Top Three
State of the American Student: New must report from CRPE (more at The 74 and EdWeek).
Reporter’s Guide: Questions for assessing how your state or district is tracking pandemic impact and recovery
"School district leaders, state policymakers and advocates can take important steps now to address students’ immediate needs and set the bar high for system transformation"
"Districts and states should immediately use their federal dollars to ensure every student in the COVID generation makes a full recovery. They must focus their resources on proven interventions, such as well-designed tutoring, extended learning time, credit recovery, additional mental-health support, college and career guidance, and mentoring. These needs are too daunting for schools to shoulder alone. Partnerships and funding for families and community-driven solutions will be critical."
"By the end of 2022-23, states and districts must commit to an honest accounting of rebuilding efforts by defining, adopting and reporting on their progress toward ambitious five- and 10-year goals for student recovery and reimagining. States should invest in rigorous studies that document, analyze and improve their approaches."
"Education leaders and researchers must adopt a national research and development agenda for school reinvention over the next five years. This effort must be anchored in the reality that students’ needs are so varied, so profound and so multifaceted that a single system can’t possibly meet them all."
"Recovery and rebuilding should ensure the system is more resilient and prepared for future crises. School systems must be equipped to deliver high-quality, individualized learning pathways for students. And educators must have flexibility to build on practices that show promise."
Teacher Shortages a Reality as Schools Struggle to Fill New Positions: Via the AP
"In rural Alabama’s Black Belt, there were no certified math teachers last year in Bullock County’s public middle school."
"Schools in the South are more likely to struggle with teacher vacancies. A federal survey found an average of 3.4 teaching vacancies per school as of this summer; that number was lowest in the West, with 2.7 vacancies on average, and highest in the South, with 4.2 vacancies."
"The school system in Moss Point, a small town near the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, has increased wages to entice more applicants. But other districts nearby have done the same. Some teachers realized they could make $30,000 more by working 30 minutes away in Mobile, Alabama."
Related via Axios: "Two-thirds of U.S. public school superintendents say overall vacancies — including teachers and non-instructional staffers — are higher this year than last, a survey by AASA."
Related via the Washington Post: Wanted: Teachers. No training necessary.
Inflation Rose Faster Than Expected: Via CNBC:
CPI increased 0.1% in August. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, CPI rose 0.6% from July and 6.3% from the same month in 2021.
"The food at home index, a good proxy for grocery prices, has increased 13.5% over the past year, the largest such rise since March 1979."
"For medical care services, the monthly increase of 0.8% was the fastest monthly gain since October 2019. Veterinary care was up 10% from a year ago."
Washington Post: "And even though gas prices have fallen, some energy prices keep rising. Electricity costs, for example, rose 1.5 percent in August, the fourth straight month of at least a 1.3 percent increase."
Heather Long: “Rent is up 6.7% in past year - largest since 1986; Electricity up 15.8% - largest since 1981; Health insurance 24.3% - largest ever.”
Goldman: "August core CPI rose by 0.57% month-over-month, well above expectations... We now expect a 75bp hike in September followed by 50bp hikes in November and December, which would take the funds rate to 4-4.25% by the end of the year."
Former CEA Director Jason Furman.
Larry Summers, "Today’s CPI report confirms that the US has a serious inflation problem..."
Federal
HHS: Issues 9-point checklist for school-based Medicaid services. More via K12 Dive.
"While schools primarily provide education, school settings offer a “unique opportunity” to enroll children and teens in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program and provide Medicaid-covered services, including mental health services, said Daniel Tsai, deputy administrator and director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services at HHS, in a CMCS information bulletin last month."
"The checklist includes a variety of recommendations for services and reimbursement management practices, as well as explanations and clarifications of existing rules."
"Only 16 states, however, allow districts to seek reimbursements for school-based health services for all Medicaid-eligible students. All districts currently are able to seek reimbursement for healthcare services provided to Medicaid-eligible special education students."
"Less than 1% of total Medicaid spending is for school-based services, but it is the third or fourth largest federal revenue stream for school systems, according to a March presentation from the Medicaid in Schools Coalition."
ED: Awarded awarded the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) contract to the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) and their coalition partners: InnovateEDU, Learning Forward, Project Tomorrow, and Whiteboard Advisors.
IES: Mark Schneider: Addressing the COVID Learning Crisis
NSF: Is looking for reviewers for their Regional Innovation Engines program.
Covid-19 Research
Covid State of Emergencies: These 10 states still have Covid emergency orders in place.
Nasal Vaccines: Via Axios:
"As the U.S. rolls out updated mRNA-based COVID shots, a growing chorus of experts say it's a mistake not to focus on treatments that boost immunity through mucous membranes."
"Why it matters: Next-generation oral or nasal vaccines could quickly boost the immune response in the very airways where COVID-19 enters the body and ultimately break our reliance on reformulated shots to target the latest variants of concern. But the U.S. isn't putting money into such products."
One of Long COVID’s Worst Symptoms Is Also Its Most Misunderstood: Ed Yong in The Atlantic.
"Of long COVID’s many possible symptoms, brain fog “is by far one of the most disabling and destructive,” Emma Ladds, a primary-care specialist from the University of Oxford, told me. It’s also among the most misunderstood. It wasn’t even included in the list of possible COVID symptoms when the coronavirus pandemic first began. But 20 to 30 percent of patients report brain fog three months after their initial infection, as do 65 to 85 percent of the long-haulers who stay sick for much longer."
"Most people with brain fog are not so severely affected, and gradually improve with time. But even when people recover enough to work, they can struggle with minds that are less nimble than before."
"People with brain fog also excel at hiding it: None of the long-haulers I’ve interviewed sounded cognitively impaired. But at times when her speech is obviously sluggish, “nobody except my husband and mother see me,” Robertson said. The stigma that long-haulers experience also motivates them to present as normal in social situations or doctor appointments, which compounds the mistaken sense that they’re less impaired than they claim—and can be debilitatingly draining."
State
Georgia: Gov. Kemp pledges $25 million to fight learning loss.
Michigan:"Nearly a quarter of the Detroit school district’s third graders last year performed poorly enough on state standardized reading exams that they were eligible to be held back under Michigan’s Read by Grade Three law. But barely a hundred students are actually repeating third grade this school year."
Economic Recovery
Community Finance Innovation Fund: 12 organizations selected to collectively receive $50 million from the Citi Foundation to advance the field of community finance and create positive impact for low-income communities and communities of color.
Resources
COVID-19 Learning Loss: YouGov Poll: September 7 - 11, 2022.
Whistling Past The NAEP-yard: Via Mike McShane.
Dual-Enrollment Programs Are Expanding. But Do They Reach the Students Who Need Them Most?: Via EdWeek.
iOS 16: Is out. 350 new features. WSJ walks through 10 helpful ones (article / video)
Off to the Races: Focus on a different child every time you watch this.
Sheryl Lee Ralph: In her Emmy speech: "Anyone who has ever, ever had a dream and thought your dream...couldn't come true. I am here to tell you that this is what believing looks like. This is what striving looks like. And don't you ever, ever give up on you."