COVID-19 Policy Update #99
COVID-19 Policy Update
TUESDAY 9/8
TOP THREE
T-Mobile With Major Homework Gap Announcement: T-Mobile announced a $10 billion, 5-year commitment to ensure students have connectivity at home. Project 10Million will let school districts apply for a free 100GB per month option or even a completely unlimited plan. All participating districts get free wireless hotspots and access to “at-cost” laptops and tablets. Video message from CEO Mike Sievert.
Impact of COVID on Education: OECD estimates the disruption to schooling due to COVID-19 will cause a skill loss that could result in a 1.5% drop in global economic output for the rest of this century. For the United States, that would represent an economic loss of $15.3 trillion. Governments around the world closed schools for around 10 weeks, or one third of a year of schooling. More information and analysis on COVID impact across OECD countries here.
Long Term Consequences for School Closures: NBER paper that seeks to quantitatively characterize both the long-term earnings consequences on children from a COVID-19 induced loss of schooling, as well as the associated welfare losses. "We find that parental reactions reduce the negative impact of the school closures, but do not fully offset it. The negative impact of the crisis on children's welfare is especially severe for those with parents with low educational attainment and low assets. The school closures themselves are primarily responsible for the negative impact of the COVID-19 shock on the long-run welfare of the children, with the pandemic-induced income shock to parents playing a secondary role."
FEDERAL
Phase 4:
Secretary Mnuchin said on Sunday he and President Trump believe there should be more stimulus to help American businesses, but are stuck on top-line negotiations with Speaker Pelosi.
The Senate Republican leadership released a "skinny" / "targeted" COVID-19 relief bill (bill text, redline, and summary). The bill provides:
$10 billion to the USPS
Legal liability protections for businesses
An extension of the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program at $300 per week until Dec. 27, 2020.
$258 billion for Creates a second round of PPP with reforms to require new applications show revenue loss and maintain loan documents consistent with IRS requirements. Provides additional resources for audits.
$105 billion in funding for K12 schools, institutions of higher education (IHEs) and Governors through the Education Stabilization Fund – approximately $70 billion goes to K12 and $29 billion would be distributed to IHEs. This is largely unchanged from earlier drafts.
$15 billion for child care funding - $10 billion for “Back to Work” childcare grants (grants largely to providers of childcare to remain open or to restart operations); $5 billion through the Child Care Development Block Grant allowing many of the flexibilities provided under the CARES Act – serving income ineligible children of first responders, funding restart operations and paying childcare worker salaries.
Several provisions related to K12 private and public school choice and pandemic related expenses – (1) Allowing funds reserved for private schools to also go to scholarship granting organizations to provide scholarships for K12 educational expenses, including private school tuition and homeschooling expenses, at the Governor’s discretion; (2) tax credits for two years for contributions to scholarship granting organizations; (3) expanding the use of 529 funds for K12 related expenses like books, online materials, tutoring and homeschool expenses.
Expansion of the above the line Charitable contribution limit – Raises the above the line charitable contribution limit to $600 (from $300) or $1,200 for those filing jointly.
Sen. McConnell intends to hold a vote on Thursday. Sen. Schumer has expressed opposition to this bill.
STATE
DC: The D.C. government will cover the monthly Internet bills for about 25,000 low-income families.
Michigan: Detroit schools start Parent Academy to help parents with online learning.
Nevada: Remote learning is costing parents a fortune: "The public school had told them their five-year-old daughter could attend in-person classes two days a week and spend three days at home learning online, or she could just stay home the whole week and take remote classes. Had they chosen the school's hybrid plan, their daycare offered -- for $775 a month -- to take their daughter for the three days she would have been out of school. Another option was a private school in the area that offered her a kindergarten class five days a week from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for $839 a month. The couple, who both work full-time, chose the private school because it would offer their daughter the most consistency and would minimize daily scheduling headaches."
Ohio: Gov. DeWine issued an executive order outlining the reporting and notification requirements for schools. When a parent learns of a case, the school will be notified within 24 hours. That sets off a series of actions: the school must notify parents within 24 hours, as well as the local board of health. The board of health will report cases to the state each Tuesday.
Nebraska: The Omaha World-Herald Editorial Board called for giving school districts limited legal immunity against coronavirus-related lawsuits.
New York:
According to the NYT, nearly 40% of NYC families have opted to have their children learn fully remotely when public schools reopen on Sept. 21.
NYC plans mandatory tests of 10% of students and teachers each month. If parents refuse, their children will have to learn at home.
Williamsville superintendent placed on administrative leave for handling of reopening plan.
Pennsylvania: Ambler schools opened their elementary school doors for five-day-a week, full instruction for all families. Four out of 10 families in the district opted for all-virtual learning. This freed space in elementary schools for roughly six feet of social distancing per student.
South Carolina: The state's health agency is releasing data about the number of cases involving schools, which shows over 233 cases.
Texas: TEA announced the first set of instructional materials – covering K-12 Math – that will be made available free of charge to schools through the Texas Home Learning 3.0 (THL 3.0) initiative. TEA has partnered with Carnegie Learning for 6-12 Math and Great Minds for K-5 Math
INTERNATIONAL
Canada: The number of homeschoolers in Quebec jumped from under 6,000 last year to an expected 10,000 this fall.
China: Via Hakeema: China's largest education platform, Zuoyebang, saw a 390% surge in paid users this summer to 7.8 million enrollments. To date, Zuoyebang has reached over 50 million total daily active users and 170 million monthly active users across its suite of mobile education apps.
India: The Rajasthan High Court gave private schools permission to charge only 70% of the total fees during COVID-19. The decision was given on an appeal by private schools challenging the Rajasthan government's decision asking schools to defer fees during COVID-19.
Iran: Schools reopened on Saturday.
Japan: Schools reopened. The curriculum is augmented by the "3Cs" — teaching kids to avoid close conversation, crowds and closed spaces.
Pakistan: The Minister of Education announced the phased in reopening of schools. Universities, colleges and classes 9-12 to resume on Sept 15. Classes 6-8 to return on Sept 23. Primary schools to reopen on Sept 30 in the last phase.
South Africa: The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) released a bid to purchase 700,000 laptops for students.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Aligning Housing and Education: Urban Institute brief examining efforts to improve educational outcomes by ensuring the quality, affordability, or stability of students’ housing. It also discusses the structural barriers to housing stability and educational resources by examining the ways in which the education and housing systems are aligned to limit opportunity for people of color and people with low incomes. The brief concludes with recommendations for short- and longer-term actions to align the two systems through joint partnerships, metrics, and advocacy.
LEARNING PODS
Can ‘Podding’ Be the Key to Successful Pandemic Education? Dr. Jesika DiCampli, NMD, CPM, Southwest College Naturopathic Medicine, said "I think podding is valuable and people might gravitate towards it, especially for kids— I’ll use my son as an example, he has immunodeficiency, and he’s not going to be a candidate in my mind for him to go back to school in-person."
‘Pod’ Bless Texas: From Dr. Matt Ladner: "We should celebrate parents taking greater responsibility for the education of their children." "Before the pandemic, highly motivated (and sometimes highly dissatisfied) families served as trailblazers. One shattered spring of impromptu distance learning later, frustration is rampant, and parents are forming their own small schools." "The equity issue raised by the Tribune is real, but the solution is relatively simple. Let’s allow education money to follow the child."
An Educational Class Divide: "Parents will be forced to make an impossible choice: pause their careers and play administrative assistant to their kids while they learn via computer. Or don't and leave their kids on their own with potentially harmful consequences." "To fight this educational inequality, a growing movement is demanding that if schools don't open that the money spent per student be returned to the parents to use as they see fit. If parents don't like the plan proposed by their public school, why should they not be able to take their child's funds and spend that money on the education of their choice?"
New Orleans Community Learning Hubs: Formed by Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration and overseen by the New Orleans Recreation Department to help low-income families who need child care or don't have access to reliable internet at home while public schools begin the year with online learning. InspireNOLA CEO Jamar McKneely, who set up learning hubs at the eight schools his network oversees around the city, called the demand "overwhelming" in his network.
Virtual Learning Hubs: Dallas Parks & Recreation are opening supervised work spaces designed to help students in grades 1-6 participate in online classes. Staff will assist with technical difficulties and keep kids focused on classwork. VLHs will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, and the service is free. List of sites.
California’s AB5 Is Such A Mess, ‘Pandemic Pods’ Might Not Even Be Safe: OpEd. "The verbiage is really, really unclear when it comes to tutors,” said Lauren Holman, a mom and online history teacher based in San Diego, California. “Even if AB5 wasn’t originally intended to impact tutors, now they are one of the most highly sought-out positions, and with the way the language of the bill is, it will absolutely impact them.”
Hotel Transforms Meeting Rooms Into Learning Pods: Courtyard Marriott Elmhurst/Oakbrook
Houston Churches: Supporting learning pods.
RESOURCES
Hybrid vs Team Teaching: AFT President Randi Weingarten called hybrid models “the worst of all worlds," and said that team teaching will be needed, with one teacher focused on an in-person class and other teachers focused on teaching online.
Nine Experts on the Future of Education After the Pandemic: Foreign Policy published short essays from Arne Duncan, Andreas Schleicher, Mona Mourshed, Jennifer Nuzzo, Ludger Woessmann, Salvatore Babones, Devesh Kapur, Michael D. Smith, Dick Startz.
Virtual School Enrollment Surges: Via EdWeek:
Florida Virtual School's enrollment is up 54% for its individual online course offerings and 64% for full-time programs.
K12 Inc. enrollments have grown from 122,000 to 170,000.
Applications to Connections Academy are up 61%.
Gaston County Schools in North Carolina opened a virtual school in 2017 and had enrolled 100 students within two years. In the last month, the school has increased its enrollment to 5,300 students—more than 1 in 6 of the district's total number of students.
WHO on Vaccine Prioritization: The Director-General of the World Health Organization said: "In other words, the first priority must be to vaccinate some people in all countries, rather than all people in some countries... In our interconnected world, if people in low- and middle-income countries miss out on COVID1-9 vaccines, the virus will continue to kill and the economic recovery will be delayed. Vaccine nationalism will prolong the pandemic, not shorten it"
Some Don't Want a COVID Vaccine: A new USA Today/Suffolk poll finds two-thirds of U.S. voters say they won’t try to get a coronavirus vaccine as soon as it becomes available, and one in four say they don’t want to ever get it.
CAP Childcare Calculator: Released a calculator that quantifies the additional costs that licensed child care providers are facing as they provide safe and developmentally appropriate child care during the pandemic.
Are School Reopening Decisions Related to Union Influence? New SSRN paper: "Using data on the reopening decisions of 835 public school districts in the United States, we find that school districts in locations with stronger teachers’ unions are less likely to reopen in person even after we control semi-parametrically for differences in local demographic characteristics."
Catholic Schools Closing: More than 150 across the country.
EdChoice Parent Survey: Conducted in partnership with MorningConsult. Results and more than 200 pages of crosstabs.
We've Made It To Labor Day: And I'm still standing.