Most Of The $190 Billion In Covid ‘Aid’ To Schools Was Wasted At Kids’ Expense
Billions of wasted taxpayer dollars bought a demoralized workforce that lacks high standards for itself and its students.
Take It From A Teacher: There’s Only One Fix To Massive Learning Loss
None of this is easy or popular — the temptations of a quick fix or a gimmick will always be around — but this is the only way forward.Study: Good-looking female college students' grades dropped when schools transitioned to remote learning
Distance may make the heart grow fonder, but it's ruinous for good-looking students' grades. A recent study out of Sweden revealed that attractive female university students saw a significant drop in their marks when classes went online during the pandemic.
The findings are the latest in a large body of research that indicates beauty doesn't just count on Instagram. Attractiveness improves an individual's chances of securing a job offer, getting a promotion, earning more votes in an election, and living a happier life.
What does the study say?
Prior to the pandemic, attractive male and female students tended to score significantly better grades, particularly in classes where teachers and students interacted more. This "beauty premium" dropped by about 80% for female students when classes went online.
The Times suggested that this means professors had previously been discriminating in the female students' favor.
While this discrimination appears to be true of the male professors who made up 11 out of 16 of the instructors, the researcher behind the study noted that female professors "also gave the attractive females better grades" prior to the pandemic.
What are the details?
The study, which one assistant professor called "appalling," was published in the journal "Economic Letters" in August. The researcher behind it, Adrian Mehic, sought to examine what impact facial attractiveness had on academic outcomes under various forms of instruction in Sweden, both for men and women.
Mehic recruited 307 engineering students who were enrolled at Lund University before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researcher also recruited a jury consisting of 74 individuals, ages 17 to 32, 44.6% of whom were women.
Jury members were asked to rank the attractiveness of the engineering students' faces using a 1-10 scale where 1 was "extremely unattractive" and 10 was "extremely attractive."
Mehic cross-referenced the rankings with data from mandatory courses within the Swedish engineering program that the sample's constituents had taken. Accordingly, he could compare how attractive students performed in pre-pandemic classes with how they performed when learning remotely via Zoom when cameras were optional.
There are reportedly far fewer interactions between students and teachers in quantitative classes, so Mehic focused his comparison of in-person and remote performance on non-quantitative classes.
An example of a non-quantitative class would be marketing, whereas mathematical statistics was regarded as a quantitative class.
When taking into account the quantitative/non-quantitative distinction and student-teacher interaction, Mehic found that attractiveness was "highly significant."
When "all courses in the program are considered [i.e., including quantitative courses], there is a positive, albeit statistically insignificant relationship between attractiveness and grades."
In other words, "beauty is significantly related to grades when the faces of students are visible to teachers."
Attractive female students' grades more affected
Mehic found that when students were no longer in the classroom, attractive female students' grades "deteriorated in non-qualitative subjects." However, males regarded as attractive did not see a comparable grade decline after transitioning to remote learning.
Mehic suggested that this discrepancy revealed "that the beauty premium in education is due to discrimination for females, whereas for male students, it is primarily the result of a productivity-enhancing attribute."
The attractive male students' undisrupted performance in non-quantitative classes may have something to do with correlations between male attractiveness and greater success in peer influence and greater persistence, "a personality trait positively linked to academic outcomes."
The researcher noted that "attractive individuals are more socially skilled, have more open social networks, and are more popular vis-à-vis physically unattractive peers" — traits also linked to creativity.
PsyPost indicated that non-quantitative courses "tend to involve creative assignments and group work," so attractive males who tend to also boast creativity, persistence, and good social skills "might be more likely to excel in this coursework."
Study: The More Insane Public Schools Were About Covid, The More Parents Abandoned Them
Public school districts with tighter Covid restrictions suffered larger enrollment losses, while showing little correlation with case rates.
'Somebody out there cares about them': Iowa teacher and auto mechanic builds furniture for the needy in his spare time
One Iowa teacher and part-time auto mechanic spends much of his free time building furniture for those in need.
Nate Evans — a full-time teacher at Des Moines Christian School in Urbandale, Iowa — began the furniture-making project in the early days of the COVID lockdowns, when many students suddenly found themselves at home learning remotely but without the equipment they needed to succeed.
"Two years ago this September, we began Woodworking with a Purpose, right here in the garage with a few friends making desks for kids in need," Evans said.
At that time, he and several volunteers built about 2,000 desks for local students.
But that was only the beginning. The project then morphed into an opportunity to help foster kids and foster families by providing wooden storage chests that would make the moving and adjustment processes a bit easier for everyone involved.
"[K]ids struggle with moving in to their new place with nothing," Evans said he learned from his sister, who had been a foster parent.
In addition to helping foster families, the Woodworking with a Purpose project, a non-profit organization, now builds all kinds of wood-based furniture, such as coffee tables and end tables, for those with many different kinds of needs.
"If your neighbors needed something, if you could help them somehow, that was the kind of family I grew up in," Evans remarked.
Despite their enthusiasm, Evans and his volunteer helpers have faced several obstacles along the way. Lumber prices rose considerably during 2021 and reached a peak of $1,357 per thousand board-feet back in March, so acquiring materials became difficult and expensive.
The group also relies almost entirely on monetary donations and donated supplies to keep things running, and when and how much people will donate is often unpredictable.
"We are in need of a few new tools such as a belt sander, hand planer, and a few other things," Evans's group posted on Facebook. "We are unable to purchase any equipment through donated funds, so all tools are my own."
Still, despite the scarcity of adequate supplies and the increased costs of production, Evans and other Woodworking with a Purpose members have continued to "bless" people with their time and talents.
"We were able to do that for them and bless them with that," Evans said about building furniture, "and give them a chance to know that somebody out there cares about them loves them and wants to do something good."
Report: Biden Administration Stifled Congressional Investigation Into CDC And Teachers Union Collusion
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