Top Three
Enrollment Declines Create Another Fiscal Cliff: Wisconsin school districts are flush with federal cash, but struggling with long-term costs.
"Milwaukee's enrollment has been declining at higher than the state rate, dropping the district from about 100,000 students in the early 2000s to 68,404 in fall 2021. The state budget formula and its "hold harmless" aid has been insulating the district to some degree, but it will start feeling the financial costs of its enrollment decrease."
"It's expecting to lose another 4,000 students by fall 2026."
"Milwaukee is able to offset its cost of living adjustment and other pay increases because it has a high number of vacancies, and is projecting those jobs will still be open through 2023."
From the report: "The full financial effects of the enrollment drop will not be felt immediately by some districts, given that the state’s revenue limit formula initially holds them harmless from the effects of a dip. Yet the impact will result over time in lower revenue caps for districts as well as lower amounts of state aid."
COVID Vaccination Rates for Kids Are Stalling. What It Means for Schools: Via EdWeek:
"After states and school districts dropped mask mandates and allowed those who are infected to leave quarantine after five days, “the perception now amongst most people is that COVID is not a big deal anymore,” Rupali Limaye, an associate scientist at the Center on Immunization Research at Johns Hopkins University who studies vaccination behavior.
“So what you’re essentially dealing with here is you have households that are either extremely protected—meaning the adults not only are fully vaccinated, but are boosted, and they’ve gotten their children vaccinated—or you kind of have the flip side...big swaths of people who are completely unprotected.”
“The problem is there’s been a plateau but the vaccination rates overall are fairly low,” Tan said. “When you look at the 5- to 11-year-old population, less than 30 percent of them have gotten [fully vaccinated], so that really means over 18 and a half million kids in that age group [are] unvaccinated.”
"The lack of full approval and parent and community pushback has made it politically unfeasible for states to add COVID-19 vaccines to the list of those required to attend public school, although many private schools have done so, said Gretchen Chapman, professor and head of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, who studies vaccine decision-making. Even California, the first state to announce it would add COVID-19 to its required school immunizations, announced last month that it would delay the mandate until at least the summer of 2023."
“However, Limaye argued that schools that have been unable to boost vaccination or masking should plan for environmental mitigation strategies next year, such as ventilation and physical distancing, that “don’t depend on individuals to do the right thing.”
College Enrollment Drops: Via the NYT
"A generation of students may be weighing the value of college versus its cost, questioning whether college is still the ticket to the middle class."
"The latest college enrollment figures released on Thursday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center indicated that 662,000 fewer students enrolled in undergraduate programs in spring 2022 than a year earlier, a decline of 4.7%."
“That suggests it’s more than just the pandemic to me; it’s more than just low-income communities that are primarily served by community colleges,” Dr. Shapiro said during a conference call with reporters. “It suggests that there’s a broader question about the value of college and particularly concerns about student debt and paying for college and potential labor market returns.”
"In a report this week, officials in Tennessee said that the percentage of public high school graduates who enrolled in college immediately after high school had dropped from 63.8% in 2017 to 52.8% in 2021."
"Overall, enrollment at public colleges and universities declined by more than 604,000 students in spring 2022, or 5%. Within the public sector, community colleges dropped the most, losing 351,000 students or 7.8%."
Federal
Bipartisan Solution on Gun Violence:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told CNN he “met earlier in the day with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and encouraged the senior Republican senator to begin discussions with Democrats, including Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), to see if they can find a middle ground on legislation to respond to the tragic Texas elementary school shooting.”
“Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are facing enormous pressure to take action in the wake of the horrific shooting, but members on both sides acknowledge the uphill battle to find common ground given the highly polarized political climate around gun legislation and widespread GOP opposition to stricter gun control.”
“It is significant, though, that McConnell has decided to weigh in and is giving a greenlight to a bipartisan effort on a potential legislative response to the shooting.”
Sen. Manchin said talks this time around feel very different: "I’ve never been in this frame of mind, I can't get my grandchildren out of my mind."
Issues on the table: "Background checks and red flag laws — which allow law enforcement to confiscate guns if an individual is a threat to himself or others — are the two main areas. They are also discussing school safety."
Midterms: The Cook Political report is revising their November House outlook - shifting 10 more races to the GOP and 2 toward Dem.
“Overall, there are now 35 Democratic-held seats in Toss Up or worse, and we’re revising our fall House outlook to a net GOP gain of between 20 and 35 seats.”
NTIA: Alan Davidson answers 5 burning broadband funding questions, including timing on the FCC maps: "The FCC expects to collect data for its new maps this summer and present its findings for a challenge process in the fall."
A New Era of US Infrastructure Grants: Via McKinsey.
"Of the $470 billion in new spending that will be directed toward state and local governments, $180 billion (approximately 38%) will be provided through a competitive grant process in which the strength of application, not formulas (such as allocation based on population size or miles of road), will likely be the determining factor for grant allocation."
"While this funding will be distributed through more than 110 programs, about 75% of the money at stake will flow through 20 competitive grants. These top 20 programs are run through four federal agencies—the departments of Transportation, the Interior, Agriculture, and Energy—with each retaining control over awarding funds and implementing programs."
Covid-19 Research
Factors Associated with Parental COVID-19 Vaccination Acceptance: Mathematica on a survey conducted in Tennessee:
"Parental acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines for children is closely tied to influenza vaccine acceptance. Public health approaches to maximize vaccine uptake could focus on children who have not been receiving influenza vaccines."
It Shouldn’t Take This Long to Vaccinate Our Youngest Kids: Jessica Grose in the NYT.
Novavax Missed Its Global Moonshot but Is Angling to Win Over mRNA Defectors: Via KHN.
"In clinical trials, Novavax’s two-dose vaccine has worked well and had few safety problems. It appears to cause fewer unpleasant reactions — fever, chills, and exhaustion — associated with mRNA vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech."
“I do think there is a minority group who would take a protein vaccine over an mRNA vaccine,” said Dr. Kathleen Neuzil, director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the University of Maryland. She was a researcher in a major U.S. trial of the Novavax vaccine, which found it 100% effective at preventing anything worse than mild covid."
"Novavax has data showing its shot effectively boosts people who received mRNA vaccines, Trizzino said. And although the company is skeptical about the need to modify its shot, Novavax recently began testing an omicron-targeted vaccine and expects results in late summer."
State
Florida: Via CRPE, "A microschool model designed to uplift Black communities."
Illinois: Chicago Public Schools requires masks at one school, 20 other classrooms as COVID cases increase.
Iowa: Legislature bans school COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Oregon: Risks wasting money for schools due to lack of accountability, tracking, auditors warn.
Texas: P-EBT benefits open to students who missed class this school year due to COVID-19.
International
China:
Pushes for regular mass testing in its ‘zero Covid’ pursuit.
Shanghai will reopen some schools after a three-month shutdown.
"China’s premier said in an emergency meeting Wednesday that the Chinese economy faces “grim challenges,” in an unusually stark warning that comes as coronavirus controls have paralyzed parts of the world’s second-largest economy."
The Economist: "After nearly two months the lockdown of Shanghai is easing, but China is far from being covid-free, with fresh outbreaks in Beijing and Tianjin. More than 200m people have been living under restrictions and the economy is reeling. Retail sales in April were 11% lower than a year earlier. Although some workers are living on factory floors, industrial output and export volumes have dipped. For the full year China may struggle to grow much faster than America for the first time since 1990, in the aftermath of the massacre near Tiananmen Square."
China Policy: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out the still-developing U.S. policy on China, which acknowledges Washington’s limited ability to alter Beijing’s behavior and focuses instead on shaping the strategic environment around it."
"The U.S. doesn’t aim to hinder China’s growth or block its global status, he said, “but we will defend and strengthen the international law, agreements, principles, and institutions that maintain peace and security, protect the rights of individuals and sovereign nations, and make it possible for all countries—including the United States and China—to coexist and cooperate.”
“We do not seek to transform China’s political system,” he said. “Our task is to prove once again that democracy can meet urgent challenges, create opportunity, advance human dignity. That the future belongs to those who believe in freedom, and that all countries will be free to chart their own paths without coercion.”
Text of speech. Well worth the read.
Related: "Thousands of photographs from the heart of China’s highly secretive system of mass incarceration in Xinjiang, as well as a shoot-to-kill policy for those who try to escape, are among a huge cache of data hacked from police computer servers in the region."
India: At least 78% of school students found learning at home during the pandemic “burdensome”, while 24% of them did not have a digital device at home, according to the National Achievement Survey (NAS)-2021 conducted by the Ministry of Education.
Economic Recovery
Three Innovative Ways Community Colleges Can Plan For and Fund Non-degree Workforce Programs: Via New America.
Gates Foundation Pushes to Scale Dual Enrollment and Early College: "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a series of six-month grants each totaling about $175,000 to support regional design efforts to boost dual enrollment and early college credit offerings."
Resources
Mental Health Resource Guide: From Public Health Communications Collaborative.
Remote Learning Apps Shared Children’s Data At a ‘Dizzying Scale’: Washington Post on a Human Rights Watch report.
"Researchers with the advocacy group Human Rights Watch analyzed 164 educational apps and websites used in 49 countries, and they shared their findings with The Washington Post and 12 other news organizations around the world. The consortium, EdTech Exposed, was coordinated by the investigative nonprofit the Signals Network and conducted further reporting and technical review."
"What the researchers found was alarming: nearly 90 percent of the educational tools were designed to send the information they collected to ad-technology companies, which could use it to estimate students’ interests and predict what they might want to buy."
"Researchers found that the tools sent information to nearly 200 ad-tech companies, but that few of the programs disclosed to parents how the companies would use it. Some apps hinted at the monitoring in technical terms in their privacy policies, the researchers said, while many others made no mention at all."
"The learning app Schoology, for example, says it has more than 20 million users and is used by 60,000 schools across some of the United States’ largest school districts. The study identified code in the app that would have allowed it to extract a unique identifier from the student’s phone, known as an advertising ID, that marketers often use to track people across different apps and devices and to build a profile on what products they might want to buy."
"The website of ST Math, a “visual instructional program” for prekindergarten, elementary and middle school students, was shown to have shared user data with 19 third-party trackers, including Facebook, Google, Twitter and the e-commerce site Shopify."
Learning Acceleration, Not Remediation, Is Essential for Students to Move Forward: TNTP's Teqilla Brownie.
High-Dosage Tutoring: ExcelinEd on how tutoring can help states turn the tide on learning loss and declining early literacy rates.
Allocate Sufficient Time.
Provide Training and Development.
Make Intentional Decisions Based on Data.
Focus on Continuous Improvement and Feedback.
Celebrate Achievement and Share Successes.
Amtrak Corridor: A first look at Amtrak’s spiffy new Acela trains.
Husband's Love For His Wife: Lives on in field of 40,000 daffodils.