The Aussies are sheeple . I am surprised . I thought they were more fiercely independent . Clete you say 'the kids will recover ' but that is far from a given . You say lockdowns work . I say we are trading liberty for safety and we are not guaranteed any safety . We will learn down the road what we have sacrificed in public health ....... and it is clear that the camel has it's nose in the tent and our leaders have gone to school about how much liberty they can take away during any time they declare "crisis " .

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if the gap closes with the new transitional kindergarten starting at age 4 and continuing until Kindergarten.

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The book was not so much about the existence of a gap so much as it was about why the gap existed. I seriously doubt that 30 hours a week of additional schooling will overcome several years of parental problems.

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'the kids will recover '

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If the kids can indeed "recover", then why bother to have a year of school to begin with? Let's just go to school every other year and count on the kids recovering. It's clearly folly.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

The Aussies are sheeple . I am surprised . I thought they were more fiercely independent . Clete you say 'the kids will recover ' but that is far from a given . You say lockdowns work . I say we are trading liberty for safety and we are not guaranteed any safety . We will learn down the road what we have sacrificed in public health ....... and it is clear that the camel has it's nose in the tent and our leaders have gone to school about how much liberty they can take away during any time they declare "crisis " .

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Tom we are not sheep, but we have learned to trust the judgement of those we elect because our system is very different to yours. Now these shutdowns are wearing thin but I learned today they were tracing a contact in my own town, so I say anything they can do to keep it confined is acceptable for the moment, however that won't always be so. Those who are leaders will pay at the ballot box

[QUOTE=jlisenbe;3871677]The book was not so much about the existence of a gap so much as it was about why the gap existed. I seriously doubt that 30 hours a week of additional schooling will overcome several years of parental problems.

I know what the book(written a long time ago) talks about. Many families can’t afford preschool. So, allowing students to attend transitional kindergarten beginning at age will help bridge the gap. And for anyone who thinks online learning was successful for Kindergarten, it was not. Most of my students could not hold a pencil, use scissors, write their letters and numbers, etc. I taught summer school just to catch many of them up. Unfortunately, their first grade teachers will need to teach Kindergarten for quite a while when school begins. That being said, some parents worked with their children after Zoom, and they did better than those who were stuck in front of the computer and received no help beyond my class sessions and extra support hours.

I'm not opposed to some sort of targeted pre-school. I am opposed to the idea that schools can just step in and provide that which is not coming from the family. It can help, but it generally does not genuinely "bridge the gap".

I think your observations of online instruction are accurate.

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some parents worked with their children after Zoom

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The incalculable value of family.