Top Three
An Idea For This Moment: Districts Can Pay Families To Help Get Students And Schools Back On Track: Marguerite Roza
"Perhaps this is why some districts are considering a novel approach to solving the most immediate challenges: Using a share of district relief dollars to pay families for taking on a role in getting students and schools back on track."
"Take for example the hundreds of districts that pivoted quickly this fall to address their transportation problems by paying willing parents to get their own kids to school. Payments go beyond bus fare, to the tune of $300 a month in Portland, OR, and Philadelphia; $1,000 for the year in Camden, NJ; and $1,000 upfront plus $500 a month in Chicago."
"While the idea may be foreign to many in education, using public money to align families with a common goal for students isn’t some untested pandemic-era invention. It's a well-documented concept called co-production where the beneficiaries of a service participate in the delivery of the services they consume."
The U.S. Surgeon General Warns of a Mental Health Crisis Among Young People: Report and NYT story. Among the recommendations:
Recognize that mental health is an essential part of overall health.
Empower youth and their families to recognize, manage, and learn from difficult emotions
Ensure that every child has access to high-quality, affordable, and culturally competent mental health care
Support the mental health of children and youth in educational, community, and childcare settings
Address the economic and social barriers that contribute to poor mental health for young people, families, and caregivers
Increase timely data collection and research to identify and respond to youth mental health needs more rapidly
Build Back Better: PunchBowl's Canvas survey of Congressional staff:
88% of senior Democratic and 36% of Republican aides believe it’s likely the Build Back Better Act will pass.
Most senior Capitol Hill aides don’t believe Biden’s claim that the BBB will not add to the deficit.
Most/Least popular
Omicron
Is More Transmissible, But Less Severe a Good Thing? In a WSJ CEO Council interview, Pfizer CEO says: "No. Something that spreads fast means it will be in billions of people and another mutation could arise."
GSK-Vir COVID Drug Works Against All Omicron Mutations: Reuters reports.
The data, yet to be published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, shows that the companies' treatment, sotrovimab, is effective against all 37 identified mutations to date in the spike protein, GSK said in a statement.
Omicron Expected to Be Dominant Strain in Parts of Europe Within Weeks: Via WSJ
"Scientists are working to figure out how the variant spreads so quickly. U.K. public-health authorities say they have found evidence that an infection can be passed on sooner than with earlier variants."
Omicron Gives a Shot to Boosters: Via Axios
Federal
White House: Press Secretary "somewhat mockingly" asks reporter at the White House Daily Press Briefing if the US should be sending out rapid COVID19 tests to every household. It wasn't well received over on Twitter based on the reactions from Emily Oster, Nate Silver, Gregg Gonsalves, and Alex Tabarrok.
COVID-19 Research
Answering Kids' Questions About the Vaccine: Dr. Lee Savio Beers, President of the American Academy of Pediatrics, answers kids' questions about the COVID-19 vaccine for kids.
Young People Recover Quickly From Rare Myocarditis Side Effect of COVID-19 Vaccine: New study. Of the 139 teens and young adults, ranging from 12 to 20 years of age, researchers identified and evaluated:
Nearly every case (97.8%) followed an mRNA vaccine, and 91.4% occurred after the second vaccine dose.
Onset of symptoms occurred at a median of 2 days following vaccine administration.
Chest pain was the most common symptom (99,3%); fever and shortness of breath each occurred in 30.9% and 27.3% of patients, respectively.
About one in five patients (18.7%) was admitted to intensive care, but there were no deaths. Most patients were hospitalized for two or three days.
More than three-fourths (77.3%) of patients who received a cardiac MRI showed evidence of inflammation of or injury to the heart muscle.
Nearly 18.7% had at least mildly decreased left ventricular function (squeeze of the heart) at presentation, but heart function had returned to normal in all who returned for follow-up.
How Omission Bias Affects How People Make Decisions About Getting Vaccinated: WBUR segment (audio).
State
California: Great Public Schools Now poll of LAUSD families:
Significant disparities in how families feel about the mental support offered to their children. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of very low-income families, which the poll defines as families making below $37,000 annually, along with 61% of Black families, reported feeling less satisfied than those with higher income (93%) or who identify as white (80%).
Support for tutoring and mental health programs was strongest among Black families, with over 50% choosing each category.
DC: Will offer pediatric COVID-19 vaccines at home.
Hawaii: Incredible timelapse footage shows a snow storm moving in across a volcano summit in Hawaii. The National Weather Service issued a rare blizzard warning for the area, expecting at least 12 inches of snow and 100mph wind gusts over the Big Island summits.
Illinois: After an elementary classroom assistant died from coronavirus amid rising cases at his school, the Chicago Teachers Union is again calling on Chicago Public Schools to offer vaccine and testing at all schools.
Indiana: Republican legislative leaders in Indiana “announced they are canceling their one-day legislative session originally planned for Monday after fierce backlash to their proposal to severely limit private companies’ abilities to mandate vaccines,” the Indianapolis Star reports.
Massachusetts: Boston Mayor Wu announces free COVID tests, masks, and vaccination clinics.
"Health officials will distribute 20,000 free rapid antigen home tests and free masks to neighborhoods with the highest rates of COVID-19."
"The city will also expand access to vaccinations, including at new high-volume clinics and city schools."
New York: NYT asks if religious schools will fight the NYC vaccine mandate.
Pennsylvania: Delaware Valley School District officials say school is canceled after 12 bus drivers tested positive for COVID-19 and the district doesn't have any drivers to cover the routes.
Virginia:
The Virginia Department of Health will not mandate COVID-19 vaccines in schools.
"In a decision posted Monday, the agency stated that it lacked the “clear statutory authority” to mandate the shots for employees. Under state law, the department does have the ability to add new vaccine requirements for students, but pointed out that federal health agencies have yet to add the COVID-19 vaccine to its childhood immunization schedule."
The number of unfilled teaching positions has spiked by nearly 62%, rising from 877 in the 2018-19 school year to 1,420 in 2020-21, according to data from the Virginia Department of Education. In August this year, 76 of the state’s 132 districts reported nearly 5,000 cumulative educator vacancies, according to the state Board of Education.
International
Learning Losses Could Cost This Generation of Students $17 trillion in Lifetime Earnings: World Bank-UNESCO-UNICEF report.
Children from low-income households, children with disabilities, and girls were less likely to access remote learning than their peers.
Less than 3% of governments’ stimulus packages have been allocated to education.
China: China Calls on ‘Little Inoculated Warriors’ in its aims to achieve full inoculation of 160 million of its youngest citizens by the end of the year.
France: Schoolchildren will face stricter social distancing and extended use of face masks under new COVID restrictions.
South Korea: Tells unvaccinated teens to get the vaccine or face restrictions.
"In recent days, South Korean officials have given a February deadline for individuals between the ages of 12 and 17 to get vaccinated. If they don’t, the students risk being denied entry to restaurants, libraries and after-school academies that are central to many students’ education."
Economic Recovery
The Stock Market’s Covid Pattern: Faster Recovery From Each Panic: Via the NYT
Americans’ Pandemic-Era ‘Excess Savings’ Are Dwindling for Many: Via NYT
Resources
Enrollment Data: How Many Students Went Missing in Your State?: Via EdWeek
Remote Learning Fails the Test: WSJ Editorial Board on the research conducted by Emily Oster's team.
Verifiable Parental Consent: New resource from FPF.
To Get Tutoring Right, Connect It to the Classroom: David M. Steiner & Ethan Mitnick in EdWeek.
Tutoring, Mentoring & Personalized Learning — How to Help Students Reconnect to Teachers, Peers and Give Them the Social-Emotional Support They Need: Paul DiPerna over at The 74.
When You Love The Em-Dash: Shift - Option - Hyphen.