Top Three
Freshmen, Held Back During Pandemic, Fuel ‘Bulge’ in 9th Grade Enrollment: Via The 74
"With many young children who delayed pre-K and kindergarten during school closures now flooding back into the education system, an enrollment surge in the early grades was expected. But 15 states and D.C. saw growth in ninth grade of at least 5% compared to 2020-21, and in a few states, including New Mexico and North Carolina, the increase in freshmen far outpaced that of kindergartners."
"Retention data in some states and districts back that up. Figures from last fall show that 18% of ninth graders in the Houston Independent School District repeated the year, significantly higher than the district’s pre-pandemic rate of 10%. And in North Carolina, more than 16% of last year’s freshman class was retained — roughly double the rate of past years. District officials from rural Maryland to Albuquerque, New Mexico, also saw higher retention rates this year."
How Has The Pandemic Affected High School Graduation and College Entry? Via Brookings
"Using data from 25 states, covering 57% of the nation’s school population, our results suggest that high school graduation rates actually increased slightly in the spring of 2020, followed by a return to the prior level in 2021."
"We find a 16% decline in immediate transitions to two-year colleges and a 6% decline in transition to four-year colleges."
"High school graduation rates actually increased for students with disabilities, English-language learners, and Black students. However, college entry declined most in colleges serving large proportions of people of color."
Classrooms Anywhere: Insights from Community-driven Education Models via the Vela Fund with some fascinating data and seven identified trends:
Nontraditional learning is diverse and dynamic.
Everyday entrepreneurs are motivated to reimagine learning.
Models prioritize human development.
Nontraditional models measure success consistently with their values.
Grantees prioritize family engagement.
Grantees are hyper-focused on increasing access.
Everyday entrepreneurs’ needs are many and immediate.
Federal
White House: Statement by President Biden on Funding for COVID-19 and Ukraine
Without funding… "We will lose our place in line for America to order new COVID treatments and vaccines for the fall, including next-generation vaccines under development, and be unable to maintain our supply of COVID tests. In the fall, if we are hit by new variants, it will be too late to get the tools needed for protection – critical treatments that will be available in Europe, but not the United States."
Bipartisan Innovative Act: Jeremy Neufeld, "Semiconductor Investments Won’t Pay Off If Congress Doesn’t Fix the Talent Bottleneck."
Covid-19 Research
Fourth COVID-19 Vaccine Dose Provides Strong Immunity Boost: According to a new UK study.
Under 5s Protest: Parents with Protect Their Future rallied outside FDA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland demanding an accelerated review of Covid vaccine for under 5s. More via this Twitter thread.
BA.2.12.1: Is more infectious than the prior strains. It has a weekly growth edge of 30% to 90% above BA.2 (Omicron). Now accounts for 43% of daily coronavirus cases in the U.S. BA.2 has dropped to 56%.
CDC Selected Biobot Analytics to Expand the Agency's National Wastewater Surveillance System: Press Release. "The CDC will work with Biobot to collect and analyze wastewater samples from 500 communities across the country to gather SARS-CoV-2 data."
The ‘Five Pandemics’ Driving 1 Million U.S. Covid Deaths: Via Stat.
The Pandemic Outlasted Our Attention Span: Walter Shapiro: “The worst pandemic in a century has outlasted our attention span. By this standard, we would have stopped following World War II in early 1944 because all those battle reports from tiny islands in the Pacific were getting so tiresome.”
Rebounding after Paxlovid: Via Katelyn Jetelina
"During Pfizer’s clinical trial, 2% of participants who took Paxlovid rebounded. In other words, people treated with Paxlovid experienced a second round of disease shortly after recovering. But, importantly, 1.5% of participants who received a placebo also experienced rebound infections. These percentages were not statistically different from each other, so it didn’t seem like the drug caused rebounding during the trial."
"Now that Paxlovid has been in the “real world” for awhile, anecdotal evidence of rebounding is accumulating quickly."
"But is rebounding occurring more than 2% of the time? We don’t know. As we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, a small percentage of a lot of people can be a lot of people. And those without Pavloxid probably aren’t documenting antigen tests as closely"
"After Paxlovid, a return of symptoms and test positivity may occur. Use antigen tests to determine when to exit isolation, even if you’re feeling better. In other words, test on Days 2, 3, and 4 after treatment to ensure no rebound. A good rule of thumb is that if you have a positive antigen test, you’re contagious."
Remembering The 1 Million: The bells of the Washington National Cathedral toll 1,000 times in memory of the 1 million people who have died from COVID-19.
State
DC: Has failed to release a coronavirus update for 12 days in a row. Health officials have not responded to requests for comment.
Illinois: Chicago Public Schools launches mental health and suicide prevention campaign.
"As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, CPS will become the first school district in the U.S. to participate in the “Please Stay” initiative, which is focused on suicide prevention and prioritizing the mental health of students dealing with increased levels of anxiety and stress."
Massachusetts: School officials in Arlington, Belmont, and Cambridge are recommending that students wear masks indoors, following the CDC’s classification of Middlesex County as having a high level of COVID-19 transmission.
New York: Via NYT, "Why a Covid Vaccine Mandate for N.Y.C. Schoolchildren Is Unlikely Soon."
"Officials and some pediatricians worry the backlash against a mandate could keep children out of school."
"California was the first state to add the Covid-19 vaccine to its list of required vaccines for fall 2022, for age groups with vaccines that have full F.D.A. approval. But California state officials recently announced they would delay implementation until July 2023, at the earliest. Los Angeles, which had originally set an even earlier deadline for its own student mandate, has delayed its rollout to match the state’s time frame."
"This is in keeping with national trends, said Bree Dusseault, principal at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which has been tracking Covid-19 policies at 100 large districts nationwide."
"Several experts said it would be better to keep focusing on voluntary vaccination programs before next fall, particularly while the federal government is still mulling the vaccine’s full approval. Conversations could take place to address parent concerns about vaccine safety. And incentives could be offered."
Virginia: A teachers' union in Fairfax County is urging Superintendent Scott Brabrand and school board members to continue offering a limited virtual school program for vulnerable students and staff.
International
China:
Schools are closed indefinitely in Beijing, while the last subway lines in Shanghai that were still running have ceased operation.
"Videos of neighborhood protests and conflicts between residents and health workers in Shanghai have been posted on Chinese social media and quickly scrubbed. Dissenting voices are also swiftly silenced. An economist who warned of economic consequences had his public social media accounts frozen. An article by a law professor saying that forcing people who tested positive to go to hospitals was a violation of law was scrubbed; his social media account was also suspended."
Economic Recovery
Surge of Upskilling Initiatives: Via Protocol, There’s a reason you’re seeing so many upskilling initiatives right now.
"In February, Google launched a $100 million Google Career Certificates Fund with the stated goal of increasing wages of American workers. About a week later, Springboard, a digital bootcamp, said it was committing $10 million in scholarship funds to students from underserved backgrounds. And in March, Grads of Life and OneTen publicized their new, expanded partnership aimed at placing Black workers without four-year degrees into better-paying jobs. And to cap it all off, Microsoft Philanthropies released its plans to expand its cybersecurity skilling initiative to 23 additional countries."
"Google is also taking a holistic approach to its certificate fund. The company chose Social Finance, a nonprofit consulting firm, to manage and distribute the money in ways that go beyond subsidizing coursework. Social Finance will “identify the community-based organizations and nonprofits who can deliver the best wraparound support,” said Lisa Gevelber, founder of Grow with Google, Google’s economic opportunity initiative."
“I think what we see is that there's just a huge opportunity to help really create the pathways that all talent and particularly Black talent need to be able to access living wages and again, career mobility within a lot of these companies,” said Love."
Dow Falls for Fourth Straight Day: Via WSJ.
"A cocktail of geopolitical risks and economic headwinds is posing the biggest threat to global growth in years and rattling markets. In the U.S., soaring inflation has prompted the Federal Reserve to begin raising interest rates and investors fear the move could tip the economy into recession."
"By 2023 you are very likely to see growth slowing very significantly, and the specter of recessions is really starting to loom,” said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. “What we are seeing is the realization that it is going to be very tough for the Fed to get that soft landing just right."
Resources
Let’s Talk About Summer: Via Lindsay Dworkin at NWEA. Some student groups lose more ground when school is out.
New Education Policy Roadmap Aims to Ensure High School Graduates in Every State are ‘Future-Ready’: Civic, CASEL and the Coalition for Career Development (CCD) Center share recommendations for policymakers.
Why Are Watches Usually Set to 10:10 in Advertisements?: Absolutely nothing to do about COVID or education but this is fascinating.
The State of the Teen Mental Health Crisis — And How to Help: Via Axios.
A Bomb-sniffing Dog Named Patron Received State Honors From Zelensky: The dog has found more than 200 explosive devices.
Video from the ceremony where he seemed to alert on Justin Trudeau.
He was tuckered out from the ceremony and later fell asleep while Zelensky spoke.