TOP THREE
Pfizer Says COVID-19 Vaccine for Kids 5-11 Safe and Effective: Two doses of Pfizer's vaccine proved 90.7% effective against symptomatic disease for children 5 to 11 years old according to documents submitted to the FDA ahead of Tuesday's ACIP meeting.
Emily Oster digs into the data.
CDC Expands Eligibility for COVID-19 Booster Shots: Shortly after publishing last night's update, the CDC moved forward and approved Pfzier and Moderna boosters. Individuals include:
65 years and older
Age 18+ who live in long-term care settings
Age 18+ who have underlying medical conditions
Age 18+ who work or live in high-risk settings (which includes teachers)
Virtual & Hybrid Program Accelerator: The Texas Education Agency is launching an effort to support new school models.
"In the wake of COVID-19, local educational agencies (LEAs) across Texas have reimagined schools, upending traditional thinking about how schools “should” operate. For the overwhelming majority of students, the best place to learn is in the classroom, and we encourage school systems to support as many families returning to learning in the classroom as possible."
"LEAs will receive customized technical assistance to design, implement, and continuously improve their virtual or hybrid program. These supports include, but are not limited to, model design, strategic staffing, academic strategy, family engagement, supporting diverse learners, developing teachers, and other topics related to virtual and hybrid school programs."
FEDERAL
White House: Neera Tanden was named the White House staff secretary. This is an important position that plays the role of both traffic cop and honest broker within the White House, particularly with the documents, briefings, policy option memos, and decision memos that go to the President.
Townhall: Transcript of last night's CNN townhall.
Reconciliation:
"Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are “90%” of the way toward an agreement, and a vote is possible on key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda next week," reports PunchBowl
What’s in, and what’s out, as Democrats reshape Biden bill, via the AP.
Where Are Families Most at Risk of Missing Out on the Expanded Child Tax Credit? New analysis from the Tax Policy Center
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Pfizer Booster Has 95.6% Efficacy Against COVID: According to a new large study.
"The study, which had more than 10,000 participants aged 16 and older, is the first controlled, randomized trial looking at boosters and their effectiveness, the companies said."
Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine Planned to be Given to Kids at Schools, Doctors’ Offices: Via WSJ
Vaccine Mandates Are Surviving Court Challenges: Via WSJ
“A range of people—from nurses to firefighters to students—have filed lawsuits objecting to the mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations imposed by states and cities, claiming the policies infringe on their constitutional rights."
“Nearly every legal challenge has failed so far.”
What Counts as a COVID Death? Politico digs into the question.
Assessment of Cognitive Function in Patients After COVID-19 Infection: New study
An assessment of Covid's impact on cognitive function in 740 individuals finds "a relatively high frequency of cognitive impairment several months after patients contracted COVID-19"
The most prominent deficits were in processing speed (18%, n = 133), executive functioning (16%, n = 118), phonemic fluency (15%, n = 111) and category fluency (20%, n = 148), memory encoding (24%, n = 178), and memory recall (23%, n = 170; Table 2).
STATE
Indiana: Indiana Department of Education accepting applications for the second round of Accelerated Learning Grant Program.
Kentucky: Casey County school district goes ‘mask optional’ as COVID-19 cases decrease.
Illinois: Parents file lawsuit against 145 school districts over COVID policies.
Massachusetts: The Massachusetts National Guard is helping with COVID testing in several school districts.
Michigan: Huron High School, Skyline High School and Forsythe Middle School have moved to remote learning to close out the week due to “high levels of staff illness.”
Minnesota: Members of Minnesota’s teachers union are calling on school leaders to do more to protect students and staff after the state Department of Health reported the first student death from COVID-19 this school year.
New York:
A Brooklyn elementary school hires COVID-19 testing van.
Fort Ann students in Washington County have returned to remote learning as the school bus driver shortage worsens.
Utah: Salt Lake County calculated COVID-19 vaccination rates by zodiac sign. The news is not good for Scorpios.
"The department found that vaccination rates vary dramatically by astrological sign, from 70% of Leos to just 46% of Scorpios, who, if zodiac stereotypes hold true, perhaps hope to contract COVID-19 in order to deliberately infect someone else in retaliation against a perceived slight."
INTERNATIONAL
Canada: More than a quarter of Quebec parents are against vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds.
Russia: Moscow closing schools for 11 days due to COVID surge.
Ukraine: Closes schools as COVID death toll hits new record.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Distance Ed Enrollment Surge: The number of students enrolled exclusively in distance education nearly doubled from the fall of 2019 to the fall of 2020, according to the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements’ (NC-SARA) annual data report released today.
Where Are the Workers? Cutoff of Jobless Aid Spurs No Influx: An AP analysis
An analysis of state-by-state data by The Associated Press found that workforces in the 25 states that maintained the $300 payment actually grew slightly more from May through September, according to data released Friday, than they did in the 25 states that cut off the payment early, most of them in June."
"The $300-a-week federal check, on top of regular state jobless aid, meant that many of the unemployed received more in benefits than they earned at their old jobs."
"And after having received three stimulus checks in 18 months, plus federal jobless aid in some cases, most households have larger cash cushions than they did before the pandemic. Greig and her colleagues at JPMorgan found in a study that the median bank balance for the poorest one-quarter of households has jumped 70% since COVID hit. A result is that some people are taking time to consider their options before rushing back into the job market."
RESOURCES
Missing in the Margins 2021: Revisiting the COVID-19 Attendance Crisis: Updated report from Bellwether
Enrollment: Nationwide enrollment in public pre-K through 12 schools dropped by more than 1.3 million students between 2018-19 and 2020-21, a decline of 2.7% from 2018-19 enrollment.
Attendance: Nearly all available attendance evidence suggests widespread reduced opportunities for learning, but changing definitions of attendance complicate the picture.
Engagement: Engagement is difficult to measure, but evidence suggests that reduced engagement during remote instruction was at least as big of an issue as attendance and enrollment.
Wellness Can’t Be Just Another Task for Teachers to Do: Via EdWeek.
State Test Results Are In. Are They Useless? Asks EdWeek
AERDF: Is seeking nominations for its Reading Reimagined: Educator Advisory Council
Extra Credit: Teacher gives students a quiz and the extra credit question was to tell her a joke. If they made her laugh, they got the extra credit. Here are some of the jokes they came up with.