My website is dianeravitch.com.
I am a historian of education and Research Professor of Education at New York University.
I was born in Houston, Texas, attended the Houston public schools from kindergarten through high school, and graduated from Wellesley College in 1960. I received my Ph.D. in the history of American education in 1975.
I am the mother of two sons. They went to private schools in New York City. I have four grandsons: two went to religious schools, the third goes to public school in New York City, and the fourth will go to the same wonderful public school in Brooklyn.
I live in Brooklyn, New York.
Diane Ravitch’s Blog by Diane Ravitch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at dianeravitch.net.
ProPublica has published this story of a 15 year old girl with special needs and an IEP, who was sent to a detention facility on May 14, after a state of emergency was declared. Her offense? She failed to complete her on-line school assignments on time.
https://www.propublica.org/article/a-teenager-didnt-do-her-online-schoolwork-so-a-judge-sent-her-to-juvenile-detention
Hi Diane,
In Nebraska we are fighting against measures by the GOP Senators to allow public funds to go to private schools.
We would love if you would come on our podcast to help our state to understand the impact this would have. We have created a Red for Ed NE group to combat this. Educating people on the devastating effects of this privatization is a mission we are on. Not sure how to get ahold of you.
Hello, Diane. In Missouri, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education plans to spend $10 million dollars of their CARES money on a new state test to measure the impact of school closings last spring.
As you know, the only thing standardized tests measure is students’ socioeconomic background; I’m pretty positive that’s all this one will demonstrate. In other words, it is completely unnecessary!
Meanwhile, in the poor urban districts, we are going to need more staff (custodians! nurses! bus drivers! teachers!) if we are to open in a reasonably safe manner. That money could be better spent in so many ways.
Also, this entire idea is predicated on the belief that we knew students’ skills and knowledge beforehand, but we didn’t, because the tests change constantly, so one can’t really compare results from year to year. Here’s a link to a news article:
https://abc17news.com/news/education/2020/07/06/dese-to-create-new-assessment-to-look-at-the-impact-of-school-closure-on-learning/
Thanks for all you do for our schools!
Excellent look at what has been happening in Portland.
John Lewis’ death and the recurrence of Justice Ginsburg’s cancer has me at a low point today. Trump’s DHS goons add another level of despair.
“Since the feds got involved with police it’s gotten really brutal. I’d argue we’ve seen more police brutality in the last 50 days from Portland Police Department than anywhere else in the country. It’s brutal but it’s also predictable. There are rhythms to the way police work. It’s become an orchestrated dance with both sides.
“There are warnings and kicking people out of the demonstration area. But the feds have deliberately defied the rhythms. Last Saturday, the crowd was 100 or so. It was very chill — nothing going on beyond the now-normal occupation of the Justice Center. And feds came out grabbing people seemingly at random and beating people with sticks. There was the kid who got shot in the head and his skull was fractured. The federal law enforcement violence is unpredictable violence.”
Chris Hayes had a segment about Portland last night. Federal police without IDs were arresting protesters and throwing them into unmarked cars. One peaceful protester was shot in the head. Tear gas bombs. Smell of fascism in the air. The governor and mayor complained, as did one of the Oregon senators. The U.S. Attorney for the region has asked for a federal investigation.
. . . which raises the question: What happens when the perpetrator owns the Federal Department of Justice? CBK
Trump is too stupid and ignorant to come up with the idea of using unmarked federal law enforcement agencies to be his Nazi goons. I think that idea came from William Barr, and once he suggested it to Trump, the want-to-be fascist dictator jumped on the idea.
The reason I say that is because Trump knows nothing about how the federal government is organized. Until someone told him how he could use those federal law enforcement agencies, he did not know they existed beyond the FBI, and he probably did not know what the FBI’s duties were.
The list of Federal Law Enforcement Agencies is long. These are the troops Trump can order around without generals and admirals at the DOD getting in the way. Barr probably contacted the Trump loyalists appointed to run all of those federal law enforcement agencies and told them to handpick men loyal to Trump and no one or anything else. Those are the goons in unmarked uniforms using unmarked vans. Trump’s loyalists in charge of those agencies would not want to recruit anyone to that force of nothing less than a new secret police agency controlled by the Trump administration that believes in the oath they took to defend the U.S. Constitution. These handpicked troops are meant to be the enforcers for Trump’s “Final Solution”.
https://golawenforcement.com/federal-law-enforcement-agencies/
But, if it blows up and becomes a major political issue supported by both Republicans and Democrats, Trump will lie and say he had no idea Barr was doing this. Trump might even fire Barr to get the heat burning his little twitching, twitter fingers.
If Moscow Mitch and the GOP he controls in the Senate does nothing to stop Trump using these federal law enforcement agency troops as an army loyal to only Trump, the want-to-be fascist dictator will only get bolder until that knock on our doors comes at two or three in the morning and we vanish into a black hole with no record of where we were taken.
Barr orchestrated the fascistic attack on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park a few weeks ago.
Ironic in Portland that the federal agents allegedly came from the Border Patrol Police. Oregon is not on the Canadian border.
The governor of Oregon and the mayor of Portland, as well as Senator Ron Wyden, complained about the incursion into Portland to beat up protesters
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/msnbc-anchor-interviews-oregon-governor-and-tells-her-why-he-would-resist-detainment-by-the-secret-police-in-portland/
It is apparent that the eight generals and admirals making up the Joint Cheifs of Staff at the Department of Defense let Trump know their troops would not be used as Trump’s storm troopers to implement his Final Solution to turn America White.
That’s why Barr turned to the Federal Law Enforcement agencies to find those thugs we now see in unmarked black uniforms during unmarked black SUVs.
I agree with you, Lloyd; Barr’s the one running the show here in just the same manner Stephen Miller runs immigration policy.
Imagine how egregious are Trump’s crimes that he will go to these lengths to keep himself in office and out of jail. Barr perhaps is the Opus Dei true believer, like his counterpart Pompeo at State, but I think Trump mitigates something nefarious for him.
Diane, it doesn’t matter that Portland isn’t on the Canadian border. It’s 72 miles to the Pacific coast, putting it within the 100 mile border invoked under the Patriot Act, which enables DHS to claim jurisdiction.
This is rather disturbing video. There’s some vulgarity too, but it’s important to see.
Here’s more on Portland from Jenn Budd, a former border and intelligence agent.
“What I see as a former agent, as a former intelligence agent and student of CBP and Border Patrol through the years is a classic operation to create violence by federal agents. This is not to say that some protesters are not antagonizing or throwing water bottles at agents, some are. Obviously, there has been a lot of graffiti and vandalism going on, but those are not violent crimes and should not be met with violence. These agents are expected to follow use of force policies, and what I see are a bunch of agents hungry to start a fight. They are intentionally creating chaos. When protesters stand with their arms in the air and refuse to engage, agents start the violent engagement time and again.”
View at Medium.com
What’s happening in Portland should frighten all Americans.
From the fascist point of view, the free press is becoming remarkably problematic. CBK
Diane This in today from the Los Angeles Times:
“— In the first major change to general education across its system in decades, all 430,000 undergraduates attending Cal State universities must take an ethnic studies or social justice course, starting in the 2023-24 academic year.” July 23,2020 CBK
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes responded to Rep. Ted Yoho’s uncouth remarks and his subsequent non-apology-justification on the floor of the House today.
She is simply a brilliant thinker. The way she has synthesized all these ideas into one coherent denunciation is amazing. She tied together several strands of the misogyny borne by American women, even when they are elected to the highest offices of government. She delivered it with great dignity and restraint.
It is a speech that will be discussed and studied for years.
Despair is our enemy, but it’s hard not to yield. ICE and DHS have been shuttling small children around to hotels before deporting them, circumventing the asylum protections. There seem to be no reqirements or CORI checks for care givers.
“The Hampton Inns in McAllen, El Paso and Phoenix were used 186 times. No other hotels appear in the records, which indicate that 169 children were detained at the hotels, some with multiple stays.
“At least two 1-year-olds were held for three days. But some young children, including 3- to 5-year-olds, were detained for two weeks or longer. One 5-year-old was detained for 19 days in the McAllen hotel.
“The records indicate the children were not accompanied by a parent but don’t say more about the circumstances of their crossing the border. In the past, some very young children have been brought by older siblings or other relatives. Others have been sent by parents waiting for their court dates in refugee camps on the U.S.-Mexico border with hopes they will be placed with relatives.”
https://apnews.com/c9b671b206060f2e9654f0a4eaeb6388
We knew the GOP would sabotage the Post Office. It has begun:
“Typically, letter carriers sort a small amount of mail in the morning before they begin their routes. If mail isn’t sorted by the time carriers leave, they return midday to collect it or an assistant carrier would step in and ensure that all the mail is delivered on time. Now, according to letter carriers inside the Portland post office, clerks are told to stop sorting by 8:30 am, an hour and a half before most carriers leave for their routes, and are then sent home to cut costs, leaving first-class parcels unsorted in the office overnight.
“According to letter carriers in Portland, it’s medications, paychecks, and other first-class mail that’s getting left in the office overnight. They say Amazon packages are taking priority at the order of the postmaster and other supervisors in the building.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/22/maine-letter-carriers-allege-usps-leadership-willfully-delaying-mail-sabotage-postal
Teachers are known for their powerful sense of humor. In this satire, it may be all that keeps them alive!
“Dear Garfield Middle School Teachers,
“As we prepare for the start of our school year, I wanted to alert you to a recent addition to your classroom learning environment. As per the order of the State Department of Education, each classroom will now be equipped with a lion.
“The following information is designed to help you achieve your learning targets as you manage your lion. Please note: Due to the fact that we have never had lions in our classrooms and we’re figuring this out as we go, these recommendations could change at any moment.”
https://www.cmstevensmary.com/post/note-from-the-principal-this-fall-your-classroom-will-be-equipped-with-a-lion
Will any Democrats have the cojones to ask these questions of Bill Barr today?:
Even if a Democrat (like AOC) asks the tough questions that need to be asked that doesn’t mean Barr will answer them.
Look at how Lying Sack-of-Dung, Fascist Brutal Betsy avoids answering even the basic questions.
Never mind, the Dems are back to their disorganized, ineffective selves. Best allies Barr could ask for. They are more scattershot than the biggest mouthed blunderbuss one could imagine.
Please help us!!! (I have a tiny “following.” You have millions…)
It’s time to organize a phone campaign to flood the governor’s office:
(NYS – Cuomo: 518-474-8390 But all states should do this.)
Until movies, theaters, and music venues reopen and prove safe,
we can’t reopen school buildings. (Lots of adults will volunteer to go. Their safety can inform reopening decisions for school buildings.)
There is no such thing as a safe reopening during an out of control pandemic – no matter what the local transmission rate is… But this is the least we can do to gather some actual data from indoor spaces where people gather for hours.
People laugh in movies. (aerosols.)
Actors speak loudly and shout in theaters and audience members laugh. (aerosols again.)
And music venues – (Do I need to share the details?)
Thanks!
“Diverting CARES funds to private schools shows a twisted understanding of equity.” https://www.christiancentury.org/article/editors/why-betsy-devos-taking-cares-funding-underprivileged-schools-and-giving-it-private
This an oddly interesting, mesmerizing and informative video for geography and history geeks (check and check).
And this!
Chrissy Stroop has much to say about the intersection of homeschooling and the Dominionist sect, of which Betsy DeVos is, of course, a leading member.
Thought this was posted in April, it’s no less a compelling read a few months later:
“The single most important Christian Right lobby that most Americans have never heard of, HSLDA is largely responsible for the extent to which homeschooling has been deregulated since the 1980s. Under its advocacy, U.S. Christian homeschooling has become the province of rigidly fundamentalist beliefs, widespread failure to vaccinate, and apologia for the abuse and neglect of children. And, as a number of states have further relaxed what little oversight of homeschooling they required prior to the coronavirus outbreak, HSLDA isn’t alone in seeing the pandemic as an opportunity to further advance its illiberal agenda.
“As a March 31 press release from the new Christian Right advocacy group Public School Exit put it, ‘With coronavirus shutting government schools, millions of parents have a historic opportunity to try homeschooling and non-government alternatives.’ But while the press release claims that PSE is a ‘new movement,’ in fact it’s just the latest rebranding of a racist, patriarchal, and virulently anti-government movement whose adherents have spent decades working to destroy public education in the United States.
https://www.politicalresearch.org/2020/04/17/mission-destroy-public-education-rebrands-under-covid-19
Stroop also linked to this article on Twitter:
“It seems shocking that anyone might think of a catastrophic event such as a global pandemic to further these goals, but the architects of the Christian school and Christian home school movements have long argued that it is precisely in the context of the destruction of civilization that Christians will have the opportunity to exercise dominion. What is more shocking is that the president of the United States would help with the dismantling.”
https://religionnews.com/2020/07/31/behind-trumps-push-to-reopen-schools-a-gift-for-bible-based-education/
August 6, 2020 will mark the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I recently watched Children of Hiroshima, directed by Kaneto Shindo in 1952, and Hiroshima, directed by Hideo Sekigawa in 1953 (and available on Prime), which were both recently shown on TCM. Worth watching for a much different perspective than is portrayed in the American cinema. Interestingly, both films were commissioned by the national Japanese teachers union. The first movie was deemed too esoteric to convey the stark message they intended. The second is much more graphic and used more than 80,000 extras. One can’t forget either. I hope you’ll mark the anniversary on your blog.
Hi Diane,
So this is happening in Pennsylvania – The Pennsylvania Family Institute is hosting a live webinar this evening titled “Education Options For Parents: Learn More about Christian Schools and homeschooling”. I’ve inserted their message below. I noticed there is no voice from an actual public school staff member.
As fall is quickly approaching and the news is abuzz with stories on schools opening or not opening, safety procedures, the uncertainty of what Governor Wolf may order, etc., it can be easy to become anxious and confused about what to do about your child’s education. In some places, teachers unions are threatening to strike, and some schools are planning to go entirely virtual. Are your taxdollars being used wisely? If you decide to homeschool, or do private school, or your child needs some extra tutoring because virtual classes are just not cutting it, what can you do?
State Rep. Clint Owlett (R-Tioga) and State Sen. Judy Ward (R-Blair) have introduced “Back on Track” legislation to ensure all Pennsylvania children will have access to the educational resources that they need. It will create new scholarship accounts for students whose education was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Rep. Owlett will be joining us for our Zoom webinar on Wednesday, August 5th at 7 PM to explain his bill and answer your questions. We’ll also have a panel of educational experts to take your questions about private Christian schools and homeschooling.
Live Webinar:
Educational Options for Parents
Learn more about Christian schools and homeschooling
Wednesday, August 5th
7:00pm – 8:00pm
The Panel:
State Rep. Clint Owlett (R-Tioga)
Colleen Hroncich, Senior Policy Analyst at the Commonwealth Foundation, and homeschool mom (Her four children have experienced public, private, cyber and home education.)
Phil Puleo, Superintendent at Christian School Association of Greater Harrisburg
Tom Shaheen, Vice President for Policy at Pennsylvania Family Institute
There will be a Q&A period, but you can also send us your questions ahead of time when you register.
Diane, please post this to the blog. Every word is true.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/sharpies
“We could have poured resources into prevention. We could’ve spent all summer enforcing mask use and social distancing. We could’ve sacrificed small pleasures for the greater good. We could’ve kept this from happening. But instead, we’re blindly barreling toward reopening even though we know teachers and students will die.”
I would change one WE in this paragraph to Trump. Guess where that WE is
political rhetoric
I do not understand what you mean by your two-word answer, “political rhetoric”
None of those “We could haves” was political rhetoric. However, instead of “we” that intro phrase to all the could haves should have said, “Trump could have …”
Since every country that has successfully managed the COVID-19 virus did all those “could haves [and more],” and The Kremlin’s Agent Orange did not, the political rhetoric you must be talking about is what keeps coming out of Donald-Eek-ThinlySkin-Always a Liar-Trump’s mouth and/or flowing from his rabid, tiny twitter fingers.
For those of you who are not inclined to read Ibsen, set your dvrs, An Enemy of the People will be on TCM East at 9 am Eastern Friday and TCM West at 9 am Pacific. Not the best, Steve McQueen means well, but adequate to understand irony the Idiot will never be able to.
Here’s excellent commentary from a part of the country we all too seldom hear from. It’s a rebuttal to The Atlantic article where a nurse scolded teachers to do their jobs and get back to school.
“Teachers should be thinking about children and get to work, huh? What makes you think we aren’t?
“When the school year ended and summer began, every teacher I know went to work to figure out the best way to teach vulnerable students while also protecting their health and safety. We’ve been providing feedback to our districts, planning for both in-person and remote instruction, and meeting remotely with administrators and senior staff to create reentry plans and discuss how best to open school safely. We have researched and collaborated and planned and trained.
“The idea that educators have been sitting around doing nothing besides finding reasons not to return to the jobs we love is one of the most insulting parts of her argument. We all want to be back in our classrooms. We just want to be there when it is as safe as possible.”
https://t.co/WQAJcEHZqV?amp=1
True, I have a younger friend still teaching who asked us to have Zoom meetings with him and his wife during the summer, so he could learn how to use Zoom properly while planning ahead for the 2020-2021 school year.
Dear Diane,
I am an English teacher, classroom researcher, and longtime fan of this blog. I’m writing to share my article, “Innovating for Self-Knowledge: How Distance Learning Helps My Students Find Themselves,” which will appear in the upcoming issue of California English. My 30 year classroom career has taught me that a central problem with school is that students learning about themselves and discovering how they fit in the world is simply not a part of the educational mission in most schools. My article explains how I attempt to solve that problem with my high school sophomores at American High School in Fremont CA, and how I advocate for innovation on what I am calling the developmental leg of curriculum. You can read the full article at https://bit.ly/3l1jFyq.
I’m not sure which of your blog topics my work most connects with, though I believe that if rich self-discovery up through the grade levels were a serious part of students’ experience of school, we would never have had to pronounce the words “President Trump.”
I owe you a debt for introducing me to Yong Zhao’s work, a leader with you, Ken Robinson and many others–most recently including Andre Perry–in the ongoing revolution for fuller humanity in education. I like to think my own work is also part of this revolution.
Below are the final paragraphs of my article.
With love and respect,
John Creger
We need to change how we think about curriculum. How do we renovate our current test-focused approach to more fully serve our students’ needs to understand who they are and how they fit and cope in a world soon to ask them to play more decisive roles as adults than any recent generation has been asked to play? At the moment, most schools’ educational missions do not include the serious pursuit of self-knowledge. But we know from the work of developmentalists Ba and Josette Luvmour that the essential developmental need of a teenager’s journey is to form an identity that can help them bridge successfully to their adult lives. A core purpose in how we design their school learning experience should therefore be to support the healthy formation of their identities. Our students need adults who are aware of their specific developmental needs, and know how to nourish those needs. The Luvmours’ work with Natural Learning Relationships is an essential resource for teachers and parents. “Children’s developmental trajectory,” reports Josette Luvmour, “is strongly influenced by our nurturing” (24).
Unfortunately, curriculum today allows little room for nurturing. I have found the two-legged approach I described earlier useful for designing nurturing into my courses. Last year, Zoom helped my sophomores and me support one another in delivering and responding to Creed presentations. What new tech tools will I find this year to enhance the arc of self-discovery I will design to nurture my students? Yong Zhao, scholar and thought leader in the ongoing revolution for fuller humanity in education, puts it this way: “We need a shift, a new paradigm. We need to abandon the horse wagon. We need to invent a new system. We need policies that stimulate local innovation, so we can all start moving toward the new paradigm.”
In the continuing reshaping of our society for racial and economic justice and environmental survival during and after the pandemic, classroom teachers should be incentivized to begin designing for self-knowledge. We should train to become experts in guiding our students to integrate self-realization in their learning. Samika, from the class of 2021, was calling for this kind of learning when she wrote: “We have been shown many powerpoints about learning to accept others who are different from ourselves. Wouldn’t it help us to accept others if we learned something about ourselves?” Samika and her generation need teachers willing to innovate for our students’ more fully human development. In a recent video, the incomparable Yong Zhao offers a memorable closing banner for us to contemplate and wave: “We need to think differently about readiness. Stop making kids ready for school, and start making school ready for kids.”
A recipient of NCTE’s James Moffett Memorial Award for Teacher Research, author of a Heinemann book on the Personal Creed Project, and Design Lead with the Fremont chapter of Teachers Guild, John Creger has taught English at American High School in Fremont since 1987. Explore his work and presentations at https://bit.ly/3fXMTu5, review his online course at https://bit.ly/31Wckrc, and connect with him on Facebook at https://bit.ly/2Q0h8pT or by email at john@personalcreed.com.
Works Cited
Luvmour, Ba & Luvmour, Josette. Brain Development and the Natural Learning Relationships of Children. Luvmour Consulting, 2018.
Zhao, Yong. “How Do We Enhance Our Education?” YouTube, uploaded by APB Speakers, 8 Feb. 2017, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjMoMtwSwrg.
Since I don’t do “off topic” in posts, I’ll post this here. Turns out the so-called, inappropriately named Lincoln Project is making a lot of money for the individuals involved: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/07/billionaire-democrat-donors-lincoln-project/ Which, let’s face it, is what it was all about in the first place. Mental masturbation for people who hate the Idiot and what he and his acolytes are doing to this nation without changing one vote or facilitating the votes of those who do. Still waiting for any evidence–ANY!–that their “viral” videos have converted a single person. But hey, they’re raking in the dough. And they’re doing so while plagiarizing and stealing like all good Republicans do: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lincoln-project-plagiarism-accusations_n_5f3bcb95c5b670ab17b01f36
I think the Lincoln Project is doing a great job. They are fast and smart and they run truthful attack ads so Democrats don’t have to. I didn’t see any evidence from the linked article that they enriching themselves. That’s what the Trumpers say about them. Their ads make Trumpers angry. They are not only supporting Biden and Harris, they target horrible senators like McConnell, Graham, and Collins. I salute the Lincoln Project and welcome their help in defeating the worst, most dangerous president in modern history, maybe ever.
Politico ran a piece on The Lincoln Project.
I found this one quote from the piece interesting and informative: “Research shows there’s a reason these ads could be effective with Republicans voters: Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/06/lincoln-project-ads-republicans-democrats-349184
And, Media Bias/Fact Check rates Politico as “Least Biased” -Whenever anyone throws quotes around to support what they think, I recommend checking the bias rating for their sources. If the majority or all of the sources quoted are rated left or right biased, then we know the bias of the commenter is, too.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/politico/
Frog and Toad in Covid times.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/frog-and-toad-tentatively-go-outside-after-months-in-self-quarantine
THANK YOU! Reading about Frog and Toad’s management of life with covid was a wonderful way to start the day…
Hi,
I wish & hope everyone & everyone’s families are well – Know everyone is super-super-busy… but…
“R0” is the only legit way to determine when to open schools and (sadly) I think I know why this isn’t being spoken about more and then insisted upon – POLITICS!
Please fix this: Our large school district has the ability to easily do Surveilance Testing but is not doing so (needed to determine when R<1 for long enough to justify opening schools) and this is surely due to grossly misleading articles like the one below and similar politically-motivated propaganda & statements promoted by the CDC after Trumps election.
Sincerely-concerned,
Michael
FYI – Check it out, I think the CDC has put their foot in their mouth by admitting that using numbers that have tested positive, numbers in hospital with COVID or on respirators, or dead of COVID are all completely useless statistics! Irony? Hilarious!
The key (missing)word is (random) SURVEILANCE Testing!
Surveilance Testing is needed to provide an accurate snapshot in time of R0.
Political thug-Idiots appear MAY have intentionally placed this article right UP-FRONT on the CDC website when looking for info on EPIDEMICS & R0! Wow!
The author is 100% !!! CORRECT !!! that ALL the numbers now pushed by the US government such as # in hospital or # dead or testing positive are USELESS for calculating R0 and determining epidemic severity!
What IS NOT MENTIONED is that Random SURVEILANCE TESTING gives a PRECISE NUMBER FOR R0 that is absolutely essential WHEN USED in the PROPER WAY for the PROPER PURPOSE just as the authors say, indeed, the aithor jas dutifully listed the most obvious of shortcomings and possible mis-applications and wrong ways of calcuating R0! – Although it is hinted that R0 is generally regarded as the gold-standard and an indespensible tool – the authors somehow manage to imply that R0 is not THE ONE absolutely critical number that DEFINES (for all practical purposes of rational discussion) an EPIDEMIC so that when an outbreak is becoming an epidemic it is R < 1 or R > 1 that DEFINES WHEN AN EPIDEMIC IS REALLY AN EPIDEMIC – Period!
R0 IS worthless when CALCULATED & derived from BS GOVERNMENT NUMBERS like number
hospitalized & number-dead nonsense!
Here’s their conclusion, read it & weep:
Conclusions
Although R0 might appear to be a simple measure that can be used to determine infectious disease transmission dynamics and the threats that new outbreaks pose to the public health, the definition, calculation, and interpretation of R0 are anything but simple. R0 remains a valuable epidemiologic concept, but the expanded use of R0 in both the scientific literature and the popular press appears to have enabled some misunderstandings to propagate. R0 is an estimate of contagiousness that is a function of human behavior and biological characteristics of pathogens. R0 is not a measure of the severity of an infectious disease or the rapidity of a pathogen’s spread through a population.
**** R0 values are nearly always estimated from mathematical models, and the estimated values are dependent on numerous decisions made in the modeling process.****
The contagiousness of different historic, emerging, and reemerging infectious agents cannot be fairly compared without recalculating R0 with the same modeling assumptions. Some of the R0 values commonly reported in the literature for past epidemics might not be valid for outbreaks of the same infectious disease today.
R0 can be misrepresented, misinterpreted, and misapplied in a variety of ways that distort the metric’s true meaning and value. Because of these various sources of confusion, R0 must be applied and discussed with caution in research and practice. This epidemiologic construct will only remain valuable and relevant when used and interpreted correctly.
Dr. Delamater is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and a faculty fellow at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. His research focuses on the geographic aspects of health, disease, and healthcare.
This research was supported through a grant from the George Mason University Provost Multidisciplinary Research Initiative.
This article (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgazpv/meet-r-nought-the-magic-number-that-spreads-infectious-diseases ) and other more recent articles (see below) just like it are only half-right:
The factor R0 is indeed “complex” in its applicational variations but this is because it is super-simple to measure directly (using random “Surveilance Testing”) and to apply if used to measure a well understood and described region (such as a school district or a city) and not to attempt to make more broad and distant projections and predictions.
I wonder if the Original (half-correct, slightly misleading therefore) Article & Reference Articles Editors & Authors are aware that their work is being used to support the politicalization of science and to mislead in regard the utility of R0?
Q1 – (I wonder?) Are they okay with putting the following article up on the CDC website without further comment?
Q2 – Do they think it possible that both the articles slanted tone and its placement on the CDC website were intentional?
Q3 – What is their true opinion of the value, relevance, utility, and nescessity, of R0 in policymaking (given that 1 in 7 is the chance of dying if one is over 75 and gets COVID19 & 50% of all persons will likely get COVID19 within 2 years)?
NOTE: Within a few short years 1 in 14 over 75 may die of COVID19
KEY CDC ARTICLE WITH AN ANGLE(?):
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/25/1/17-1901_article
This is the CDC Webpage that appears when Googling “R<1, epidemic, CDC!”
Read this article Abstract (following) and it sounds to me like they are saying that R0 is useless nonsense and THAT really is nonsense!
Volume 25, Number 1—January 2019
Paul L. Delamate
Comments to Author, Erica J. Street, Timothy F. Leslie, Y. Tony Yang, and Kathryn H. Jacobsen
Author affiliations: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA (P.L. Delamater); George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA (E.J. Street, T.F. Leslie, K.H. Jacobsen); George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA (Y.T. Yang)
Abstract
The basic reproduction number (R0), also called the basic reproduction ratio or rate or the basic reproductive rate, is an epidemiologic metric used to describe the contagiousness or transmissibility of infectious agents. R0 is affected by numerous biological, sociobehavioral, and environmental factors that govern pathogen transmission and, therefore, is usually estimated with various types of complex mathematical models, which make R0 easily misrepresented, misinterpreted, and misapplied. R0 is not a biological constant for a pathogen, a rate over time, or a measure of disease severity, and R0 cannot be modified through vaccination campaigns. R0 is rarely measured directly, and modeled R0 values are dependent on model structures and assumptions. Some R0 values reported in the scientific literature are likely obsolete. R0 must be estimated, reported, and applied with great caution because this basic metric is far from simple.
Some Closing Thoughts:
What defines when a disease spreading is really an epidemic?
Simplest answer: R >1 means the epidemic is NOT over.
R as Reinfection-Rate: Make knowledge of R (and science by extrapolation) a BIG deal. It is.
Schools should not open untill R<1!
R requires “Random Surveilance testing!”
The “# dead of Covid19” & “# in hospital” & “# testing positive” are near-worthless CRUDE APPROXIMATIONS of R that are EASILY MANIPULATED!
SCIENCE-SAYS:
It isn’t an EPIDEMIC until R>1 & isn’t in decline until R<1.
OPEN SCHOOLS ONLY When R<1 for a while!
Reinfection-Rate R uses Random Surveilance Tests;
Positive %’s of 4voluntary tests, # in hospitals & # dead/COVID19 are useless.
#1in5over75gettingCOVID19willDIE IS NOT OK!
Onward, thanks to our children!
I think it is wrong to blame the CDC. Blame Trump and/or his administration. It was Trump who politicized the virus. It was Trump who made the pandemic worse in the United States. It was Trump that demanded public schools open on time with illegal threats to cut off public funds if they didn’t.
Trump’s appointees to every federal agency are mostly crooks and frauds like him and he fired his way to the pirate crew running out government today so they would all be loyalists doing exactly what Trump wants.
Anyone that steps out of line, is fired and replaced just like all the others that Trump could not control one-hundred percent.
Anything the federal government does while Trump is president is done with the approval of Trump. When his appointees do something horribly wrong and it blows up in the media, Trump doesn’t admit he was the one that ordered them to do it. He fires them and replaces them with another loyalist to him.
What can those loyalists do when Trump throws them under a bus?
Trump demands total loyalty from his minions, and if they accept the jobs he offers like a carrot to a hungry horse, they have to sign confidentially agreements so it will cost them a lot if they tell the truth, that Trump ordered them to do it.
You featured a post of Dave Grohl a while ago, about a wonderful, authentic person he is. Here’s another example of a feel-good story we so desperately need:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/dave-grohl-10-year-old-drummer-virtual-challenge-nandi-bushell-1052688/
100% on target for return to school plans. May as well laugh!
Re the anniversary of Faubus’s bigoted conduct: whence the satirical/mournful jazz classic by Charles Mingus, “Fables of Faubus”:
I was never a money person. If I was I would never have become a teacher. I honestly believed that we were paid what they could afford to pay us. Seems stupid now but I was a kid. I was a fool. Twenty years ago I signed up to be a teacher. I wanted to be a teacher. I went to college for it. I knew I would never be able to support a family. It was ok, I wasn’t interested in having one. When I first became a teacher, I was shown a “step” system of pay. I saw that every year you’d make a little more. When you finally reached 20 or 25 years in the system the pay took huge leaps higher. Some years as much as a $10,000 increase if you can believe it. I thought I’d be rewarded for loyalty. That “step” system has long been abandoned. Now we recieve increases of around 1.3% a year. I thought the worst indignity came when I actually made less money than the year prior. The state of Florida forced us to contribute 3% to our retirement. Our yearly salary increase wasn’t even that much. This latest indignity is worse. Florida passed a new law raising the minimum teacher salary. Wonderful for new hires and attracting talent. Not so wonder for those of us that have put the years in. Now, after 20 years of dutiful service I make $5,000 dollars more than a 21 year old, fresh out of college. I am absolutely and totally morally devastated. The system seems to now be designed to have a perpetual series of inexperienced teachers. I need help. I need for my story to be heard. What do I do? What can I do? They don’t care about me. Now I don’t care about my job. When they showed me that “step” schedule 20 years ago, I believed it to be a nonverbal agreement about how much I would make, roughly, in the future. I was a fool. If I knew then I would never have become a teacher. I feel conned, duped, and lied to and I just can’t take it anymore.
Jason When I was teaching K-12 teachers, most had been working already and were coming back to get their
masters. Many, however, had left prior professions, some from Tech, or wall street, or businesses of some kind. And most had done so knowing full well that they were taking a huge pay cut.
Time and again, however, they said they had been terribly unhappy with their work before; and they somehow knew that they would be happier working with kids in a school environment. . . . and sure enough, what they were doing before could not match up AT ALL with the job satisfaction they had from teaching. Problems and all, they said, now, they get up in the morning and cannot wait to go to work whereas, before, they dreaded it.
FWIW, one of my own outtakes from the above, in the context of having read your note, is that a teacher’s relationship with the State and their under-funding of education, along with their obtuseness and carelessness about implied or formal promises to those who work in State services, is quite different from teachers’ relationship with our students. CBK
“Many, however, had left prior professions”
I did. I served in the U.S. Marines for three years and fought in Vietnam. I also started working in the private sector when I was 15. After the Marines and Vietnam, I went to college on the GI Bill and my first job out of college was middle management for a large corporation. The pay was better than teaching, but I did not like that job.
I was 30 when I left the private sector and went back to college to earn a teaching credential. Thirty years later, I retired from teaching. I did not like the politics focused on public education (I hated it), but I enjoyed the actual teaching and working with my students even though I worked 60 to 100 hours a week every week for most of that thirty years.
Although the corporate job I left paid more, I was more suited to be a teacher.
It seems that some people measure their worth in how much they earn even if the job stresses them out so much it will cut their life short by decades. Teaching wasn’t stressful. It was hard work. Harder than the Marines, harder than being a combat, harder than working in middle management in a corporation. But teaching wasn’t stressful like that corporate job was.
As a teacher, I earned enough to keep a roof over my head, put food on the table, and even enjoy myself outside of the job. I did not get rich but I am a lot healthier than anyone I knew that stayed in corporate America where the stress can be toxic.
Lloyd It’s an odd kind of love . . . we know we have a legacy, we just don’t know exactly what that is. On second thought, maybe not so odd . . . CBK
AH! So interesting. Thanks for sharing. I, too did nto profit financially by becoming a teacher, but I loved what I did, and I know I contributed to our society… and now 25 years later, as my students mow inter thirties, contact me, I know how I contributed in a positive way. But, dear Lloyd, Iw Ould never choose to teach today, because it is impossible to ‘teach’ the way that children actually learn… not with the hedge funds running the show, and the ignorance of our society growing as the disinformation flows from their monied pockets.
Real life
Is there any way we could get a national movement to NOT take the high stakes standardized tests this year? If any group could figure out how to go about it, I’d guess it’s this one.
NOE will work on this. My view is that the federal testing mandate should be abolished.
Thank you, Diane. Good to know and completely agree.
Samantha Bee on the school to prision pipeline. Jesse Hagopian appears both in real life and as an animation!
Our friend, Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post, has published this piece from 50 teachers at an NYC school. It is sobering. Keep the schools closed; there is far too little to gain and much to lose.
“To give but one example: We are particularly concerned about our students who have IEPs and how they will receive special education services in a hybrid model. There are currently no provisions for having two teachers in mandated co-taught settings, and it would be nearly impossible for most schools in New York City to meet this requirement under the stresses of fragmenting our staff to serve all groups of students. Tellingly, the city’s 109-page reopening plan includes only one and a half pages about special education, reducing the ethical mandate for equitable educational access to a declaration that schools provide services ‘to the extent feasible.’
“While it may seem counterintuitive, we believe the proposed hybrid structure will lead to students feeling more isolated, less engaged and less supported. We believe it is far from what we can provide in a remote learning setting, where the full resources of our school and staff are dedicated to a single model. Simply put: Hybrid learning is too great of a health risk, to say nothing of logistical madness, for such little gain.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/09/15/logistical-madness-hybrid-school-schedules-by-nearly-50-frustrated-teachers/#comments-wrapper
Cynthia Nixon in the NYT on school reopenings:
“I heard that building inspections would begin just a few weeks before school was set to open, even though out of the 1,700 buildings to be examined, a thousand already have documented ventilation problems. And I could only shake my head as I later saw that the system for testing these ventilation systems involves using a yardstick with a piece of toilet paper attached to it by paper clip to gauge airflow.
“Needless to say, the care and investment given to restarting television and film production in New York looks nothing like the uncertain, chaotic, shamefully underfunded and profoundly unsafe approach to reopening the public schools, which serve 1.1 million children, nearly three-quarters of them deeply underprivileged.”
Does Bill Barr even care that he will go down in history as the most craven, unconstitutional, and ideological toady attorney general is history (rhetorical question)? Obviously not. So he must think he’s going to profit financially beyond his wildest dreams. The Idiot has made an art of appointing people who are perfectly suited to undermine and kill the agencies and departments they have been chosen to lead. But in no federal function has he succeeded more than at DoJ. Betsy’s a close second. And she is very much the runner-up to Barr.
Trump and Bill Barr are all in on their con to take over the United States. Step by step, they are creating a false scenario as the foundation Trump will use to grab power and Barr will back him up. They have been collecting loyalists and testing them like the federal agents they sent to Portland wearing unmarked uniforms and driving unmarked cars to trample the 1st Amdmentt and the rights of peaceful protestors.
Trump’s mob thinks they are going to win and Trump knows that the winners are the ones that write history until a century or two later when some researcher-scholar publishes a book setting the record straight. But by then it is too late because there will always be someone that will believe the history Trump will have written for him.
If he wins, we all lose. I hope someone else sees what Trump and his cronies are planning and is working to stop them. Staying within the law to stop Trump might not be enough to get the job done. Trump doesn’t follow any laws that will limit what he is doing. That puts people like Biden at a disadvantage.
To beat Trump, they have to fight fire with fire.
Lloyd “Staying within the law to stop Trump might not be enough to get the job done. Trump doesn’t follow any laws that will limit what he is doing. That puts people like Biden at a disadvantage.”
While I understand your point about the “disadvantage” of following the law, the implications of what you say above would put the king’s cap on a Trump win. The problem is not with the law, but with the moral, political, and spiritual decadence of “the people” who blindly rally around him and who have allowed themselves to be led down a path of fear and hate. Without the people’s regard for the law and the Constitution, the law is not worth the paper it’s written on. The beauty of the law is that it’s not a person but the written word.
Even the hypocrisy evident in the conflict between (1) Trump’s campaigning on law and order and (2) his total disregard for the law apparently means nothing to his supporters who, themselves, claim to be “Americans” instead of the treasonous idiots that their actions tell us
they are. I can almost hear the vacuum of 50+ years of neo-liberalism sucking everything into its vortex. CBK
There are four groups involved in what has been happening to this country for decades, not just the neo-liberals in the Democratic Party. There are the Koch brothers libertarians and ALEC, et al, the neo-liberals in the Democratic Party, the neo-conservatives in the GOP, and the white supremacists like Trump, McConnel, and DeVos (they are a political force, too).
And, the neo-liberal and the neo-conservative movements both originated from the University of Chicago but by two different professors teaching there.
Lloyd Yes, lots of threads going back to many anti-democratic movements . . . most I think have a tight relation to racism and xenophobia. Ayn Rand has a big reactionary hand in it as she was able to reach common culture . . . precisely because she knew nothing about the difference between common and theoretical discourse. And the monied “elites” during FDR’s time.
We really do need a BIG TURNOUT. Like you, I have great hope in those who DO have some power not to pull their punches and use it when the time comes. CBK
Horrifc data; keep the schools closed.
“According to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, very few children who’ve gotten sick with the coronavirus have died. Of the 391,814 cases of COVID-19 — as well as the rare infection linked to it, pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome — that the CDC recorded between February 12 and July 31 of this year, only 121 (about 0.03%) were deadly.
“But among those 121 young decedents, few were white. The CDC reported that just 17 of those recorded fatalities were in white children, compared with 35 deaths of Black children, and 54 Hispanic deaths.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-black-and-brown-children-dying-from-the-coronavirus-2020-9