COVID-19 Policy Update #138
COVID-19 Policy Update
THURSDAY 10/29
TOP THREE
School Reopening: Seventh report in the “School District Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic” series, covering how schools reopened for the 2020–21 school year.
About two in five schools began the year offering an option for full-time in-person instruction, about a third were fully remote, and the remaining 25% offered a hybrid model or in person for select grades.
Overall, COVID-19 case rates were weakly related to reopening models, and higher percentages of schools returned in person in small, low-minority, low-poverty, and high-achieving districts.
11% of all schools shifted from remote-only instruction to more in-person instruction by October 1, and most of these schools were in red states.
U.S. States Face Biggest Cash Crisis Since the Great Depression: Via WSJ. Nationwide, state budget shortfall from 2020 through 2022 could amount to about $434 billion, according to data from Moody’s Analytics.
COVID in the U.S: Mapping the wave of new cases.
FEDERAL
Phase 4: Speaker Pelosi sent a letter to Sec. Mnuchin listing the outstanding items that needed to be resolved. Reading the list makes one think if there ever was any real agreement. Text of the letter but here are the highlights:
State and Local: a response on funding for state, local, tribes and territories that will honor our heroes and prevent devastating cuts to services.
Safe Schools: answers on funding to safely reopen our schools with separation, ventilation, sanitation and more funding for teachers and support staff, and also on ensuring private schools, K-12 public schools and higher education receive a sufficient balance of funding.
Child Care: a response on whether the White House will agree to the child care funding families desperately need so we can have children learning, parents earning while some schools are closed.
Tax Credits for Working Families: an answer on whether the White House will provide funding to strengthen the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit.
Unemployment Insurance: a response on whether the White House will prevent five million Americans from exhausting their benefits, in addition to addressing other UI needs of America’s working families.
OSHA and Liability: a response on whether the White House will agree to keep our workers safe as they risk their lives and jobs to keep us safe and keep the economy running.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
IHME: Weekly briefing.
Daily deaths are up to 770 in the last week, a 9% increase from the week prior
Even at this early point in the fall/winter surge, COVID-19 is the second-leading cause of death in the US.
Cumulative deaths by February 1 in the reference scenario reach 399,000. If states do not react to rising numbers by re-imposing mandates, cumulative deaths could reach 514,000 by the same date.
EIG: As COVID-19 moves into rural America, distressed areas and communities of color suffer higher mortality rates.
Out of the 1,128 counties with a per capita death rate above the national average, 64.4% are in the South, 23.4% in the Midwest, 6.5% in the Northeast, and just 5.8% in the West.
The ten percent of counties that are the worst off economically have an average COVID-19 death rate 2.5 times higher than the 10 percent of counties that are the most economically well-off.
Long Term Effects: A new study examined cognitive test data from 84,285 people, more than 12,000 of whom had either tested positive for COVID-19 or had likely contracted the disease based on previous symptoms. The results showed that people who contracted and recovered from COVID-19 were significantly more likely to score lower on several cognitive tests.
Breathalyzer Test for COVID: Breathonix, a startup firm from the National University of Singapore has developed a breathalyzer test COVID which it says will enable people to know whether they are infected in under a minute. Could be useful for schools.
STATE
Idaho: New data from the State Board of Education shows fewer Idaho children are reading at grade level than before the pandemic. Overall proficiency on the Idaho Reading Indicator was the lowest in six years.
New Mexico: State’s Legislative Finance Committee report found that New Mexico students potentially lost more than a year’s worth of learning when schools were forced to close in the spring. In Santa Fe, half of the city’s middle and high school students had at least one failing grade, with rates at more than 60% for freshmen and sophomores and close to 40% among middle school students.
Oregon: Editorial: "Let public see debate about school reopening"
Pennsylvania:
Pittsburgh Public Schools students to stay virtual until at least January.
Just one third of elementary classrooms in Philly meet minimum ventilation standards. Data here.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
GDP: The U.S. economy grew at a record 33.1% annualized pace in the third quarter. Personal consumption (which accounts for 68% of GDP) increased 40.7%. The economy remains 3.5% below its level at the end of 2019. However, personal income fell at a $540.6 billion rate after surging at a $1.45 trillion pace in the prior period.
Hotel Occupancy: U.S. weekly hotel occupancy fell below 50%. Occupancy was 48% (-31.7% from comparable week in 2019). ADR was $95.49 (-29.4%). And RevPAR was $45.83 (-51.8%).
Bloomberg Cities: 4 ways data can help cities become more equitable.
Leveraging Entrepreneurship to Close Racial Wealth Gaps: Living Cities and the Kauffman Foundation collaborate on an impact investing fund dedicated to closing the racial income and wealth gaps. The proposed fund will:
Provide BIPOC fund managers access to capital as well as technical supports to promote success.
Reduce the time it typically takes for a BIPOC fund manager to raise initial capital.
Enable emerging BIPOC fund managers to establish a track record, gain credibility and be positioned for future rounds of funding.
Reopening the Office: Companies are using new tech to manage safe workplace spacing and scheduling. Maptician says it has developed software that helps offices map safe distancing and even schedules. It also has a contact tracing notification system.
Tupperware: Sales jumped 42% year-over-year, reaching $146.3 million - the highest level of growth in two decades and the highest level of absolute sales in the region since 2002.
RESOURCES
Homework Gap: New report from Common Sense Media, Boston Consulting Group, and EducationSuperHighway: "Connect All Students: How States and School Districts Can Close The Digital Divide." The report provides guidance for states and districts along with promising practices. The report also found that at least $1.5 billion of CARES funding has been allocated by 36 states specifically to address K–12 digital access.
Remote Learning Reflection: Great Twitter thread from Kevin Carey on his experience with COVID-induced virtual learning with his 5th grader.
"You’re Out of Your Mind if You Think I’m Ever Going Back to School": Via NYT: "As school districts across the country have grappled with whether to reopen school buildings or continue to hold classes remotely, national polling shows Black parents are the most wary of the risks to their health and the well-being of their children that come with in-person learning. Eighty-nine percent saw returning to school as a large or moderate risk, compared with 64 percent of white parents — at a time when Black and Hispanic children and teenagers account for 74 percent of Covid-19 deaths in people under the age of 21."
To Avert Further Learning Loss, States Must Act Now to Gather Data About Students’ Access to Education: Piece from the Aspen Institute's Ross Wiener.
Covid and the Catholic Schools: WSJ Editorial
School Bus Art: School bus contractor JFK Transportation hosted a Student Art Contest and Exhibition 2020 inviting students to submit a piece of artwork around the theme “#2020Vision Through The Eyes of a Student.” The winners are displayed on school buses that are driven around their communities.
Americans Turn to Tutors in India: Via WSJ:
“We get that one-on-one attention they need and it’s affordable,” she said. “It’s so hard learning from home.”
"Online student-services company Chegg, based in Santa Clara, Calif., saw the number of its student subscribers surge 69% year over year to 3.7 million in the quarter through September."
"The private tutoring industry could be worth more than $100 billion world-wide and online tutoring is a growing part of that, said Andrew Geant, chief executive of Wyzant, a Chicago company that matches students with teachers. Last month, demand for its services jumped more than 100% from a year earlier for many important types of tutoring including economics and chemistry, he said."
Pew: New parent survey data. Parents of K-12 students with lower incomes (72%) are more likely than middle-income (63%) and upper-income parents (55%) to say they are very or somewhat concerned about their children falling behind in school as a result of disruptions caused by the pandemic. Upper-income parents are the most likely to say they have hired someone to provide additional instruction or resources (19% vs. 7% of middle-income and 8% of lower-income parents).
A Little Too Into Halloween: Andy Rotherham went all out this year.