David Berliner, one of our nation’s most eminent researchers, advises parents not to worry that their children are “falling behind.” School is important. Instruction is important. But “soft skills” and non—cognitive skills matter more in the long term than academic skills. Relax.
He sent this advice to the blog:
Worried About Those “Big” Losses on School Tests Because Of Extended Stays At Home? They May Not Even Happen,
And If They Do, They May Not Matter Much At All!
David C. Berliner
Regents Professor Emeritus
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ.
Although my mother passed away many years ago, I need now to make a public confession about a crime she committed year in and year out. When I was young, she prevented me from obtaining one year of public schooling. Surely that must be a crime!
Let me explain. Every year my mother took me out of school for three full weeks following the Memorial Day weekend. Thus, every single year, from K through 9th grade, I was absent from school for 3 weeks. Over time I lost about 30 weeks of schooling. With tonsil removal, recurring Mastoiditis, broken bones, and more than the average ordinary childhood illnesses, I missed a good deal of elementary schooling.
How did missing that much schooling hurt me? Not at all!
First, I must explain why my mother would break the law. In part it was to get me out of New York City as the polio epidemic hit U.S. cities from June through the summer months. For each of those summers, my family rented one room for the whole family in a rooming house filled with working class families at a beach called Rockaway. It was outside the urban area, but actually still within NYC limits.
I spent the time swimming every day, playing ball and pinochle with friends, and reading. And then, I read some more. Believe it or not, for kids like me, leaving school probably enhanced my growth! I was loved, I had great adventures, I conversed with adults in the rooming house, I saw many movies, I read classic comics, and even some “real” literature. I read series after series written for young people: Don Sturdy, Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, as well as books by Robert Louis Stevenson and Alexander Dumas.
So now, with so many children out of school, and based on all the time I supposedly lost, I will make a prediction: every child who likes to read, every child with an interest in building computers or in building model bridges, planes, skyscrapers, autos, or anything else complex, or who plays a lot of “Fortnite,” or “Minecraft,” or plays non-computer but highly complex games such as “Magic,” or “Ticket to Ride,” or “Codenames” will not lose anything measurable by staying home. If children are cared for emotionally, have interesting stuff to play with, and read stories that engage them, I predict no deficiencies in school learning will be detectable six to nine months down the road.
It is the kids, rich or poor, without the magic ingredients of love and safety in their family, books to engage them, and interesting mind-engaging games to play, who may lose a few points on the tests we use to measure school learning. There are many of those kinds of children in the nation, and it is sad to contemplate that.
But then, what if they do lose a few points on the achievement tests currently in use in our nation and in each of our states? None of those tests predict with enough confidence much about the future life those kids will live. That is because it is not just the grades that kids get in school, nor their scores on tests of school knowledge, that predict success in college and in life. Soft skills, which develop as well during their hiatus from school as they do when they are in school, are excellent predictors of a child’s future success in life.
Really? Deke and Haimson (2006), working for Mathmatica, the highly respected social science research organization, studied the relationship between academic competence and some “soft” skills on some of the important outcomes in life after high school. They used high school math test scores as a proxy for academic competency, since math scores typically correlate well with most other academic indices. The soft skills they examined were a composite score from high school data that described each students’ work habits, measurement of sports related competence, a pro-social measure, a measure of leadership, and a measure of locus of control.
The researchers’ question, just as is every teacher’s and school counselor’s question, was this: If I worked on improving one of these academic or soft skills, which would give that student the biggest bang for the buck as they move on with their lives?
Let me quote their results (emphasis by me)
Increasing math test scores had the largest effect on earnings for a plurality of the students, but most students benefited more from improving one of the nonacademic competencies. For example, with respect to earnings eight years after high school, increasing math test scores would have been most effective for just 33 percent of students, but 67 percent would have benefited more from improving a nonacademic competency. Many students would have secured the largest earnings benefit from improvements in locus of control (taking personal responsibility) (30 percent) and sports-related competencies (20 percent). Similarly, for most students, improving one of the nonacademic competencies would have had a larger effect than better math scores on their chances of enrolling in and completing a postsecondary program.
This was not new. Almost 50 years ago, Bowles and Gintis (1976), on the political left, pointed out that an individual’s noncognitive behaviors were perhaps more important than their cognitive skills in determining the kinds of outcomes the middle and upper middle classes expect from their children. Shortly after Bowles and Gintis’s treatise, Jencks and his colleagues (1979), closer to the political right, found little evidence that cognitive skills, such as those taught in school, played a big role in occupational success.
Employment usually depends on certificates or licenses—a high school degree, an Associate’s degree, a 4-year college degree or perhaps an advanced degree. Social class certainly affects those achievements. But Jenks and his colleagues also found that industriousness, leadership, and good study habits in high school were positively associated with higher occupational attainment and earnings, even after controlling for social class. It’s not all about grades, test scores, and social class background: Soft skills matter a lot!
Lleras (2008), 10 years after she studied a group of 10th grade students, found that those students with better social skills, work habits, and who also participated in extracurricular activities in high school had higher educational attainment and earnings, even after controlling for cognitive skills! Student work habits and conscientiousness were positively related to educational attainment and this in turn, results in higher earnings.
It is pretty simple: students who have better work habits have higher earnings in the labor market because they are able to complete more years of schooling and their bosses like them. In addition, Lleras’s study and others point to the persistent importance of motivation in predicting earnings, even after taking into account education. The Lleras study supports the conclusions reached by Jencks and his colleagues (1979), that noncognitive behaviors of secondary students were as important as cognitive skills in predicting later earnings.
So, what shall we make of all this? I think poor and wealthy parents, educated and uneducated parents, immigrant or native-born parents, all have the skills to help their children succeed in life. They just need to worry less about their child’s test scores and more about promoting reading and stimulating their children’s minds through interesting games – something more than killing monsters and bad guys. Parents who promote hobbies and building projects are doing the right thing. So are parents who have their kids tell them what they learned from watching a PBS nature special or from watching a video tour of a museum. Parents also do the right thing when they ask, after their child helps a neighbor, how the doing of kind acts makes their child feel. This is the “stuff” in early life that influences a child’s success later in life even more powerfully than do their test scores.
So, repeat after me all you test concerned parents: non-academic skills are more powerful than academic skills in life outcomes. This is not to gainsay for a minute the power of instruction in literacy and numeracy at our schools, nor the need for history and science courses. Intelligent citizenship and the world of work require subject matter knowledge. But I hasten to remind us all that success in many areas of life is not going to depend on a few points lost on state tests that predict so little. If a child’s stay at home during this pandemic is met with love and a chance to do something interesting, I have little concern about that child’s, or our nation’s, future.
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America. New York: Basic Books.
Deke, J. & Haimson, J. (2006, September). Expanding beyond academics: Who benefits and how? Princeton NJ: Issue briefs #2, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Retrieved May 20, 2009 from:http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/28/09/9f.pdfMatematicapolicy research Inc.
Lleras, C. (2008). Do skills and behaviors in high school matter? The contribution of noncognitive factors in explaining differences in educational attainment and earnings. Social Science Research, 37, 888–902.
Jencks, C., Bartlett, S., Corcoran, M., Crouse, J., Eaglesfield, D., Jackson, G., McCelland, K., Mueser, P., Olneck, M., Schwartz, J., Ward, S., and Williams, J. (1979). Who Gets Ahead?: The Determinants of Economic Success in America. New York: Basic Books.
I largely agree with Berliner, especially as far as test scores – who cares? But then there’s this:
“I spent the time swimming every day, playing ball and pinochle with friends, and reading. And then, I read some more. Believe it or not, for kids like me, leaving school probably enhanced my growth! I was loved, I had great adventures, I conversed with adults in the rooming house….”
Therein lies the problem. Kids right now are not running around with friends or talking with adults. They are isolated from everyone except their own family, rarely allowed out of the house at all, and then only under the strictest of supervised conditions. How do you expect that kids are developing any “soft” social skills when they’re not allowed to be social, which, for children, is practically like depriving them of oxygen?
For most kids, this is not a time of growth, whether in terms of academics or “soft” skills. It’s a time of fear, loneliness and depression.
Well said. Not sure how Berliner had the stones to actually type that.
Great article! Thanks, Berliner.
TOTALLY AGREE. People need to chill. Kids learn ALL the TIME.
And completing worksheets online is not learning.
Consider this. In this country we have people like David Berliner and Diane Ravitch who have both compassion AND BROAD, DEEP, VAST EXPERTISE IN EDUCATION. Then we have people like Ditzy DeVoid WHO KNOW NOTHING ABOUT EDUCATION but are very, very rich.
So, which of these is Secretary of Education?
What a clown car circus the IQ45 maladministration is.
“every child with an interest in building computers or in building model bridges, planes, skyscrapers, autos, or anything else complex, or who plays a lot of “Fortnite” ….will not lose anything measurable by staying home.”
Has Berliner ever watched a teen playing Fortnite?
Bridges to the Future?
Some things build
But some destroy
Hours filled
With rage or joy?
Life (and death) Skills
Gaming skill
Like Fortnite kill
Hoopla fill
And overbill
Maybe think about getting in a REAL (not virtual) game. “Civilization” comes to mind. If the whole family plays it, evenings, it begins taking over the living-room floor, & becomes a magnet.
Fortnite is a billion dollar industry disguised as a “game.”
It’s amazing that many adults don’t recognize it as such.
I totally understand where you are coming from. We have here and in Japan, the horrifying phenomenon of the incel in his parents’ basement playing video games 24/7. It’s gotten so bad that in Japan, people are doing interventions by hiring opposite sex surrogate friends to pay housecalls on these isolated young people and take them out to buy a soda or to walk around the block and talk. But I found this article interesting: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-a0034857.pdf
Students are so much more than their scores. Students have social-emotional as well as academic needs. Educating the whole students is important to producing well adjusted adults. Cash strapped schools districts are considering turning to online products to address students’ academic needs. One of the reasons online learning fails it because it does not address the social and emotional needs of students. Introducing SEL modules into the programming is a pathetic attempt to address social-emotional needs. A much better way to attend to those needs is to engage in human interaction that will promote strong human relationships. Positive human interaction is an essential component of social and emotional development. Students with strong bonds to others are often far better adjusted and better able to rise to life’s many challenges.
We should just take three months off the school calendar every year, then. All it will do is lower scores on standardized tests by a few points, and those tests are meaningless. And in the end, there will be no real impact on what kind of people students grow up to be.
This reminds me of when I was a kid. I never had a job in the summer except working at my mom’s law office here and there since I was about 11. That’s where I learned to do legal research and write business letters and answer the phone. Later on, I learned how to serve legal papers. I met judges and lawyers and police officers and lots of my mom’s clients. When I was in elementary and middle school, I spent summers riding my bike and playing with friends. I read and made arts and crafts. I did gymnastics. I played outside and camped out in my backyard in a tent my mom got me. When I was in high school, I did more reading, went to the library, and just sat quietly enjoying the summer air. I played tennis. Sometimes I would tell my mom I was bored. She would say that it was ok, it will pass. She didn’t give me things to do, but let me find my own way. I spent a lot of time alone since I was an only child. I learned the importance and delight of solitude. From that solitude sprang interests and ideas and imagination. I still rely on and use so much of it to this day. Thank you, mom and dad, for not forcing me to engage in lots of “doing.” Thank you for my summers. Thank you, mom and dad, for giving me free time and for just letting me BE during my childhood.
My mom never wanted us to have “jobs” (mowing the neighbors lawn or pet sitting, excluded) in the summer or during the school year because she wanted us to enjoy childhood and school activities. She used to say that there was a whole lifetime of work after we got out of school and that childhood was short. I played with friends, went swimming in neighbor’s pools, slept until noon because I would be up late reading Stephen King novels or listening for my favorite songs on late night AM/FM radio. It was such a nice childhood and having that long summer break made me excited to start school after Labor Day. I wanted the same for my children and became a stay at home mom. Unfortunately, where I live, parents feel a need to fill their child’s days with planned activities and camps galore……my children had no one to play with. Sad that parents feel they need to “buy” childhood experiences that are free for the taking if we just let the kids do what they do best….play and socialize…..which is a really great education all on its own.
Berliner concedes too much. The idea of “summer slide” has been debunked for decades.
https://www.vnews.com/Column-The-myth-of-lost-learning-33930658
I also generally dislike any education argument that uses earning power as justification for any practice. Doing so tacitly acknowledges (or encourages) discontinuing any educational practice that does not increase earnings.
Agreed, Steve!
I’m beginning to think that it is impossible to open up schools. Many states are cutting the education budget, which were already underfunded, and many teachers are in the older category. It is impossible to make a first grader keep on a mask all day, let alone make them keep social distancing during recess. How dirty will masks get when children wear them? How will busses keep social distancing? How can teachers get a break if kids eat in their rooms at lunch time?
Big problem: what will happen to teachers’ salaries if schools don’t open? Many teachers were working 2-3 jobs to survive.
Under the middle-path alternating-day proposals, I imagine teachers will spend their entire day yelling at students to put their mask back on, to adjust their mask, not to touch this or that, to stop standing so close to another student, etc. And then they will have to go to their night job of dealing with remote learning.
16 hour days for less pay. That’s what we can expect.
Apparently, we teachers and our students are just going to have to wear masks while we eat. That’s how much sense Goliath makes.
Oh, but haven’t you seen the new design for face masks? They are now trying to create masks that have a zipper opening so that the masks can stay on while eating. It looked rather messy when the person was trying to navigate a full fork of food through the opening. I wouldn’t want to wear a filthy, food covered mask for the rest of the day AND also risk infection from food poisoning. It’s just getting weirder and weirder by the day. Please wake me up from this awful dystopian nightmare!
I’m thinking i.v. bags attached to the shoulder seem like a good idea! The NRA could sell repurposed shoulder holsters. (Dark sarcasm.)
As long as we’re talking about intravenous feeding, don’t forget the biometric bracelets to go with all the cameras and microphones. I wouldn’t doubt biometric masks soon.
Actually, I didn’t mean to stray so far from the subject of this post. It’s a wise essay by Berliner, definitely a must read and a must consider. The whole deal with measuring learning and lost learning and achievement gaps is all just a way for rich people to blame poor people for being poor, and nothing more. It makes rich people feel entitled and unwilling to pay taxes.
I think edible masks are the way to go.
You put on two at the start of the day and eat the inner one at lunch time.
And Kindergartners need three, one for snack time.
Oooh! Edible, biometric masks with biomass zippers for fiber and DNA tracer chemicals for bowel sampling! I’m surprised if the B.M. Gates Foundation hasn’t already started manufacturing them. If you squirt some ketchup on the masks before you eat them, Republicans who still worship Ronald Ray-gun will say you’re eating you’re vegetables, too. Folks, this is getting too good; we need to go into the tech innovation business together.
Autocorrect, thy wit’s as thick as a Tewkesbury mustard.
https://q13fox.com/2020/05/21/company-creates-face-mask-that-allows-wearer-to-eat/
It’s just dreadful that this is what we may have to do.
LisaM: “Costco, one of the nation’s largest retailers, will not let shoppers into stores if they were not wearing masks.”
NOT true. I went to Costco last week and some customers weren’t wearing masks.
I’m seen women, most likely Saudi Arabia, totally covered in black. There were slits for them to see and when they sat down to eat, there was a flap to manually lift up. [Lift flap with one hand and put food in mouth with the other.]
all key understandings — many making decisions about the future of school don’t have the expertise to think all of this through
Schools are a contained environment. Children can get sick or be asymptomatic carriers.
…………………….
Up to 80% of COVID-19 Infections Are Asymptomatic, a New Case Report Says
In one cruise-ship coronavirus outbreak, more than 80% of people who tested positive for COVID-19 did not show any symptoms of the disease, according to a new paper published in the journal Thorax.
The research shows just how prevalent asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 may be—a reality that both suggests official case counts are drastic underestimates, and emphasizes the importance of practicing social distancingeven if you feel healthy.
Researchers have known for months that asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 is possible and common, but without population-wide testing, it’s been difficult to estimate how many people get infected without showing symptoms. The new paper provides an example of how widespread asymptomatic transmission can be, at least in a contained environment…
https://time.com/5842669/coronavirus-asymptomatic-transmission/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-share-article&utm-term=health_covid-19
Thanks to David Berliner. I was in ed school 50 years ago, and remember Gintis & Bowles and Jencks, and their prima facie validity to me as a new teacher. It’s always been clear to me that what I was offering kids, as a teacher, had little to do with ‘content,’ per se, but lots to do with persistence, community, sensitivity and even (a nearly forbidden word in educational research) joy.
I wrote a blog that began with an story similar to Berliner’s–about being out of school for two months in the 3rd grade, due to mumps that morphed into encephalitis. Today, my two-month absence might have resulted in my failing the 3rd grade, if I didn’t test at the 3rd grade level in reading when I returned. https://teacherinastrangeland.blog/2020/04/22/every-child-left-behind/
Recently, there have been panicky pieces urging Americans to use standardized testing to determine how much learning students have ‘lost.’ But if students ‘lose’ learning, did they ever really have those skills and that knowledge? Learning is so much more than being able to spit something back on a test; it’s a building process, gradually incorporating knowledge into workable processes.
Thanks again, David Berliner. You’re right.
Well, I’m with David Berliner on the don’t worry about the few months of missed school and its impact on test score message. On the other hand, we should all worry a lot about the refusal of state and federal governments’ refusal to take care of children and their families. This purposeful choice has the most negative impact on the most vulnerable. People already struggling are forced to make impossible choices between going to work to house and feed their families, maintain health insurance (if they have it), protect their immigration status and following social distancing guidelines. For many, the things to do with kids to develop their so-called non-cognitive skills are second nature. For others, they come after survival.
Too many among us have come to believe that we have to live with these impossible choices. We don’t.
“…we should all worry a lot about the refusal of state and federal governments’ refusal to take care of children and their families…”
The chickens have unfortunately come home to roost. The nation’s neglect of comprehensive social support policies have been exposed by the pandemic and our inability to respond to it. The Idiot and the mendacious Senate “leadership” and its enablers in the House and state legislatures throughout the nation will never give ground on this.
I find the comments above–the sarcastic one excepted–prove to me that educators don’t need schools to be educators. Yes, it helps immensely, but we need to start figuring out how to get them at the negotiating tables on the full range of public policy issues, not just education. But since they’re being excluded left and right (politically speaking) on education, we need to start there.
Lastly, I had the opposite experience growing up that David did. By going to different schools in different places, I often repeated some of the same topics or had to quickly catch up on others. I first had sex education at a very progressive Dept. of Defense American school in 3rd grade and then had it every year up to 7th, fittingly, in Birmingham, Alabama (where it was also the most primitive).
I hate for this decision to be made by ignorant politicians. “…we want to make sure that when we do reopen, it’s safe,” Holcomb said. HA. Indiana underfunds public schools.
……………………………….
[NWI Times] Holcomb convinced Indiana schools can safely reopen for fall semester
May 27, 2020
Gov. Eric Holcomb [R-IN] expects to announce in coming weeks when and how Indiana schools will reopen for the fall semester amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Republican chief executive declined Wednesday to provide reporters any specific details about the school calendar, instructional time, food service, student safety, extracurricular activities and the myriad other components of education in the Hoosier State.
He said his administration currently is working with local schools and the Department of Education to figure all that out, and the final plan still is “probably a couple weeks off.”
“I’m convinced that we will be able to reopen safely,” Holcomb said. “We are approaching this as ‘how can we,’ not ‘how can we not.’”…
“We do recognize it’s about the students and the teachers, it’s about everyone that goes into that building. And we want to make sure that when we do reopen, it’s safe,” Holcomb said. “There won’t be one-size-fits-all. This will be informed from the very local level, through the Department of Education and our administration, to open safely.”
Once students are back in classrooms, state agency leaders said they are preparing to deploy teacher training and grant assistance programs focused on addressing the impact of COVID-19 on the mental and physical health of children, as well as programs to teach children resilience in uncertain times.
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/education/holcomb-convinced-indiana-schools-can-safely-reopen-for-fall-semester/article_e0d647b9-a85b-5e57-933f-43b94f279088.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share
I would agree that parents should not go into panic mode about lost class time this year, but I think there is a danger in pushing this too far.
And it’s not hard to see how some will use this as an argument that children and young adults don’t need to go to school — or even that parents are free to keep them out of school for weeks or even months with no good reason.
My biggest regret in high school is that despite having some great teachers, I had to do so much useless stuff (square dancing in gym class? really?) that high school took much time away from my learning, much of which was happening in the reading I was doing on my own, in my conversations with friends, in jobs I held after work and in the summer. This was true of a lot of my friends, too. If kids spent the next year doing project work under a couple mentor teachers whom they meet with online once a week, I doubt much negative effect would be seen ten years from now. We need to start being realistic about the situation we’re in. Economic assistance to weather the storm (e.g., wage, rent, and mortgage subsidies), computer access for every child, new taxes on the wealthy to pay for this, and some creative thinking (a lot of which is already going on) about distance MENTORING by actual teachers.
Also important in any interim not-in-school solution–creating SMALL social networks of supportive friends/collaborators for every kid–groups of no more than, say, five kids.
And of course “bow to your coroner”
and making sure that kids have adequate supplies at home–notebooks, pens, pencils, books, art materials, online library memberships, in addition to computers and internet connections. We need to create equity there.
My biggest regret from high school is the high school itself. They beat the joy of learning out of me.
GregB: The joy of learning is NOW beaten out of grade school students.
C’mon….I loved the square dancing during gym class. Bow to yur partner and do si do!!! It was a unit when the boys and girls were allowed to mix. It was fun, although the boys really did hate it. Those were different times when PE was required every year for every student 1st-12th because physical movement was seen as a positive effect for the body AND the mind.
I can still hear the caller
All the men left and lemonade
Bow to your gardener, bow to your coroner
The latter two are important life lessons
Many years ago before most people even knew what ESL was, I taught beginning high school ELLs to square dance. We did it for maybe fifteen minutes on a Friday afternoon. It was (TPR), total physical response, based on the idea that newcomers can respond before they can express language. Years later when I ran into former students in the community, they say “Hi” and “Dosey-doe.” They remembered it fondly years later.
Bob,
You might be interested in this Radiolab podcast on square dancing: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/birdie-cage
My take: square dancing in schools was a reaction against black music and dance–jazz and later, soul-and-blues influenced early rock and roll.
Thus…
Procastination
“Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.”
Blame
“The secret to success is knowing who to blame for your failures.”
Delusions
“There is no greater joy than soaring high on the wings of your dreams,
except maybe the joy of watching a dreamer, who has nowhere to land,
but in the ocean of reality.”
Incompetence
“When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill(know-how)
by doubling your efforts, there’s no end to what you can’t do.”
VERY interesting.
Years ago IQ was seen as the predictor of success in life.
Not so. No correlation between the two.
Then other things.
FINALLY
the one thing that seems to have correlation is AQ
Adversity quotient. How well does a person handle adversity.
What does education really mean? What factors are involved?
Academics are a MEANS to education. Real education includes a LOT of things. Academics are not just an end in themselves. Knowledge does not necessarily equate with wisdom. Academics help, or can help develop mental abilities.
But is that all there is to life?
We had a superintendent with a doctorate who had only learned[ [forgive the possible misinterpretation of the words] but Yassuh boss, how high does you want me to jump. He was at the patsy of every ignorant school board member who told him what they wanted. He destroyed the excellence of our school system. Ergo, he became one of the highest paid superintendents in our area.
Similar things happen all the time.
How does one measure success in life?
What is the meaning of life itself?
AND so much more.
👍
Rich Shavelson
Stanford University
FREE THE CHILDREN!
Disagree – the stuff you got as a kid doesn’t exist.
There might be a small few doing what you mentioned, but most of our best and brightest are playing online games and watching TikTok. They are absolutely losing an education and falling behind. But everyone is falling at the same level, so we won’t notice a thing. Sadly.
I’m really getting tired of many of the pity party comments that seem to be popping up here and elsewhere. It’s been less than three months folks. Three months of “deprivation” and anxiety about the future. I know a political prisoner who spent three years in solitary confinement in an East German prison before his freedom was bought by the West German government, who was never spoken to the entire time he was there and had to endure beatings at random times until he lost his sense of smell and never was quite the same again. I know and know of black men and women in this country who fear for and lose their lives because they see police as predators. I’ve seen them pulled over the side of the road for driving while black. There are children who have known lives of abuse, deprivation and starvation their entire lives and there are people here who worry about losing classes and some exercise for three months? There are people with real problems that go beyond three months of quarantine. I know of doctors who are dealing with an out of control pandemic in the Navaho nation, and that’s on top of generations of neglect, injustice and poverty. Sheesh. Get a grip and do something positive to make a change. A lot of this whining is nothing but the realization that white privilege has its limits.
Lobbyists have absolutely NO influence on political decisions. They give money because they enjoy doing it and expect nothing in return. /s
…………………………
How the politics behind rural internet access leave parts of Indiana ‘in the dark ages’
By Stephanie Wang and Dylan Peers McCoy May 28, 2020, 5:31pm EDT
The disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak has jolted new urgency into the promise of internet connectivity in parts of rural Indiana. The digital divide cuts differently through the small towns and spread-out country homes than it does in the larger cities. While Indiana’s urban hubs tend to struggle more with the affordability of internet service, some rural areas aren’t on the broadband grid at all.
A generous estimate puts as much as 90% of the state connected to broadband, but that coverage drops to only 40% of rural areas, one expert says — and that’s still likely overinflated.
Some worry that solving rural connectivity will take more than time and money. Access depends on the cooperation of a politically connected internet industry, which heavily lobbies and donates to state politicians while it seeks to protect business interests….
Last year, for example, AT&T Indiana was the fourth-largest spender among groups lobbying the legislature, according to state data, in large part driven by its lobbyists’ salaries and more than $7,000 in gifts, such as taking lawmakers to dinner and sporting events. An AT&T official did not respond to messages seeking comment…
Over the past four years, three large internet providers — AT&T, Comcast, and Spectrum — and telecommunications political action committees have contributed nearly $750,000 to campaigns across the state, according to state data. That includes about $125,000 toward Holcomb’s campaign for governor in 2016 and his re-election bid this fall.
In a statement, Holcomb’s campaign spokeswoman Holly Lawson said his rural broadband initiative was not affected by campaign contributions: “Governor Holcomb’s goal is to get high-quality, affordable broadband access to all Hoosiers. He has been clear on that and his policies reflect his goal. Campaign contributions have had no impact on that policy, nor will they.”…
https://in.chalkbeat.org/2020/5/28/21273890/how-the-politics-behind-rural-internet-access-leave-parts-of-indiana-in-the-dark-ages
Notice that in Malaysia, they are reporting 10 cases for the country on one day. [I seriously doubt that every case is being counted since rural in Malaysia is pretty far out and in the jungle.] BUT, 10 cases is certainly different from our over 100,000 total dead and rising. They are watching to see if the numbers go up after a festive season. MCO is movement control order.
Trump wants schools to open so that parents can go back to work. Forget health risks.
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Malaysia’s health chief says schools can reopen if Covid-19 numbers are low
PUBLISHED10 HOURS AGO
PUTRAJAYA (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – More sectors including schools can be reopened if Malaysia continues to see low Covid-19 figures in the first week of June, said Health Ministry director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He said that while the country had shown its lowest daily figure in over two months with only 10 cases on Thursday (May 28), the ministry was worried about the post-festive season impact.
“The success of the conditional movement control order (MCO) over the past 24 days can be seen in the number of cases. But the ministry is still concerned about the impact of the festive season, which we will see in the first week of June…
The conditional MCO is scheduled to end on June 9, barring any further extension by the government.
Hari Raya was celebrated on May 24 and 25.The Pesta Kaamatan festival will be held on May 30 and 31, while Hari Gawai Dayak falls on June 1 and 2…
https://str.sg/JdnD