COVID-19 Policy Update #203
COVID-19 Policy Update
FRIDAY 2/19
TOP THREE
California Reopening Plan: California legislators introduced legislation to reopen schools.
The bill allocates $6.5 billion to school districts - $2 billion will go to help reopen schools and $4 billion is for in-person learning loss. This is in addition to another $6 billion in federal funding.
"The new proposal would triple the funding for schools and require county public health departments to offer vaccinations to school staff who return to in-person classes. It also pushes back the timeline for reopening and gives school districts greater freedom in how to spend the funding, which each district would receive based on its student population."
CDC's New Guidance For Reopening Schools May Not Be Effective: Via NPR, interview with Joseph Allen:
"So the community spread metric idea sounds great, but the reality is it doesn't really tell us what's happening in schools. Ninety percent of the schools right now in the U.S. are in what CDC deems the red zone, even schools that have been open with no cases or very little to no transmission in the schools."
"Take what's happening in hospitals, for example. Very high-risk environments - right? - but we've driven down risk to health care workers since March. Doing what? Really the basics, right? Strict masking, good hand hygiene and the one that they forget to talk about often but is true - hospitals take care of their buildings - good ventilation, filtration. So regardless of community spread, highest-risk environment in a health care setting, we've still driven down risk to adults. So we know what it takes to keep people safe indoors."
COVID-19 Forced Missouri Schools To Adapt: Which changes will remain in the future?
"We should assume there will be permanent alterations to the shape of K-12 education based on what we've experienced," said John Jungmann, superintendent of Springfield Public Schools. "How big they are is yet to be determined."
"Following an extended spring break, districts provided instruction virtually or through an alternative method.That was eye-opening in Marshfield, where a virtual learning platform had to be built. Steward said now that it's available, it will not go away."We learned through the pandemic that it works for some people and it doesn't work for others," he said. "For those it works for, it will be a viable option going forward."
"By having reduced class sizes while in the hybrid model, schools experienced fewer discipline issues and more personalized learning experiences for our students"
FEDERAL
ED: James Kvaal is nominated for Under Secretary of Education
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Pfizer Vaccine: New study in the Lancet finding that a single dose is highly effective.
Pfizer's clinical trials showed that its vaccine prevented roughly 52% of infections after one dose and 95% after two doses.
The new research found that the first dose actually prevented about 75% of infections, and 85% of symptomatic infections, up to 28 days after it was administered.
Pfizer CEO urged caution saying there wasn't clear evidence yet on whether it would be safe to forgo a second dose of its coronavirus vaccine or delay administering it.
The 27-Year-Old Who Became a Covid-19 Data Superstar: Bloomberg profile on Youyang Gu who has had some of the most accurate modeling during the pandemic. Follow him on Twitter here and on his website here.
"In late April he predicted the U.S. would see 80,000 deaths by May 9. The actual death toll was 79,926. A similar late-April forecast from IHME predicted that the U.S. would not surpass 80,000 deaths through all of 2020."
Vaccine Distribution:
Winter storm has delayed shipments of 6 million vaccines.
Less than half of more than 2,200 AARP New York activists who responded to a survey this week reported success in scheduling an appointment to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Only 39% of respondents of color to this month’s survey had success scheduling a vaccine, including 34.6% for African Americans
STATE
California:
Five months after reopening, Marin County schools report just 11 cases
Oakley school board president resigns after offensive comments caught on video
SF city attorney to school district: Vaccination demands for reopening will be challenged in court
California Teacher Consultant Response Network survey results:
Colorado: The Colorado Education Association, Colorado PTA, and Colorado AFT have launched an online petition to urge state lawmakers to direct the Colorado Department of Education to submit a waiver from ED to cancel the state assessment.
Illinois: Transcript of a Washington Post interview with Chicago Mayor Lightfoot covering the negotiations with CTU.
Kentucky: JCPS parents struggle to hold down jobs while helping kids with remote learning
"Jamie Ranes says on some days he'd only get about 45 minutes of sleep. So the family made the difficult decision: one of them would have to quit their job. And that's what Jamie did in October."
"We have two children that are ADHD," Erin said. "Being able do this on their own is not going to happen because we have to continually redirect them.'
"I'm a single parent to a different needs child," Hill said. "Therapies are expensive. Insurance doesn't cover all of it and I've got to make sure we have a roof over our head."
"I'm up at 4 a.m. every day and I generally don't go to bed till right about 10 p.m. every evening," Hill said. "I start working at about 6 a.m. And after, I clock out anywhere to 8:00 or 8:45, to get him ready for his morning meetings."
Virginia: Arlington Public Schools and Alexandria City Public Schools moved ahead with their reopening plans
INTERNATIONAL
Spain: Schools become top source of COVID-19 clusters
UK:
The DfE is planning a PR campaign to “build parents’ confidence in school safety” starting from February 27, which will run for two weeks as pupils and their families prepare for wider reopening.
New Institute for Fiscal Studies study that found:
By the end of the summer term children were spending only about 50% of the time studying at home that they would have normally spent learning in the classroom.
"Pupils who were not given the chance to go back to school at all saw their learning time fall by much more than their peers who chose to remain at home. This suggests that pupils benefited from being prioritised to return to school, even when they did not take up the offer"
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
CEO Confidence: The Conference Board's quarterly reading of CEO confidence rose to its highest since the first quarter of 2004: 82% of CEOs expect economic conditions to improve over the next six months, up from 63% last quarter.
WFH: CNBC reports that vaccinated or not, many workers want to remain remote
Three Mayors on Their Challenge to Silicon Valley’s Dominance: Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, and Austin Mayor Steve Adler speak on why Silicon Valley’s hold on the tech industry may be weakening
Workforce Development: Achieving the Dream, a nonprofit aiming to improve community college student success, launched a three-year initiative to improve workforce development at rural schools.
The Road Ahead: A Summary Of State Economic Recovery Agendas: From NGA.
RESOURCES
COVID-19 Testing in K-12 Settings: Rockefeller Foundation press release. Testing for America released a Playbook for Educators and Leaders. Chiefs for Change also released supporting documents and recommendations.
Polls On Reopening Schools Are All Over The Map: Via FiveThirtyEight
Evidence of Scientific Consensus In Support of Reduction of 6-Foot Distancing Parameters: A remarkable document from the Public Schools of Brookline presenting a well argued case (with studies) for why 3 ft provides adequate protections.
State Accountability Systems in the COVID Era and Beyond: Via CRPE with ideas from a number of ed leaders.
All States Close but Red Districts Reopen: The Politics of In-Person Schooling during the COVID-19 Pandemic: EdWorking Paper
If Schools Follow CDC Guidance, Biden's Reopening Goals Could Be Hard To Reach: Via NPR
EdTech:
Renaissance Learning to acquire Nearpod in $650 million deal.
The Center for Digital Democracy, Center for Humane Technology, Electronic Privacy Information Center and Public Citizen are among the nearly two dozen other groups filed a complaint to the FTC and calling for an investigation on Prodigy - accusing the math game company of deceiving teachers and parents into believing the program is free while aggressively marketing a $59 premium membership to children.
Math learning app Photomath raises $23 million as it reaches 220 million downloads:
"The app lets you point your phone’s camera at a math problem. It recognizes what’s written and gives you a step-by-step explanation to solve the problem. You might think that it’s the perfect app for lazy students."
Smart Phones: Interesting Hustle tidbit here.
The Apollo computer that sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had 32,768 bits of RAM.
For comparison, the max iPhone model (512GB) has 4,398,046,511,104 bits -- this is “seven million times more than that of the [Apollo] guidance computer,” according to The Independent.
Think about that: The smartphone in your pocket is millions of times more powerful than the computer that brought man to the moon.
Grace Kinstler's Powerful Voice: Powerful story, powerful voice on American Idol this week.
Ladies and Gentlemen: The Weekend.