> Protecting your children from external risks is one of the most essential qualities of a parent, yes. I'm not sure what you're trying to convey here.
I perceived the parent as bragging that their expensive private school was better than the public schools that other people send their kids to, by claiming that the option available to regular people was "a joke". There was no mention of anything like "I wish this was an option for everyone".
> Yes, precisely. This is an important issue that the parent commenter was raising: "Remote learning was a complete joke." The well-off are able to shield their children from this, but the average person isn't. Are you suggesting that it should be taboo to discuss how this will widen the class divide?
Not at all, class divides are important to investigate! But you should have proper evidence and data. I am suggesting that the "evidence" here (a 2% decrease in standardized test scores that are not well-controlled) is not particularly significant compared to the evidence that Covid was a deadly public disease which necessitated school closures and remote learning.
> In what sense was the parent commenter "trivializing" the pandemic?
By saying that "remote learning was a joke". To me, this is like saying "earthquake-related evacuations were a joke, because normal kids' scores dropped 2% during the earthquake. Oh, and mine didn't, because I had a private plane!".
> ...their children will be at a marketplace disadvantage compared to two decades of graduates preceding them?
My comment is simply saying that you don't have data to suggest anything of the sort; so you should stop simply insisting that they are true and calling reasonable public health procedures "a joke" as a result.
No, the parent comment was using their private school's reopening policy as an illustrative critique of public school reopening policies. It's fair to criticize public school policies with respect to the pandemic.
I perceived the parent as bragging that their expensive private school was better than the public schools that other people send their kids to, by claiming that the option available to regular people was "a joke". There was no mention of anything like "I wish this was an option for everyone".
> Yes, precisely. This is an important issue that the parent commenter was raising: "Remote learning was a complete joke." The well-off are able to shield their children from this, but the average person isn't. Are you suggesting that it should be taboo to discuss how this will widen the class divide?
Not at all, class divides are important to investigate! But you should have proper evidence and data. I am suggesting that the "evidence" here (a 2% decrease in standardized test scores that are not well-controlled) is not particularly significant compared to the evidence that Covid was a deadly public disease which necessitated school closures and remote learning.
> In what sense was the parent commenter "trivializing" the pandemic?
By saying that "remote learning was a joke". To me, this is like saying "earthquake-related evacuations were a joke, because normal kids' scores dropped 2% during the earthquake. Oh, and mine didn't, because I had a private plane!".
> ...their children will be at a marketplace disadvantage compared to two decades of graduates preceding them?
My comment is simply saying that you don't have data to suggest anything of the sort; so you should stop simply insisting that they are true and calling reasonable public health procedures "a joke" as a result.