COVID-19 Policy Update #195
COVID-19 Policy Update
MONDAY 2/8
We have some new people joining us for the first time so a bit of background. We noticed that Monday updates were quite long with the stories that accumulated over the weekend. That observation coincided with one funder who mentioned needing to pour herself a drink before reading them. Thus was born a new tradition of including a drink pairing with each Monday update.
Tonight's pairs well with the tears of Kansas City Chiefs fans. We've also reached the point where people are requesting cocktails, the most recent being something with tequila. Unfortunately, my knowledge of the spirit is almost as limited as Kansas City's ability to get into the end zone. So I went to the trustworthy Nomad Cocktail Book and present you with: Elefante. 1/2 oz each of Luxardo, Dolin Blanc vermouth, Combier triple sec, Carpano Punt e Mes vermouth, and 1 1/2 oz tequila. Combine in a glass, stir with ice, and serve.
TOP THREE
Schools Plan for Potential of Remote Learning Into the Fall: Via AP:
“We have no illusions that COVID will be eradicated by the time the start of the school year comes up,” said William “Chip” Sudderth III, a spokesperson for Durham, North Carolina schools."
"And while many parents are demanding that schools fully reopen, others say they won’t feel safe sending children back to classrooms until vaccines are available to even young students."
“There’s going to be some element of the genie not being able to be put back in the bottle,” Woods said. “I think that there now will always be a group of families who want a virtual option. ... We know we’re able to, but are we willing to do it?"
“One thing that we have learned during the pandemic is that teaching and learning is now different, and it will not fully be what we used to think was `normal' ever again,” read the January agenda item before the Board of Education."
President Biden on Reopening Schools: CBS interview.
Said the exodus of millions of women from the labor force and the closing of schools —along with the mental health issues for children that could arise — during the COVID-19 pandemic constitute a "national emergency."
"I think it's time for schools to reopen safely. Safely," Mr. Biden said. "You have to have fewer people in the classroom. You have to have ventilation systems that have been reworked. Our CDC commissioner is going to be coming out with science-based judgment, within I think as early as Wednesday as to lay out what the minimum requirements are."
COVID’s Hit to State and Local Revenues Is Smaller Than Many Feared: Via WSJ:
In the end, state revenues fell 1.6% in fiscal year 2020 and were 3.4% lower than projected before the pandemic, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.
While states expect revenues to decline 4.4% in fiscal 2021, which ends on June 30 for most, 18 states are seeing revenues come in above forecast.
JP Morgan reports: 2020 state tax receipts for the 47 states who report the data, shows an avg decline of just 0.12% vs. 2019, with a weighted avg decline of 0.06%, virtually flat to 2019. 21 of 47 states show positive YoY growth of tax receipts
FEDERAL
Congress: Texas Rep. Ron Wright dies following COVID-19 diagnosis. The 67-year-old Republican is the first member of Congress to die from COVID.
USDA: CBPP post on new USDA guidance clarifies states P-EBT flexibility.
COVID Package:
Committee prints released by the Committees on Education and Labor, Financial Services, and Transportation and Infrastructure.
Additional resources for Ed and Labor can be found here: fact sheet and section by section.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Neal (D-MA) announced the Committee will consider nine legislative proposals under the budget reconciliation instructions this week including direct cash benefits and several childcare provisions.
Fauci: On MTP (Video / Transcript) says K-8 schools can reopen (perhaps giving a hint as to the guidance coming later this week):
"Well, that's a simple question, but with a complicated answer because it really depends on the level of infection in the community. The one principle we stand by, and President Biden has said that, we want to get the schools K-8 open within the next 100 days, all of them. You want to be the first to open, the last to close. What they need is they're going to need some help. And that's why we want the American Rescue Plan -- the American Rescue Act, to get through, so that the schools can have the capability with masks, with the ability to get better ventilation. All the things you want to do. Of course, vaccination helps, Chuck. It would be great to get all the teachers vaccinated as quickly as you possibly can. That's the reason why they're in the group that is the necessary components of society, namely essential workers."
Chuck Todd: You set K-8 as the line here. There’s been -- is there more confidence on the elementary school level of the safety, versus middle and high school, and that's why we sort of draw a line at eighth grade here
Facui: Well, yeah. It's data -- you know, it isn't overwhelming, but it's strongly suggestive. There have been a number of studies to show that, when you have children that are a certain age, namely above eight -- eighth grade and higher, that they transmit as easily as adults transmit. Whereas younger children, even though they have virus in their nasopharynx when they get infected, they do not transmit as readily. So for that reason, you want to focus on that group, the K-8 group. But there are some data that suggest that.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
South African Variant: South African officials stopped the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine when it was discovered that the vaccine does not protect clinical trial participants from mild or moderate illness caused by the South African variant of the virus. Stat with more.
Vaccine Distribution:
18% of NEA members have received vaccinations.
People are fed up with broken vaccine appointment tools — so they’re building their own
From Google Docs to Airtable spreadsheets, Americans are trying to answer one seemingly simple question: Where can I get a vaccine?
Mom - on maternity leave with a two month old - builds her own website to simplify Mass vaccine sign-ups.
60 Black Health Experts Urge Black Americans to Get Vaccinated: OpEd in NYT.
"The 60 of us are Black Americans. We are trained health professionals. We understand the science. We understand our community. Many of us have already received the shots. The rest of us will get them when our turn comes."
"We encourage you to claim your place in line to get vaccinated. Do this for yourself. Do this for our community. We are asking you to trust our advice because we are a part of you. And together we can save lives."
STATE
California:
San Francisco teachers union disagrees with the CDC and refuse to return to the classroom without a vaccine.
LAUSD: "Threats of lawsuits, finger pointing and speech making won’t help,” Beutner, who never mentioned Buscaino by name, said during his weekly update. “I call on every state and local official as well as every stakeholder in the school community to join us in the challenge. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work. Call it the 60-day challenge to offer every young student the learning opportunity they deserve.”
DC: Will release vaccine appointments for charter teachers, child care providers every Monday
Illinois: Chicago schools could gradually start to reopen for in-person learning this week under a tentative agreement with the teachers union on a COVID-19 safety plan. Twitter thread from CPS.
Kentucky: School districts are not required to offer alternative or virtual work assignments to employees who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine, according to new guidance released Monday by the Kentucky Department of Education.
Michigan: 350 physicians and psychologists signed a letter to Ann Arbor Schools superintendent saying they are deeply troubled by what they called the "harmful impact of delayed school reopening on our community" and urged the district to " have all students who choose in-person options allowed back in the buildings by March 1st."
Nevada: Northern Nevada schools won't require teachers to get COVID vaccine
New York: NYC to reopen middle schools, but most students will still learn from home
Ohio: Three Columbus elementary schools return to online learning due to teacher absences
Pennsylvania: Philly’s youngest students are suffering the most academically but high school students stayed relatively the same. Here's the report - well worth browsing.
"Students in grades K-5 saw larger-than-average declines on a nationally normed standardized test called aimswebPlus"
However, students in high schools were mostly the same, "Examining the average NPR differences by grade level shows that grades 7 to 9 experienced 0.5- to 2-percentile decline, while grades 10 and 11 experienced a 2-percentile improvement in average NPR."
INTERNATIONAL
Canada: The Quebec government does not have to make online learning available to every student in the province, the Quebec Superior Court ruled Monday.
Italy: Italy’s main teachers' union is balking at plans for educators under age 55 to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine - believing other vaccines offer better protection.
UK: Is considering two weeks of summer school to help counter learning loss.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
West Virginia Has Everyone’s Attention. What Does It Really Need?: Great, must read piece from Emily Badger:
"West Virginia ranks among the most distressed states in child poverty rates and median incomes, in population loss and in working-age adults out of the labor force."
"Economists and local community leaders agree that the federal government has done a poor job helping to lift up such places."
“What we see is a part of the country that has been neglected by the change of an industry, and nothing came behind it,” said Jim King, the president and chief executive of Fahe, a network of more than 50 organizations working to make Appalachia more prosperous. “And it seemed that no one noticed or cared outside of our region.”
"Many of the dynamics today in West Virginia would be familiar in old industrial towns in the Northeast, or in rural communities across the Midwest. The population is declining as young residents move away. So the tax base and ability to fund services are also shrinking. That makes it hard to support businesses, to prop up the housing market, to reinvent the economy."
"To qualify for federal housing aid, families must earn below a given share of the local median income. But entire counties in Appalachia have median incomes below the poverty line, leaving many poor families ineligible."
“Resources — all resources — tend to flow to places of density,” said Jen Giovannitti, president of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the largest donor in West Virginia of any private foundation. “I’m talking about philanthropic density, population density, the institutional density. All of that money tends to cluster there.”
The High Cost of Missed School: Via Axios. "The U.S. economy could take a $14 trillion to $28 trillion blow in the long run due to coronavirus-induced learning loss, according to economists' projections."
5 Ways to Bring Women Back into the Post-Pandemic Workforce: Carta's Mita Mallick at HBR:
Offer a pandemic leave of absence.
Remove pandemic gap year bias.
Implement diverse slates of candidates.
Scale return-to-work programs.
Reskill women.
The Key to Growing Human-Centered Businesses: Via Ashley Bittner and Brigette Lau in MIT Sloan Management Review.
$15 Billion In Opportunity Funds: Investment in opportunity zones (OZs) by qualified opportunity funds (QOFs) surpassed $15 billion in Dec (up from $6 billion in January 2020).
The Critical Role of Workforce Training in the Labor Market Recovery: Via the Hamilton Project
The Pandemic is Replacing People with Tech — Threatening the Jobs Rebound: Via Politico:
"43% of businesses anticipate reducing their workforce due to an integration of technology."
“We’ve fast-forwarded 10 years of change in the space of less than 10 months,” said Andy Van Kleunen, CEO of the National Skills Coalition, a policy research group that promotes workforce training. “We don’t really do a good job making it easy for someone who has lost their job due to no fault of their own, particularly in an industry that’s downsizing, to get into a new occupation in a new industry," he said. "We just need a whole reboot of that.”
Even the $1.9 trillion economic relief package he has proposed contains no new funds specifically for job training.
Wes Moore to Step Down as CEO of Robin Hood Foundation: Will step down in May.
The New PolicyMap: New update with additional datasets and better visualizations.
America’s Deeply Unequal Economic Recovery in 7 Charts: Vox with charts that visualize the K shaped recovery.
RESOURCES
Meet One Woman On A Mission To Find Hundreds Of Kids, Lost To Their Schools: Story of Lilia Francois, a social worker with the Broward school district, who is tracking down 800 "lost" students.
The Union Leader Who Says She Can Get Teachers Back in Schools: The much discussed article circulating today from the NYT.
Remedial Education: Jill Barshay looks at an Israeli study. Key findings:
Initially, students who participated in the after-school remedial program were able to pass a series of difficult high school matriculation exams, which are required for university admittance, in higher numbers.
Long-term benefits included more college completed, higher wages and more adults rising above their family’s economic station to enter the middle class.
The expensive program recovered costs after eight years because participants paid more taxes on larger incomes in their working years.
Bold Ideas To Help Kids Catch Up: Via NPR's Anya Kamenetz:
"Acceleration academies" — aka summer school
Tutoring
Safer and more equitable schools; "Never going to go back to normal"
Invest in a Moon Shot
Summer School Is a Hot Idea Right Now. Could It Work?: Via NYT
Students Respond to Adults’ Fixation on ‘Learning Loss': Good piece via EdWeek.
Teachers Still Fear COVID-19: Via USA Today:
“One of the reasons it’s so frustrating is that we can look at so many places and we see tens of thousands of kids back in school,” said Bacigalupi, whose children, ages 5 and 8, have been out of school for nearly a year. “I'm also just sad. And the sadness gets worse as you see what's happening to your kid. It's harming them.”
“‘Safe’ is a relative term,” said Schleiss, the Minnesota professor. “Continuing to attend school with careful monitoring is reasonable. We don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good.”
The Racial Divide in Returning to the Classroom: "As the debate over reopening America's classrooms heats up, one overlooked factor is the significant racial gap in whether parents are ready to send their children back to school."
Voices from the Classroom 2021: A Survey of America’s Educators: Via Educators for Excellence
The Battle Over Schools Reopening Heats Up. What Are the Facts? Via CNN
Meredith Olson Appointed President of VELA Education Fund: Read about it here.
Digital Divide Lurks Behind School Reopening Plans: More from Axios.
"Students without reliable in-home internet are already at an educational deficit, and many of the remote learning tools the pandemic has ushered in are here to stay. Experts and advocates worry that unconnected students could permanently fall behind their more wired peers if they don't get assistance now."
"Even after kids are back in school, to address the unprecedented pandemic-induced learning loss, educators, students, and families will need robust resources outside of school," said Amina Fazlullah, equity policy counsel for Common Sense Media. "That means, going forward, all students need to be able to continue to robustly connect to distance learning."
Super Bowl:
Best Play-by-Play: Kevin Harlan narrates the streaker
Best Alexa Enhancement: Alexa's Body.
Best No Way: Norway
Best Ad: Jeep's Meet in the Middle