COVID-19 Policy Update #290
COVID-19 Policy Update
WEDNESDAY 7/7
TOP THREE
Chicago: The Chicago Teachers Union proposal for reopening schools. Calls for:
80% of students 12 and older to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by October and and 80% of younger students within 60 days after FDA emergency use authorization for their age group
Ventilation system upgrades at school buildings
A 10% increase in special education teachers, bilingual teachers, English language program teachers, teacher assistants and arts educators by Jan. 27 to support community recovery.
The union also wants members who are medically unable to return in-person to fill positions at CPS’s new remote-learning Virtual Academy for students with qualifying health conditions.
CPS shall allow local school-based decision-making on additional virtual options, to the extent legally allowed.
The Pandemic Will Worsen Illiteracy. Another Outcome Is Possible: Via Emily Freitag in EdWeek.
"According to one commonly used reading assessment, the DIBELS benchmark measures, the percentage of students falling into the “well-below benchmark” category that predicts future reading failure grew from 26 percent in December 2019 to 43 percent in December 2020. All demographic subgroups were affected, but Black and Hispanic students were particularly impacted. There is no precedent for this kind of decline in the last 20 years of using these reading measures."
"If these historical patterns hold true, we can expect everything from 3rd grade state test scores to Algebra 1 completion to high school graduation will show similarly stark and inequitable declines. Postsecondary completion, lifetime earnings, incarceration rates, and lifetime expectancy will correlate. The children of the class of 2032 will feel the effects."
"Leaders must track results with discipline, accountability, and the expectation that success is possible."
"Leaders must ensure every school has the key components of a cohesive literacy instructional program."
"Leaders must obsess over concrete progress"
COVID and Schools: The Evidence for Reopening Safely: Via Nature
"A growing body of evidence suggests that schools can be opened safely. But that hasn’t quelled debate over whether they should be open and, if so, what steps should be taken to limit the spread of the virus."
"Equity also became a flashpoint in the debate. Researchers argued that remote learning would widen disparities between white students and students of colour in many countries. “The fear is that achievement gaps will become achievement chasms for those kids,” says Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a non-partisan research and policy analysis organization in Seattle, Washington. And kids of colour aren’t the only groups that have been forgotten, Lake says. “We also know that students with disabilities have been left behind, and kids with other complex needs.”
"One of the largest studies1 on COVID-19 in schools in the United States looked at more than 90,000 pupils and teachers in North Carolina over 9 weeks last autumn. Given the rate of transmission in the community, “we would have expected to see about 900 cases” in the schools, says Daniel Benjamin, a paediatrician at Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina, and co-lead author on the study. But when the researchers conducted contact tracing to identify school-related transmissions, they identified only 32 cases."
"The bulk of the literature on transmission in schools, however, suggests that kids aren’t driving viral spread. Investigations in Germany, France, Ireland, Australia, Singapore and the United States show no, or very low, secondary attack rates within school settings.
I had a great conversation with this reporter when our summary of 130 studies was released. Grateful to see her cover some of these as well as her interviews with Robin and Tracy.
FEDERAL
Infrastructure: “The White House’s long sought-after bipartisan infrastructure deal could hit the Senate floor as early as the week of July 19,” Politico reports.
ED:
Approved state ESSER plans for South Dakota, Texas, Massachusetts, Utah, Arkansas, Rhode Island, and Washington D.C.
Is inviting states to complete the application for their share of the second disbursement of $800 million in ARP for homeless youth.
Katy Neas, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
Toby Merrill, Deputy General Counsel, Office of the General Counsel
Hayley Matz Meadvin, Senior Advisor, Office of the Secretary
Chris Soto, Senior Advisor, Office of the Secretary
Antoinette Flores, Senior Advisor for ARP Implementation, Office of Postsecondary Education
Deven Comen, Chief of Staff, Office of Communications and Outreach
Abel McDaniels, Special Assistant, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
NIH: Their COVID-19 testing initiative funds additional research projects to safely return children to in-person school
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Delta: Is now the dominant coronavirus variant in the U.S.
Immunization Data Sharing Brief: COVID Collaborative and Duke-Margolis released a new paper outlining how improving immunization data sharing can support the targeted COVID-19 vaccine outreach we need to close gaps nationwide.
At Home COVID Test: Amazon launches at-home COVID-19 test kit for $39.99
CDC: COVID Data Tracker now displays trends in people in the U.S. who have gotten vaccinated along with trends in cases, by age group.
Trump Country Rejects Vaccines Despite Growing Delta Threat: Via Bloomberg
"Two Americas have emerged from the growing vaccination gap. In one, dominated by states that Biden won in the November election, most adults got their shots and daily life is rapidly returning to normal, with assurances from health officials that the worst is over. But in the other — overwhelmingly Trump country — fewer adults are vaccinated and health officials fear that the new, more transmissible delta variant, first observed in India, is driving a surge of cases, hospitalizations and deaths."
Texas: More than 40% of Texans are fully vaccinated, but the rate of shots administered has slowed.
STATE
Colorado: Children responsible for 24% of new weekly COVID-19 cases
Texas: Students of color returned to in-person classes at a lower rate.
"As of January, about 56% percent of Texas students on average returned to on-campus instruction during the school year, including 75% of White students, about 53% of Black students, 49% of Hispanic students, and 31% of Asian students."
INTERNATIONAL
Chile: Teachers, students struggle with online classes
UK: Researchers from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the University of Exeter found students lost 61 days of school between March 2020 and April 2021 (usual school year is 190 days).
Larger average losses occurred in Scotland (64 days) and Wales (66 days), while pupils in Northern Ireland also lost 61 days.
The report suggests that the poorest pupils in England lost 34.9% of their learning during the second round of school closures in 2021 – less than the most affluent pupils in the rest of the UK, who lost 38.6% of learning time.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Returnships: Amazon will bring up to 1,000 women back to the workforce in the commitment to ‘returnships’
RESOURCES
National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice: Released a study, with Arnold Ventures, that looked at crime rates in 34 cities of varying sizes. It found a 30% spike in homicides in 2020 compared to 2019.
Milwaukee’s homicides rose 85%, Seattle saw a 63% increase, Chicago killings jumped 55% and New York City saw a 43% increase.
"The study found that the pandemic “has disproportionately affected vulnerable populations, placing at-risk individuals under additional physical, mental, emotional, and financial stress.”
Some Students Thrived Learning From Home — They Deserve a Permanent Model: Via Javaid Siddiqi
"Instruction must be the cornerstone of our plan for reopening, but we cannot make it one-size-fits-all. Without the development of an inclusive learning model, we risk losing the innovations and technological advances that have occurred during school closures as well as an opportunity to close equity gaps for our most vulnerable students."
"The pandemic has illuminated something most of us in education already knew — that some children don’t thrive in a traditional school environment."
Are You Ready to Go? "I'll be ready in 2 minutes." Feels a little too real...