> Yeah, your kids might be a bit dumber or less socially adjusted.

What absolute lunancy; certainly you're trolling. Taking the position of sacrificing children is the position of the villain movies.

The argument is that we make this trade off in order to minimize the maximum terribleness, not just because it's convenient.

Fwiw, we name this trade-off all the time. If you think your kid is getting the best possible experience for their development at school then you are pretty naive. School is largely about improving worst case educational outcomes, not fostering maximum growth.

IMHO, having a whole generation slightly dumber is more concerning. I prefer the trade off be something else.

In your head come up with a list of ten people you know that you'd let die in exchange. That is the trade off we are balancing.

Kids have had long holidays as long as the school system has existed, and they never regressed enough for the general public to raise the alarm.

My own children just repurposed the tools used for remote learning, and now interact more with their peers than they did before the pandemic (and its not just video games either: there's a fair amount of creative activity that happens). Kids are incredibly resilient.

Poor education practices like chaining them to Zoon for hours at a time to attend class, on the other hand, would damage anyone, and show there's a long way to go in the remote learning space. You'd have expected some high profile projects to shine, but I haven't heard a lot from them.