NC schools experience:
11 districts data; ~100k
in person school

Aug to Oct 2020
NC had 1-2 cases per 1k pop (that's brisk)
733 community acq cases

If schools' transmission mirrored the state
Expected 800+ cases in school

Actual:
32 in school transmissions

Thoughts
[thread]

I really don't know what to say
America has few opportunities for kids who are born poor, school has long been one of them

Other countries recognize that schools provide upward mobility, detect child abuse, provide a hot meal, educate kids, allow them to develop socially
While the European union has bent over backwards to open schools, in the US we have seen massive school opposition
The schools that are open are not based on scientific factors (rate of transmission/ hospitalization), but by political factors (do they hate trump - close; strong unions - closed)

The mantra used is that schools are a threat to kids and teachers
Recently the Swedish experience came out and that showed that schools are remarkably safe

It showed incredibly low risks to students and teachers from open schools (without even masks!)

https://t.co/ocB8hRtFSz
Yet, many said this doesn't apply to the USA b/c well, the USA can never learn anything from another country; we instead must rely on theoretical concerns & twitter accounts that engage in fear-mongering or are unappreciative of trade-offs
Now, of course, a new paper appears in Pediatrics, with incredibly low in school transmission rates despite community spread

" Our data support the concept that
schools can stay open safely in communities with widespread community transmission"

https://t.co/PJpKGXLrMV
"Our data support the concept that
schools can stay open safely in communities with widespread community transmission"
"Our data support the concept that
schools can stay open safely in communities with widespread community transmission"
Limitations

Yes of course we can design larger, more representative and bigger studies, we can even randomize school reopenings

That's what sensible people would do @AtleFretheim

But where we are emotionally is so far from this

Folks are living in denial
Again, I approached this as a policy person starting from neutrality
This is where I end up
After weighing tradeoffs

My journey

https://t.co/xiU8yU8hO0
Oh, and just to make it absolutely clear, so we can all agree, North Carolina appears to be in the United States.

(Pic)

More from Education

When the university starts sending out teaching evaluation reminders, I tell all my classes about bias in teaching evals, with links to the evidence. Here's a version of the email I send, in case anyone else wants to poach from it.

1/16


When I say "anyone": needless to say, the people who are benefitting from the bias (like me) are the ones who should helping to correct it. Men in math, this is your job! Of course, it should also be dealt with at the institutional level, not just ad hoc.
OK, on to my email:
2/16

"You may have received automated reminders about course evals this fall. I encourage you to fill the evals out. I'd be particularly grateful for written feedback about what worked for you in the class, what was difficult, & how you ultimately spent your time for this class.

3/16

However, I don't feel comfortable just sending you an email saying: "please take the time to evaluate me". I do think student evaluations of teachers can be valuable: I have made changes to my teaching style as a direct result of comments from student teaching evaluations.
4/16

But teaching evaluations have a weakness: they are not an unbiased estimator of teaching quality. There is strong evidence that teaching evals tend to favour men over women, and that teaching evals tend to favour white instructors over non-white instructors.
5/16
The outrage is not that she fit better. The outrage is that she stated very firmly on national television with no caveat, that there are no conditions not improved by exercise. Many people with viral sequelae have been saying for years that exercise has made them more disabled 1/


And the new draft NICE guidelines for ME/CFS which often has a viral onset specifically say that ME/CFS patients shouldn't do graded exercise. Clare is fully aware of this but still made a sweeping and very firm statement that all conditions are improved by exercise. This 2/

was an active dismissal of the lived experience of hundreds of thousands of patients with viral sequelae. Yes, exercise does help so many conditions. Yes, a very small number of people with an ME/CFS diagnosis are helped by exercise. But the vast majority of people with ME, a 3/

a quintessential post-viral condition, are made worse by exercise. Many have been left wheelchair dependent of bedbound by graded exercise therapy when they could walk before. To dismiss the lived experience of these patients with such a sweeping statement is unethical and 4/

unsafe. Clare has every right to her lived experience. But she can't, and you can't justifiably speak out on favour of listening to lived experience but cherry pick the lived experiences you are going to listen to. Why are the lived experiences of most people with ME dismissed?

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