Covid-19 Policy Update #568
Wednesday 9/17
Top Three
Pandemic Learning Loss Is a National Crisis: Via Michael Bloomberg
"A closer look at the data reveals even greater reasons for alarm. Although White students performed five points worse in math than in 2020, scores fell by eight points among Latinos and by 13 for Black students. The gap between the best and worst scores also widened. The decline in math scores among the bottom 10% of students was quadruple that of those in the top 10%; in reading, the losses for low performers were five times as large. Put simply, the pandemic did the most harm to the children who could least afford it."
"Blame for these dismal results lies mostly with poorly designed and implemented remote instruction programs that stretched on far too long — and long after vaccines became available — largely because leaders of public-school teachers unions wrongly insisted that requiring teachers to return to work endangered their safety."
"It didn’t help that many progressive politicians sided with unions over the well-being of students. Public-health officials, meanwhile, provided confusing and conflicted guidance about keeping schools open — despite low rates of severe illness among children and evidence that the risks of in-school transmission were minimal."
"President Joe Biden can be doing far more to call public attention to the crisis and mobilize all levels of government to address it, including accelerating efforts to recruit and train tutors focused on highly vulnerable students."
"It’s also imperative that all students spend more time in class to help make up the lost ground, which is why earlier this year, I launched an initiative to support summer learning for thousands of public charter school students in New York City. School districts should use federal relief funds to increase instructional time, lengthen the academic year, expand summer-school slots, and launch more “Saturday academies” — preferably all of the above."
The Pandemic Schooling Mode and Assessment Outcomes Data Series: Via Emily Oster and the Covid-19 School Data Hub.
"The Pandemic Schooling Mode and Assessment Outcomes Data Series explores how differences in access to full in-person instruction during the first full pandemic school year of 2020–21 relate to changes in student academic outcomes."
State reports for: Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Fewer Students in Early Grades Developing Basic Phonics Skills: Via The 74:
"But the results from Curriculum Associates, which publishes the I-Ready assessments, also reveal how much work remains to be done: Fewer children in the early grades are developing essential phonics skills, they found. In fact, even more were below grade level in the spring of 2022 than there were a year ago — in third grade, 27%, compared to 24%."
"The results in math reflect a similar trend. Performance for some students is not only below what it was in the years before schools shut down; it’s worse after a year of mostly in-person learning. In grades five through eight, for example, fewer students than ever are developing essential math skills like understanding place value, multiplication and fractions."
Chalkbeat: "The results illuminate two particular areas of concern: More young children are struggling with early reading skills, while more older elementary and middle school students are missing foundational math skills like subtraction and multiplication."
Federal
Treasury: Connecticut, Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Arkansas are approved to receive approximately $408 million under the American Rescue Plan and will connect more than 90,000 homes and businesses to affordable, high-speed internet
Congress: Newly sworn in Rep Pat Ryan's son Theo steals the show at his ceremonial swearing in.
Covid-19 Research
Global COVID-19 Cases Fall 28%; Deaths Drop 22%: According to the WHO.
It’s Up to You Campaign: Update via the Covid Collaborative:
"Since December 2020, COVID Collaborative has worked with our partners at the Ad Council to execute one of the largest public education campaign’s in history to promote vaccine uptake and to combat hesitancy. As the campaign winds down, we are proud to share some of the incredible impact that the campaign has had over the past two years."
Exposure: $333 million in total media value; 800+ creative assets in more than 10 languages; 280+ national media partners
Awareness: At least 75% of eligible Americans have seen our ads; 58M reached through 1300+ influencers; 9M views for community events and virtual town halls
Engagement: 139M engagements on social and search; 12.5M visitors to campaign website; 50K visits to online toolkits for campaign partners
Impact: 80%+ of US adults are now vaccinated; nearly 60% of those who visited the campaign website left feeling more confident about getting vaccinated
Prediction Markets and the Future of Covid-19: Smart idea by Steven Phillips in Stat.
State
Illinois: Chicago schools see COVID vaccination rates backslide with a wave of new students.
Maryland: "Prince George’s County parents contacted Fox5DC for answers about why their child’s bus is late or not showing up - causing some students to miss their school breakfast. School district says bus driver shortage is to blame."
Washington: The Seattle Education Association reached a tentative agreement with the Seattle Public Schools after a week-long strike.
International
Parental Engagement in Children’s Learning: Via UNICEF.
Economic Mobility
Youth Apprenticeship Participation Doubled In Ten Years: Via JFF.
The Midlife Crisis: NBER paper.
"This paper documents a longitudinal crisis of midlife among the inhabitants of rich nations. Yet middle-aged citizens in our data sets are close to their peak earnings, have typically experienced little or no illness, reside in some of the safest countries in the world, and live in the most prosperous era in human history. This is paradoxical and troubling."
"The paper shows that there are approximately quadratic hill-shaped patterns in data on midlife suicide, sleeping problems, alcohol dependence, concentration difficulties, memory problems, intense job strain, disabling headaches, suicidal feelings, and extreme depression."
"We believe the seriousness of this societal problem has not been grasped by the affluent world’s policy-makers."
U.S. Child Poverty Hits New Record Low: Via Axios
"Child poverty in America has dropped by more than 80% since 1993. The child poverty rate was 27.9% in 1993, but fell to a record low of 5.2% in 2021, according to new census data."
Scott Winship: "What a New Study Gets Wrong About Child Poverty and the Social Safety Net"
Resources
Seesaw Hack: School districts in Illinois, New York, Oklahoma and Texas all said Wednesday that the photo was sent through the app Seesaw to parents and teachers in private chats.
"In a follow-up email, the company said the that the hacker or hackers didn't gain administrative access to Seesaw, but instead breached individual user accounts by a so-called "credential stuffing" attack. In such an attack, hackers look through previous data breaches to identify combinations of usernames and passwords. Cybersecurity experts recommend not reusing the same password across multiple sites specifically to avoid credential stuffing attacks."
Divide Between Perception and Reality Should Sound Alarm for Parents to be Part of Recovery Plans: Via Bibb Hubbard.
2022-2023 Cohort of the League of Innovative Schools:Via Digital Promise.
How State Education Agencies are Leveraging the ESSER Set-Aside: Via CCSSO.
25 Winners Announced in Round 2 of Catalyze Challenge: Announcement:
"The Catalyze Challenge has awarded over $5M to a new set of meritorious career-connected learning models supporting the piloting or expansion of innovative solutions designed for the leaders of tomorrow’s workforce."
Twenty-five winners – community organizations, entrepreneurs, employers and cross-sector partnerships from across the country– will pilot, launch and scale solutions that bridge the gap between the traditional classroom and meaningful careers, ultimately expanding access to economic mobility."
Simple Enough: Run through the banner.
The coach's reaction is hysterical.
Gotta love the "covid is over" narrative this week. It's like cases didn't crash last fall or the fall before. This year's numbers for 9/15 are actually higher than last year's (OWID). But enjoy the party just the same.