I fear I might have lost my soul as I don’t understand why NYC having remote days instead of snow days is “evil”. Snow days are usually made up at the end of the school year, while I presume remote days will not be. So why is it evil to extend summer vacation at the expense of having a few remote days?
My read on it is that even if snow days don’t actually mean less school since the days are made up, it’s still something that is really exciting for kids. And so taking away a huge amount of excitement and joy in exchange for keeping things “on schedule” is a bad tradeoff.
That still makes the OP sound rather extreme, though:
If you do not think school’s primary nature is ‘child prison’ and/or that those running it are pro-children, then you have new data your model needs to somehow explain.
“The people running the school system genuinely think that school is for education and learning, and are happy to have found an option that would allow children to keep learning even on days when they otherwise wouldn’t have” seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation, even if one disagrees with that reasoning.
Yeah, it seems extremely easy to incorporate this into a pro-school model, and I’m confused as to why someone might think it isn’t.
Like, if you think school is actually good (on average), of course you think that finding a way to let kids not miss school is plausibly good.
Presumably the fact that kids miss out on the joy of snow is a cost, which is why I only said “plausibly good” above, but now we’re arguing about the optimal trade-off, at which point we’re firmly in Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided territory.
My experience with elementary and middle school was that small numbers of snow days were not made up at the end of the year, but if more than a week or so was lost due to snow days, then the year would be extended. This appears to be the case in at least some other parts of the country as well. From a quick search: in Michigan “schools can be closed for up to six days before they must make up time to receive full funding from the state.”
I fear I might have lost my soul as I don’t understand why NYC having remote days instead of snow days is “evil”. Snow days are usually made up at the end of the school year, while I presume remote days will not be. So why is it evil to extend summer vacation at the expense of having a few remote days?
My read on it is that even if snow days don’t actually mean less school since the days are made up, it’s still something that is really exciting for kids. And so taking away a huge amount of excitement and joy in exchange for keeping things “on schedule” is a bad tradeoff.
That still makes the OP sound rather extreme, though:
“The people running the school system genuinely think that school is for education and learning, and are happy to have found an option that would allow children to keep learning even on days when they otherwise wouldn’t have” seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation, even if one disagrees with that reasoning.
Yeah, it seems extremely easy to incorporate this into a pro-school model, and I’m confused as to why someone might think it isn’t.
Like, if you think school is actually good (on average), of course you think that finding a way to let kids not miss school is plausibly good.
Presumably the fact that kids miss out on the joy of snow is a cost, which is why I only said “plausibly good” above, but now we’re arguing about the optimal trade-off, at which point we’re firmly in Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided territory.
Thanks, I had forgotten the joy kids experience from having snow days.
https://imgur.com/a/fXZJusn
“Snow days are usually made up at the end of the school year”
They what?! That seems cruel...
My experience with elementary and middle school was that small numbers of snow days were not made up at the end of the year, but if more than a week or so was lost due to snow days, then the year would be extended. This appears to be the case in at least some other parts of the country as well. From a quick search: in Michigan “schools can be closed for up to six days before they must make up time to receive full funding from the state.”