COVID-19 Policy Update #140
COVID-19 Policy Update
MONDAY 11/2
It's Monday which means a longer update. It's also Election week which means a longer week. It's also 2020 which means a longer year. Therefore, we have three suggestions for today's pairing:
Mazzei Philip Cabernet Sauvignon 2015: Since the 1400’s the Mazzei’s have been producing wine in Italy. Philip Mazzei came to Virginia where he became good friends with Thomas Jefferson (and later returned to Italy as a secret agent). He's also credited for an essay articulating the doctrine of "All men are created equal" which Jefferson later paraphrased while drafting the Declaration of Independence.
Yuengling: If you're wondering what beer to have a candidate, consider this one from the swing state of Pennsylvania and home to America's oldest brewery.
Satan's Circus: A great cocktail from the iconic Nomad bar in NYC. And seems perfectly paired with 2020 in general.
TOP THREE
Students Work More With Less Rigor: A new survey of 74,000 students, parents, and teachers found that remote learning last spring resulted in school work that was too easy or material they’d already learned. 8 out of 10 students said they had more work to do remotely. But 60% said that their assignments were either “new and easy” or “something already learned.” The majority of parents said they’re worried about their children’s preparation moving forward.
Why Is Europe Keeping Its Schools Open, Despite New Lockdowns?: NYT article. David Zweig points out two incorrect statements in the article and also says "Governors of US states with closed schools should explain why this policy difference exists."
Teacher Retirements: Chad Aldeman looks at data from 7 state pension plans and doesn't see a spike of teacher retirements in 2020.
FEDERAL
HHS: Reported that they are on track to have delivered 125 million masks to schools.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
COVID Transmission Within Households: CDC study finds that children pass along Covid to household members just as frequently as adults do.
Testing Vaccine With Children: Johnson & Johnson plans to start testing its COVID-19 vaccine with children between the ages of 12 to 18.
Inside Operation Warp Speed’s $18 Billion Sprint for a Vaccine: Great Bloomberg article giving a behind the scenes view of the race to develop a vaccine and prepare a distribution system.
Vaccine Hesitancy: Black Americans are the most hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
COVID Dogs: Finland's COVID sniffer dog trial "extremely positive." Preliminary experiments suggested the dogs can detect the virus with close to 100% accuracy, up to five days earlier than a PCR test. Unfortunately, Bentley is 0 for 100 in COVID detection but 100% accurate for sniffing out carbs.
STATE
Alabama: Launched a new COVID-19 dashboard for tracking COVID-19 cases across K-12 public schools.
Arizona: An estimated 50,000 students vanished from Arizona's public district and charter schools over the summer. That means the state has lost 5% of its students between this school year and the end of last. Numbers also show kindergarten enrollment is down by 14%.
California:
LAUSD likely won't reopen before January 2021 at earliest, teachers union affirms.
Sequoia Union High School District reported that the percentage of students with more than one failing grade this fall jumped to 29% from 19.7% in 2019, a nearly 50% increase. Mt. Diablo Unified School District in Contra Costa County reported a similar rise in high school students failing more than one grade — 30.66% from just over 19% the previous two academic years.
Politico reports that Gov. Newsom sent his children back to in-person private school, sparking strong reaction from parents who do not have that option for their children in closed public schools. More on the controversy here and here.
Colorado: Denver public school parents protest return to remote learning. “Our children are being crushed by this,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion, during a Wednesday parent town hall meeting that attracted 500 parents. “I had to watch my fifth grader cry her way to school because she's going to be back spending eight more hours of zoom starting on Monday.”
Michigan: Smart idea - 32 superintendents around Traverse City co-signed a letter to urge the community to make smart choices when it comes to socializing or gathering for the holidays. "Just reminding parents that when they’re out of our buildings, be as vigilant as we can be outside, it’s going to help us keep kids in school longer,” said Elk Rapids Schools superintendent Julie Brown.
New Jersey: Senator Troy Singleton (D-Burlington) introduced legislation that would provide gross income tax credits to cover education and child care costs incurred by families who have children learning remotely at home.
New York: Gov. Cuomo announced a deal to reopen schools in areas where COVID is flaring up.
All students and faculty will have to be tested before being allowed to return.
The plan allows students and faculty who have tested negative for the virus to return to class in red and orange zones.
Schools will then need to randomly test 25% of their population on a weekly basis. If more than nine positive tests come back in a smaller school, the building will have to shut down again. In larger schools, a positivity rate of more than 2% will trigger a return to remote learning.
Tennessee:
Officials say virtual learning is impacting Tennessee Promise applications which are 10% lower than in 2019.
Knox County Schools said that they received more 2,600 requests to switch from virtual learning to an in-person learning environment. More than 500 families requested to change from in-person learning to virtual learning over the spring semester.
Washington: The Stevenson-Carson School District is working to bridge the digital divide with free "Internet cafes" for students, especially those with limited or no access to the Internet.
INTERNATIONAL
Cambodia: Reopened schools for the first time since March.
Research Opportunity: Via Hakeema - EdTech Hub launched a call for proposals to fund a series of small research projects (3-6 months) related to Covid-19 response and recovery using educational technology (EdTech). Proposals must focus on and be undertaken in one of these countries: Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Tanzania.
UK:
Prime Minister Boris Johnson says keeping schools open is a 'priority' and pays tribute to teachers' 'dedication' in the crisis.
Teacher unions are recommending the closure of schools in the new national lockdown. More here.
Union warns national tutoring programme will only reach a fraction of children who need it
New study finds that children in poorer areas of England are missing more schooling. More here.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Americans Worked More During Remote Work: New study that found employees spent over 22 million extra hours on their primary job each workday.
Return to Office Incentives: New York City companies try to lure employees back to offices with subsidized commutes, free lunches and learning pods where their children can learn remotely
K Shaped Recovery: U.S. COVID-19 economy has delivered luxury houses for some, evictions for others.
Economic Benefits of COVID-19 Screening Tests: NBER paper that found that the fiscal, macroeconomic, and health benefits of rapid SARS-CoV-2 screening testing programs far exceed their costs, with the ratio of economic benefits to costs typically in the range of 4-15.
Richmond Launching Guaranteed Income Pilot: Under the Richmond Resilience Initiative (RRI), 18 working families who no longer qualify for benefits assistance but still do not make a living wage will receive $500 a month for 24 months. The Federal Reserve of Richmond is one of the research partners.
Rebuilding the Global Economy: Smart series from the Peterson Institute which has economic experts writing briefing memos outlining economic ideas. Good Jason Furman submission.
Employment Effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit: Brookings/AEI NBER paper: The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the cornerstone U.S. anti-poverty program, typically lifting over 5 million children out of poverty each year. "We find robust evidence that EITC expansions increase the extensive margin of labor supply."
LEARNING PODS
Pods for Undocumented Students: In Michigan, an immigrant-led advocacy group organized undocumented families and created an in person learning hub for kids grades K thru 12. For the past six weeks, 24 students at Ann Arbor Community Learning Center have been doing their virtual classwork on computers provided by the public school district, with the support of the center’s volunteers and teachers.
Marin City: Is operating three learning hubs serving about 50 high school students at a cost of $20,000 a month. The students get to attend for free. Two meals a day are provided. College students are helping as tutors.
Inside Look: At a learning pod located in a SE Portland church.
Delaware: Child care centers fill the void for Delaware students learning remotely. The state allocated $1 million from its federal CARES Act money to assist centers serving school-age children. They can get reimbursements of $500 to $7,500.
Community Learning Centers Can Pick Up Where 'Learning Pod' Solution Falls Short: OpEd from Jodi Grant, the executive director of the Afterschool Alliance. Highlights their "Blueprint for How Afterschool Programs & Community Partners Can Help,” which provides a framework for building these community learning centers or hubs. It describes how schools, after-school programs, local government, community-based organizations and parents can develop and adapt school reopening plans that ensure children are learning, safe, engaged and building academic, social and emotional skills during the hours their parents are working.
Mobile Tutor Pod: "In her Tutor Pod, a specially outfitted mobile schoolroom she found on Craig’s list, she cruises Fort Collins providing a Montessori-inspired at-home learning site. Spiller has a master’s degree in literacy and language development from the University of Northern Colorado and is certified to teach the Montessori method."
RESOURCES
Starlink Beta Tests: A few posts over the weekend with users reporting that they were "Streaming 1440p and 4K with zero buffering on YouTube." Starlink promises 20-40 milliseconds of latency, and this early beta test confirms it: 34 milliseconds. Some users say they're already hitting download speeds of more than 160 megabits per second, faster than 95% of US connections, according to the speed-test provider Ookla. Users still reported interruptions in the connectivity which might be addressed with additional satellites. But these are very promising results for an early beta test.
Surge of First Time Foster Families: Online training is credited with the jump in number of first-time families accepting foster children in West Virginia. Moving the foster parent certification classes online provided greater access to the training leading to more eligible families.
Pandemic Ed Tech:
Zoom appoints Janet Napolitano to Board of Directors
ASU explores VR. Dreamscape Learn, a partnership between Dreamscape Immersive and ASU, will launch testing in coming weeks.
Via TechCrunch - Booming edtech M&A activity brings consolidation to a fragmented sector
Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: It Is Not Who You Teach, But How You Teach: NBER paper covering the results of a study that examined seven economics courses taught at four institutions of higher education. They found that students performed substantially worse, on average, in Spring 2020 when compared to Spring or Fall 2019. They found no evidence that the effect was driven by specific demographic groups. However, their results suggest that teaching methods that encourage active engagement, such as the use of small group activities and projects, played an important role in mitigating this negative effect. (Also check out the fancy new NBER website).
How Congress Can Get Kids Back to Class: OpEd from former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. "But there’s growing evidence schools can open safely, with reasonable precautions and, perhaps soon, regular testing."
Want to Feel Small? Click on this 2.5 gigapixel image of the Orion Constellation and zoom into some of the areas.