Top Three
California Districts Reinstate Mask Requirements: LA County is planning to instate an indoor masking mandate on July 29. It would apply to all public indoor spaces including schools.
NYT: "Some experts disagree with Ferrer’s approach and believe that mandates should be reserved for crises, which the BA.5 wave has not yet proved itself to be."
Related: Face masks are returning to San Diego Unified School District after San Diego County entered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “high” COVID-19 transmission level this week, school officials announced Friday.
Why the Omicron Offshoot BA.5 is a Big Deal: Via CNN.
"We do not know about the clinical severity of BA.4 and BA.5 in comparison to our other Omicron subvariants,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House Covid-19 Response Team briefing Tuesday. “But we do know it to be more transmissible and more immune-evading. People with prior infection, even with BA.1 and BA.2, are likely still at risk for BA.4 or BA.5.”
"As Americans have switched to more rapid at-home tests, official case counts – currently hovering around 110,000 new infections a day – reflect just a fraction of the true disease burden."
“We estimate that for every reported case there are 7 unreported,” Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, wrote in an email."
"Daily hospitalizations are also climbing in the United States. The fraction of patients needing intensive care is up by about 23% over the past two weeks."
Related: COVID Reinfections via Emily Oster.
Inflation and Higher Ed: Via CNBC, from tuition hikes to higher student loan borrowing costs, inflation is making college even more expensive.
"For the 2021-22 academic year, average tuition and fees rose by just 1.3% to $3,800 for students at two-year schools; 1.6% for in-state students at four-year public colleges, reaching $10,740; and 2.1% for students at four-year private institutions, to $38,070."
"Now, some colleges are hiking tuition as much as 5%, citing inflation and other pressures."
“We have increased undergraduate tuition 4.25% for the coming academic year, our largest increase in 14 years,” Boston University President Robert Brown recently said in a letter to the community."
"The interest rate on federal student loans taken out for the 2022-23 academic year rose to 4.99%, up from 3.73% last year and 2.75% in 2020-21."
Federal
HHS: Extends Public Health Emergency for COVID-19:
CIDRAP: "The COVID health emergency has been in effect since Jan 31, 2020, and has now been renewed 10 times. Several COVID-19 response policies are tied to the emergency declaration, which also allows regulatory and funding flexibility."
ED:
Charter School Programs Division FY 2022 Call for Peer Reviewers
Promise Neighborhoods grant program is seeking application reviewers or moderators.
2024 Presidential Election: Milwaukee set to host 2024 Republican National Convention, pending final approval.
Covid-19 Research
Under 5s:
EU regulator reviews Pfizer-BioNTech COVID shot in children as young as 6 months.
Moderna received approval from Canadian regulatory authority, Health Canada, for its mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine, Spikevax, for kids aged six months to five years.
Largest Study to Date Shows How COVID Vaccines Affect Periods: Via the NYT, "Nearly half of the participants of a recent study who were menstruating regularly at the time of the survey reported heavier bleeding during their periods after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine."
COVID-19 Boosters Offer Good Protection Against Early Omicron Subvariants: CIDRAP on the CDC data.
State
Georgia: Gwinnett County and the United Way of Greater Atlanta are asking residents and community organizations to weigh in on how $4.25 million in Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery funds should be distributed to local nonprofits.
Indiana: INDOE released state assessment results showing some progress.
Kansas:"The Kansas Department of Health and Environment was awarded a federal cooperative agreement to implement the Kansas K-12 Stay Positive Test Negative Initiative, which provides school districts with the funding and resources to design and implement a Covid-19 testing strategy to reduce outbreaks, keep schools and school-affiliated summer camps open, minimize absenteeism, and reduce stress."
New Jersey: "Students are still behind in learning. Will summer school be the ‘magic fix’?"
“Last summer really wasn’t the magic fix that some of us hoped it would be,” said Scott Taylor, the Union Township schools superintendent. “This summer is not going to be the magic fix either, but it’s probably going to be a whole lot better than last summer.”
"This summer provides the opportunity for students to partially regain lost academic and social ground, although advocates caution summer school is just one piece of a years-long puzzle to address the gaps."
Economic Recovery
71 Cities and Towns Are Paying Tech Workers to Abandon Silicon Valley. It’s Working.: Via the WSJ.
Back to School Spending: The National Retail Federation says back-to-college spending is expected to reach $74 billion this summer — up $3 billion from last year and K-12 spending is expected to total $37 billion — about the same as last year.
Alternative Credentials Best Practices and Guidance: Via the AACRAO Alternative Credentials Work Group.
America’s Top States for Business 2022: CNBC scored all 50 states on 88 metrics in 10 broad categories of competitiveness.
Resources
As COVID-Era Tutoring Need Outpaces Supply, Calif. Nonprofit Offers AI-Powered Alternative: Via The 74.
State of the Superintendent — High Job Satisfaction and a Projected Normal Turnover Rate:Via Rand
"13% of superintendents plan to leave their position by the end of the 2021–2022 school year, a rate on par with prepandemic superintendent turnover estimates."
How Much Will Each State Receive in Broadband Funding: Via the Center for Growth and Opportunity.
The State of Summer Learning Grants: Via Education Reform Now.
"Just 10 states—Alabama, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming—have requirements about the length of programs and instructional time that are aligned with best practices, and only five—Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Washington, DC—are requiring grantees to have research-aligned low staff-to-student ratios."
"Additionally, 19 states are requiring grantees to include programming designed to address either social-emotional learning and/or mental health-–with most other states encouraging grantee to include this programming."
How to Prepare for ESSER Spending Scrutiny: Advice From a Veteran Auditor: Via EdWeek
Emmanuel!: Don't Do It!!!
Have seen big improvements in mask quality lately. Cloth masks have mostly disappeared around here. OTOH, studies keep arriving showing that mandates have 0 impact....Mandates that don't address mask quality/fit are pure theater.
Case counts have become meaningless. Please focus your reporting on wastewater data. That gives a much better picture.
"more transmissible and more immune-evading". Please reserve Walensky's comments to the comedy section of your update.