The rolling COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns leave some parents unhappy with their public schooling options — Zoom classrooms or sending your kid into a crowd — so they’ve decided to pay for a small-group education supplement sessions dubbed learning pods. Oakland elementary schools principals warn that what a Heritage Foundation expert calls “civil society in action” could create “feelings of exclusion” among students trapped at home staring at a screen. Are these well-to-do parents exercising their wealth privilege to exacerbate the savage inequality already inherent in America?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bBOG-tFLHk
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Bill Whittle Network · Savage Inequality: Unhappy with Zoom Public Schooling, Parents Pay for Learning Pods
19 replies on “Savage Inequality: Unhappy with Zoom Public Schooling, Parents Pay for Learning Pods”
“Only the mediocre are always at their best.” – Jean Giraudoux
Didn’t the plantation owners rail against people who secretly educated their slaves? Some thinking never changes.
Gee guys I’m all for ZOOMing! We have had several ZOOM meetings here on Billwhittle.com and I think I can speak for everyone attending (including Scott Ott) that they were real learning experiences! Speaking for myself, I really miss those get togethers.
As I once told a teacher, “You are responsible for my child’s education for one year, I am responsible for his education for the rest of my life:”!
For OOM Learning to work and be effective is NOTHING more than a Fantasy created by a Democratic Socialist (OXYMORON) and the Party of INSANITY & ANTI-Americanism, the NEW Democratic Socialist (OXYMORON) Party. It is hard enough to reach the C and below student, WHAT? makes you think that ZOOM Learning is the panacea?
I was begging for starting up the ZOOM meetings again here! I was TRYING to be subtle so I guess it sort of worked.
Though I believe this virus hype is a scam, it has allowed my wife and I to reconnect with old church members from the Boston area, whom we used to worship with while at Hanscom AFB back in 2012, via the Zoom app.
Thank you, Boys!! I love listening to you speak on these important issues. Yes, Americans need to do what is right for their children. We have that right and that responsibility.
As I watched this video, I became increasingly excited about sharing it on my FB page. The topic mirrors my own experiences recently—faculty at my school was sent an email by administration reminding us that teaching students enrolled in our school–off school property after school hours– is against district policy.
I was excited about sharing the video, that is, until the end.
I don’t know how my colleagues on my FB page would appreciate being called mediocre. 😀
I was going to comment that Steve’s remarks were wonderfully cogent. I liked Bill’s remarks, too. Then I heard Scott’s wrapup. . .
Wonderful segment, guys!
One pleasant outcome I hope to see demonstrated as our private school returns to in-person learning while the public option is online: Our students are excited to return and be in class.
Absence makes their little hearts grow fonder? Let’s hope.
Ahhh Pods…a return to the ‘little one room school house” 2020 style! Just like my dad learned in… Maybe they might even bring back “The McGuffey Reader” series?….and learn some ethics while learning to read?!!
Rich people have been paying for tutors for decades, to keep their rich kids “ahead” of their peers (usually really just to keep them up because they have dumb kids, or slacker who did not do the homework for years and now won’t graduate high school).
Rich kids have had the best clothes and cars earlier than anyone else and all sorts of other fancy toys that set them apart from the poor kids. Being stuck at home while others are out having a tutoring session isn’t anything new.
The issue though is poor people could have rich friends and their kids might be in those homeschooling pods. Poor families might still be able to get a teacher-tutor to help their kids, just not for as long or paid as well (so knockoff tablets instead of fancy expensive chromebooks maybe) but if they find out the kids do well and aren’t at risk of being shot during a drug deal gone bad at school, that just might end the whole game of the teachers unions.
I’m still mad at the ‘lockdown’ and what it is doing to our kids. This morning in my news feed (it was CBS a left leaning station). I saw this outrageous comment “1 (just one) child contacted covid on his first day back to school’. I don’t know how many are following the news, but young children are in the least likely category of contacting, spreading, or anything else. I guess I’m still mad!!
Scott hits the nail on the head. People can spend THEIR money on whatever THEY want.
I agree Mr. Whittle that the education obtained in public schools is abysmally poor and, with the inclusion of revisionist history texts, has become indoctrination centers for the next generation. If we do not want our children to become “useful idiots”, we, as parents, have to better control what is being taught.
The Covid-19 shutdown has probably forced many parents to deal with the actual education of their kids and after witnessing the half-hearted ‘zoom’ lessons being produced, have come to the realization that public education system is not working and that home-schooling is not the terrible alternative that it previously was.
I put my three children in Catholic schools after seeing what went on in the public school system in Florida. Since there is state-mandated testing and (supposedly) schools are graded based on test results, the schools would stop teaching material after the Christmas break and for the next three months (until April) would teach nothing but the state test (i.e. strategies on test taking, sample tests, etc.). The only thing missing were the actual test answers! A full one-third of the school year was dedicated to taking one test.
As a person who pays property taxes, I end up supporting the public school system even though my children didn’t use the system. I don’t mind (too much) having to pay for a service that I don’t use but don’t take away my right to put myself in huge debt to pay for an education that the state won’t provide.
If you want to understand how we got to this despair-inducing point in education (and, for that matter, the entire degenerated state of our culture), I cannot recommend highly enough a series called The Underground Grammarian by Richard Mitchell.
The series begins with mocking the deplorable writing of bureaucrats at teacher’s colleges but gradually becomes a devastating commentary on how and why the standard american education is destroying the country. It’s a long read – 15 years of 8 or 9 issues each – but it is more than worth the effort of taking in the whole series.
Mitchell isn’t exactly prophetic but he absolutely nails what has happened to our children to cause them to be the irrational, unthinking, immature, and destructive people they are today. The series ended in 1992 and Mitchell passed away in 2002 but he would certainly not be surprised by where we find ourselves in 2020.
There is no better analysis of the decline of American thought.
Volume One, Number One, January 1977 made me laugh out loud! Thank you. “The Underground Grammarian does not advocate violence; it advocates ridicule. Abusers of English are often pompous, and ridicule hurts them more than violence. In every edition we will bring you practical advice for ridiculing abusers of English.”
Saul Alinsky’s Rules 4-5 from Rules for Radicals: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”and “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
It’s about time our side learned to play the game instead of being naive.
My favorite quote from that issue is, “When we say our thoughts clearly, we often see that they are stupid.” lol