COVID-19 Policy Update #250
COVID-19 Policy Update
FRIDAY 5/7
TOP THREE
Children and Vaccine Hesitancy:
KFF Vaccine Monitor: Via NYT
3 in 10 said they would get their children vaccinated right away, and 26% said they wanted to wait to see how the vaccine was working.
18% said they would do so only if a child’s school required it, and 23% said they would definitely not get their children vaccinated.
New Virginia poll: (Data)
66% of parents with children age 12-17 and 63% of parents with children age 11 and under are likely to have their children vaccinated.
Over 90% of parents who said they were not likely to get vaccinated themselves were also unlikely to vaccinate their children.
60% of parents making $50,000 or less annually are likely to send their children back to school in-person in the fall compared to 77% of the parents making $100,000 or more annually.
Summer Learning and Beyond: Opportunities for Equitable Learning Postpandemic: New report from LPI
Center Relationships
Create a Culture of Affirmation and Belonging
Build from Students’ Interests and Take a Whole Child Approach to Their Development
Engage Students’ and Families’ Knowledge in Disciplinary Learning
Provide Creative, Inquiry-Based Forms of Learning
Address Educator Needs and Learning
Ready For Better: Why Parents Want Bold Change in K-12 Education: New polling of parents from Beacon Research for the Walton Family Foundation. Blog / Report
FEDERAL
IES: Monthly school survey data is up.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Moderna: Reports COVID-19 vaccine for teens safe and 96% effective in children between the ages of 12 and 17
Vaccines and Schools: 53% of adults support proof of vaccination before going back to school according to a new Verywell survey (Axios article)
COVID Deaths: There have been twice as many deaths from COVID-19 around the world as have been reported, according to the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
Vax Live: Tomorrow - Global Citizens's Vax Live:
"The Concert to Reunite the World is celebrating the hope that COVID-19 vaccines are offering families and communities around the world. We are calling on world leaders to step up to make sure vaccines are accessible for all so we can end the pandemic for everyone, everywhere."
Airs Saturday, May 8th at 11 p.m. ET/PT on ABC, ABC News Live, CBS, YouTube, iHeartMedia broadcast radio stations, and the iHeartRadio App.YouTube will also stream an extended version of the event.
Novel Approach to COVID Testing: Scientists have taught bees to smell the coronavirus. They can identify a case within seconds.
I don't think we'll be deploying this in schools any time soon.
I much prefer this - evidence based - approach.
STATE
California: Should California allow distance learning in fall? Lawmakers, educators battle over how education should work
Illinois: School closures have kept more than 28,000 Illinois moms out of the labor force.
Kansas: Catholic schools rose to the occasion
Tennessee:
The 74 has an interview with Commissioner Penny Schwinn on the need for more and better data to guide efforts in helping students catch up.
In partnership with the Niswonger Foundation, the state will provide free online Advanced Placement courses to about 5,000 students.
INTERNATIONAL
UK:
Face mask rules for secondary school students may be lifted within weeks.
Teachers unions warned that an estimated 43,000 children and 114,000 school staff are thought to be suffering from long COVID.
A study funded by the Education Endowment Foundation and carried out by FFT Education found the learning gap widened in math, but not reading.
"There was “some tentative evidence” that providing live lessons to absent pupils was associated with reductions in attainment gaps."
"Pupils in the most deprived secondary schools have lost 2.2 months of learning, compared to 1.5 months for kids in the most affluent, a study published in February by the Education Policy Institute and Renaissance Learning found."
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Jobs Report: 225,000 jobs were created in April - a massive miss of the 1 million most economists were expecting.
The unemployment rate ticked higher to 6.1%, but the broadest measure of unemployment fell from 10.7% to 10.4%.
March's numbers were revised down from 916k to 770k
Economists like the Jain Family Institute's Claudia Sahm and Jefferies' Aneta Markowska had expected more than 2 million jobs.
Some are arguing the UI supplement is creating the incentive for workers to stay home and reducing supply. Perhaps surprisingly, Jason Furman made this argument today.
Others have argued that if there was a labor shortage, we'd see an increase in hours - which we are.
Heather Long suggests "It’s not a ‘labor shortage.’ It’s a great reassessment of work in America"
"At the most basic level, people are still hesitant to return to work until they are fully vaccinated and their children are back in school and daycare full-time. It’s telling that all the job gains in April went to men. The number of women employed or looking for work fell by 64,000, a reminder that childcare issues are still in play."
Axios pointed out that the report will be used to prove whatever one previously thought of government policy. Democrats will use it to justify the $4 trillion infrastructure package(s). Republicans will say the supplemental unemployment benefit is keeping workers at home instead of rejoining the labor mark.
Rework America Alliance: Announced the first regions in which it will partner with local community-based organizations to deploy resources to help job seekers connect to good jobs.
Atlanta, Georgia
Austin, Texas
Denver, Colorado
Finger Lakes region, New York
Minneapolis and St. Paul
Minnesota
Indiana and Colorado - Markle will expand its relationships with the states of Colorado and Indiana by providing the full suite of Alliance capabilities and partners, building on previous successful collaborations in both states through its Skillful initiatives
RESOURCES
Randi Weingarten: On Yahoo Finance downplaying the criticism of AFT influencing CDC guidance.
Remote Learning Isn’t Going Away. Will It Create Separate—and Unequal—School Systems? Good piece from EdWeek
U.S. Schools Turn Focus to Mental Health of Students: Via Reuters
"A Reuters survey earlier this year of U.S. school districts serving more than 2.2 million students found that a majority reported multiple indicators of increased mental health stresses among students."
Designing Summer Programs That Students Want to Attend: Via FutureEd
It's The Weekend: Hope you have as much fun as these monkeys that have taken over a resort in Mahabaleshwar, India during lockdown. style.