COVID-19 Policy Update #192
COVID-19 Policy Update
WEDNESDAY 2/3
TOP THREE
CDC Says Schools Can Reopen Without Vaccinating Teachers: During today's White House briefing, CDC Director Walensky said “There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated...Vaccinations of teachers is not a prerequisite for safely reopening schools."
Kids Don’t Need Covid-19 Vaccines to Return to School: OpEd in Stat by Vinay Prasad:
"When I put it all together, it is clear to me: Adult interests have been prioritized over children’s well-being by closing schools. For kids to return to school, I support teachers being vaccinated (though this is not essential), the use of indoor masks, capping classroom size at 20, quarantining students if symptomatic cases occur, and distancing between classes. These were the precautions used in the CDC analysis."
"There’s no question that Covid-19 is an emergency for adults, a catastrophic disease that becomes more deadly with advancing age. But it isn’t that for children."
"The Covid-19 pandemic has harmed children — not because they have fallen ill from the virus, for the most part, but by the choices societies have made to protect adults who are vastly more likely to suffer from the disease. In many places, kids have already lost a year of school, development, and life."
Bloomberg on Reopening: On MSNBC this morning, Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg called on President Biden to "stand up" to teachers unions that are stonewalling efforts to reopen schools.
"There's no reason not to have schools open."
"It's time for Joe Biden to stand up and say ‘kids are the most important things.’ Teachers are going to have to suck it up, stand up and provide an education."
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Children and COVID: Updated numbers from AAP
2.8 million total child COVID-19 cases reported (represents 12.8% of all cases)
Over two weeks, 1/14/21-1/28/21, there was a 12% increase in child COVID-19 cases
Children were 0.00%-0.21% of all COVID-19 deaths
AstraZeneca Vaccine May Slow Transmission: University of Oxford researchers released a paper finding that the vaccine may reduce transmission, though scientists have emphasized that the data are preliminary and the degree of protection unknown. More at the NYT
Vaccine Hesitancy: Monmouth University poll: 24% say it is likely they will never get the vaccine if they can avoid it.
"Democrats are most eager to get the vaccine as soon as possible (72%) – compared to independents (51%) and Republicans (39%).
More than 4 in 10 Republicans (42%) say they will avoid ever getting the vaccine if they can, which is significantly higher than the number of independents (25%) and Democrats (10%) who feel the same.
“Reluctance to get the vaccine is driven more by partisanship than any single demographic factor. It says a lot about the depth of our partisan divide that it could impact public health like this."
Younger Adults Cause Most Transmission: The coronavirus pandemic has been chiefly driven by young and middle-aged people, while killing mostly older people. Based on a new study in Science. Axios has more.
The study estimates that school reopenings increased total infections by about 26% as of October.
STATE
California:
San Francisco city officials plan to sue its own Board of Education to get students back into the classroom.
"Around 15,000 students in private schools are attending in person classes in the city while 54,000 public school students are studying online."
"Across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, 90 percent of schools have resumed in-person instruction and there have been nine reported cases of in-school transmission."
Southern California pediatricians are calling for the immediate reopening of Los Angeles County schools.
Gov. Newsom said he believes schools can begin to reopen even if all teachers are not yet vaccinated against COVID-19, provided that proper safety measures and supports are in place
Colorado: Educators can receive COVID testing at home.
Florida: A mid-school-year estimate by state economists projects that 87,811 fewer students have enrolled in public schools than were predicted to sign up for the 2020-2021 academic year.
Georgia: School closures increase parent interest in expanding education options in Georgia
Illinois: Missing from Chicago’s reopening debate: high schools.
Kentucky: New lawsuit seeks to force Kentucky public schools to reopen
Louisiana: The Iberia Parish School Board voted to seek the state Attorney General's guidance over sending student data to Dept. of Health
Michigan: Students would be able to retake exams up to two times, the letter grades D and F would become a G or a No Credit, and homework largely would be limited to reading assignments or studying.
New Jersey: Montclair School District plans to sue teachers union in an attempt to reopen schools.
Pennsylvania: Nazareth teachers union threatens online learning only if school board won't bargain.
Virginia: Fairfax County Public Schools and Loudoun County Public Schools aim to reopen for all students by March
INTERNATIONAL
Canada: Ontario is set to reopen most schools by Feb 16.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Uplifting America’s Left Behind Places: A Roadmap for a More Equitable Economy: New paper from EIG:
Michigan Reconnect: Gov. Whitmer launched a new $30 million program to pay for community college tuition for residents 25 or older who don't have a degree or a $1,500 scholarship that can be used at more than 70 private training schools that offer training certificates.
Reshoring America: Can The Heartland Lead The Way?: New report from Heartland Forward.
South Korea Leads World in Innovation as U.S. Exits Top Ten: Via Bloomberg
Framework for Inclusive Capitalism: A New Compact Among Business, Government and American Workers: Released by the Markle Foundation
Achieving an Inclusive US Economic Recovery: Report from McKinsey (along with a new interactive) This one chart is alarming. Low-income workers and those with less than a high-school degree are unlikely to recover by 2024.
LEARNING PODS
Microschool Helps Students Struggling With Virtual Education: Model serving students in Las Vegas.
78 percent of students arrived below grade level in reading. Sixty-two percent of children now are at or above grade level.
93 percent of children arrived below grade level in math. All students are now working on material that is at least at grade level.
Nearly 75 percent were reading below grade level, while 42 percent are now at grade level and 28 percent are above grade level.
Over 70 percent of third-graders entered the academy testing below grade level in math. Fifty-seven percent are currently working at grade level and 43 percent are working above grade level.
RESOURCES
SEL: CRPE looked at how 477 school districts attended to students' social-emotional learning and well-being in fall 2020.
66% of districts mentioned SEL and well-being
District plans were more likely to focus on creating safe environments than teaching SEL skills
7% were taking a systemwide approach to collecting data on how students were doing
Using Chronic Absence to Map Interrupted Schooling, Instructional Loss and Educational Inequity: Report and state data from Attendance Works and the Everyone Graduates Center.
The groups’ review of 2017-18 data shows eight million students experienced some level of chronic absenteeism
More than a quarter of schools across the country have either high (20% to 29%) or extreme (30% or more) levels of chronic absenteeism.
COVID likely exacerbated many of these trends and also creates a gap in data.
Five Principles for K-12 Testing Through COVID-19 and Beyond: OpEd Rick Hess and Michael Petrilli:
Testing has to be about helping teachers teach and learners learn
Don't give up on reading, writing, and math tests.
We need good measures of school quality and student success that extend beyond reading, writing, and math scores.
Accountability alone doesn’t make schools better.
Parental choice is a vital form of accountability, too.
Joint Statement on Assessments: 19 education groups urge Cardona "to refrain from issuing waivers to states that would allow them to bypass student assessment requirements for the 2020-21 school year and instead ask that you call on all states to administer summative statewide assessments"
‘Safe’ Schools Is a Moving Goal Post During COVID-19: OpEd from several doctors.
"We all need to come back to the drawing board and rethink school closing and opening policies and when our kids can return full time to the classroom. We need to recognize that if our benchmark is COVID-19 eradication, our children might be waiting for years."
"We must view schools as the essential venues for children that they are, and accept some level of COVID-19 risk – and weigh that risk against all of the other harms of keeping schools closed."
What it Would Really Take to Reopen American Schools: According to Vox.
How a Diverse School District Is Using a Strategy Usually Reserved for ‘Gifted’ Students to Help Everyone Overcome COVID Learning Loss: Via The 74:
"Highline’s McMicken Heights Elementary is practicing a learning strategy known as “acceleration”: Keep students progressing to more advanced lessons. Catch them up as needed. Don’t dwell on what was missed."
"Acceleration entails focusing on key building blocks, or standards. Looking closely at what students know and don’t through a variety of check-ins, which allows teachers to change how students are grouped. Every unit starts with a pretest, so teachers don’t waste time. And they use “asynchronous” or independent time to catch students up."
"But the i-Ready scores, coupled with anecdotes, make her think students are learning. And she also took their i-Ready participation rates — 80% in reading and 86% in math in grades one through eight — as a sign of success."
Morning Consult /EdChoice Polling: Worth browsing all of the data: Deck / Crosstabs. Some highlights:
Clap, Snap, High Five: Beautiful story.