that The New York Times, Washington Post, and Philadelphia Inquirer have all made false funding assertions that would shame Pinocchio.

The classic film On the Waterfront portrayed union power at its rawest. In the 1950s, the unions typically got their way using nothing less than brute force. But today the tactics are different. In “Pretty Boy Floyd,” Woody Guthrie sang, “Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen.” The unions are well entrenched in the “fountain pen” camp and the American taxpayer is in their crosshairs.

SOURCE 





Australia set to ease virus visa hardship for foreign students

Australia appears set to address international students’ visa gripes just as a resurgence of coronavirus cases on both sides of the Tasman Sea threatens to neutralise Antipodean universities’ upper hand in the race to revive student flows.

Times Higher Education understands that the Australian government may announce new visa arrangements next week, bringing rules for foreign students more in line with those in competitor countries.

The plans are expected to include fee waivers for students forced to extend their stay in Australia because of the pandemic, and to clarify whether online classes count towards the period of study required to qualify for post-course work rights.

This would coincide with a retreat from plans to fly in select groups of international students on a trial basis, in New Zealand as well as Australia. In New Zealand, the education minister, Chris Hipkins, has ruled out a return of overseas students in July or August.

In early May, Mr Hipkins encouraged universities to produce a “concrete proposal” for international students to be readmitted into the country, initially under carefully managed quarantine. But in a late June letter to representative body Isana New Zealand, he scuttled any hope of this happening in time for the start of the second semester.

“International students remain a priority group in the government’s planning for any managed border entry arrangements,” he wrote. But he warned that there were “many details to be worked through, including quarantine and isolation arrangements, monitoring processes and how the costs can be shared by those arriving”.

New Zealand declared itself coronavirus free less than a month ago, arousing optimism that it could boost its share of international students on the back of its successful pandemic management.

But nerves emerged about its ability to safely manage the entry of people from Covid-19 hotspots, particularly when two returnees from the UK tested positive for the disease after being released from quarantine for compassionate reasons.

Similar doubts have surfaced in Australia, after sloppy management of hotel-based quarantine led to a coronavirus outbreak in Melbourne and forced the Victorian government to put 36 suburbs back under lockdown.

This has raised doubts over plans to fly in foreign students – particularly a scheme to jet in some 800 students to Adelaide.

The federal government has said that it will approve such plans only in states that allow untrammelled travel from interstate. South Australia has now scrapped plans to open its borders to Victorians in mid-July.

Ironically, New Zealand and Australia are stepping back from schemes to bring in international students just as universities in northern hemisphere competitor countries – where the coronavirus is far more prevalent – pursue plans of their own.

With Australian educators struggling to harness the country’s mostly successful pandemic management to their advantage, the release of the long-awaited student visa flexibility package will be welcome news.

The International Education Association of Australia said such concessions had been a long time coming. “After three and a half months of advocacy, education providers are frustrated at delays but hopeful that Australia will be in a more competitive position soon,” said chief executive Phil Honeywood.

The UK has increased the competitive pressure, announcing that it will allow international doctoral students to stay for three years after they graduate. However, Australia still trumps the UK on this measure, granting foreign PhD graduates up to four years’ post-study work rights.

SOURCE  



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