Top Three
The Key to Getting Students Back in Classrooms? Establishing Connections: Via the NYT.
"The numbers reported are staggering: About 41 percent of New York City’s public school students missed nearly a month of school last year. In Oakland, Calif., the chronic absenteeism rate reached 44 percent, and in Detroit, it was 77 percent."
"Without quick action, the absenteeism could lead to dire academic consequences. Already schools have witnessed an unprecedented drop in national fourth-grade reading and math scores, higher dropout rates and hundreds of thousands of students disconnected from school, from teachers and from friends."
"He attributes the impact to the connections that home visitors created. “If the connection isn’t there, all the resources, and all the Common Core, and all the testing, and all the standardization is literally meaningless,” he said."
"In Fulton County, Ga., administrators are working to re-establish those connections with high school students at risk of dropping out. Many of these teens not only became chronically absent during the pandemic, but some found jobs that seemed more relevant to their lives than math and English courses."
“It’s hard to make school relevant when you’re Door Dashing and Ubering all over town,” said Chelsea Montgomery, executive director of the Office of Student Supports for the 90,000-student, Atlanta-area district. Ms. Montgomery said she and her colleagues spent years reducing the district’s dropout rate, only to see that progress cut in half by the pandemic."
"The staff members — two teachers and a school counselor for each academy — use Check & Connect, an engagement program run by the University of Minnesota that the district pays for, which connects students with an in-school mentor who meets with them regularly and calls when they don’t show up. The staff also tracks attendance, student disciplinary incidents, as well as the credits earned and the rate of accruing those credits toward graduation."
“It’s about creating a caring and engaging climate,” Ms. Montgomery said. “It’s a flexible environment for everyone who has one foot out the door.”
Teacher Shortage Forces Some Wisconsin Classes Online: The Madison School District is taking some of its high school classes online because of a shortage of teachers. Roughly 120 of the district's 2,400 teaching positions remain unfilled.
"These students still work out of their classrooms with their classmates, but they log into virtual classes individually and receive a mix of online lessons and instruction from a Madison Promise teacher."
"Most of the classes that have shifted online are world language classes, LeMonds said, for which it's harder to find substitute teachers. But a few math and science courses also have moved online."
"In a letter to families on Sept. 29, La Follette High School Principal Mathew Thompson said licensed, long-term substitute teachers had been filling in for the classes without full-time teachers since the start of the school year."
"On Monday, the Madison school district's website listed more than 300 job openings, ranging from teachers to food service workers, custodians and counselors. Two dozen of those were posted in the last week."
New Variants: Twitter thread by T. Ryan Gregory "It needs to be emphasized that what we're seeing with SARS-CoV-2 variant evolution now is something new."
Federal
CDC:
CDC ends daily reporting of COVID case and death data, in shift to weekly updates
A CBS reporter spotted a change in CDC recommendations for schools: "The CDC has updated its COVID-19 schools guidance, to now delete this previous recommendation: "CDC also recommends masking at all times in healthcare settings, including school nurses’ offices, regardless of the current COVID-19 Community Level."
ED: "America's teacher shortage is 'a teacher respect issue,' Education Secretary says."
Covid-19 Research
Immune Reactions to Severe Covid May Trigger Brain Problems: The Guardian on a new study.
"The findings are preliminary but suggest Covid can trigger neurological problems in patients without the virus having to infect the brain itself. The process is believed to underpin delirium in Covid patients, but may also contribute to brain fog and other problems experienced by people with long Covid."
A Pandemic Success Story: Distribution and Administration of COVID-19 Vaccines: Study. "As of July 28, 2022, 78.8% of the US population had received at least one dose of the vaccine, a rate that far surpassed administration of any other vaccine that has been offered to the general public."
Biden’s Operation Warp Speed Revival Stumbles Out of the Gate: Politico.
"Months later, it’s barely taken off — stymied by fading political interest in prolonging a war against a pandemic that even the president has declared “over.” Mired in a standoff with Republicans over more Covid response money, the administration has yet to invest heavily in any of the promising vaccine targets it’s identified."
"The delay has compounded concern inside the White House over Americans’ vulnerability to future variants. More recently, administration officials have grown alarmed that the U.S. suddenly trails rival China in the global pursuit of new scientific breakthroughs aimed at curbing Covid."
"Meanwhile, there’s little appetite from GOP lawmakers and even some Democrats to treat the pandemic as a priority anymore, especially after President Joe Biden’s declaration that surprised even his top health officials, who have since gone to lengths to emphasize their Covid response continues apace."
"And yet, warning signs continue to mount. Recent studies suggest the newest offshoots of the Omicron variant are resistant to Evusheld, the main therapeutic designed to protect immunocompromised people from the virus. Some variants have also shown resistance to a second monoclonal antibody cocktail — leaving antiviral pill Paxlovid as the only major treatment that still works across the board."
State
Indiana:
Tutoring grants of up to $1,000 for Indiana students to roll out Oct. 15.
Via The 74, "Closing the Data Gap for Indiana’s Littlest Learners, & a Model for Other States."
North Carolina:
The North Carolina Department of State Treasurer wins the job ad.
Combined classrooms and virtual school: How NC schools are navigating another year of teacher shortages
Oregon: Bend-La Pine Schools fired three teachers Tuesday for violating a state requirement to submit either proof of receiving a COVID-19 vaccination or a valid exemption.
Texas: Student dropout rate surges.
"Nearly 50,000 Texas students from grades 7-12 dropped out in the 2020-2021 academic year — a 34% increase from the 2018-2019 school year."
"In Houston, about 11,400 students dropped out — also a 34% increase from the 2018-2019 school year."
Vermont: Substitute shortages persist as COVID and other illnesses circulate schools.
Economic Recovery
Rural Opportunity Zone and Recovery Playbook: New resource from Sorenson Impact Center.
IMF Chief Says The Economy Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better: Axios on her speech.
"The stark reality facing policymakers is that the world economy is exiting an era of relative predictability, with very low interest rates and low inflation, Georgieva said before an audience of students (many of whom have never lived through any other conditions)."
"What lies ahead is more economic volatility, "a world in which any country can be thrown off course, more easily and more often."
"And we will flag that the risks of recession are rising. We estimate that countries accounting for about one-third of the world economy will experience at least two consecutive quarters of contraction this or next year. And, even when growth is positive, it will feel like a recession because of shrinking real incomes and rising prices."
Covid-19 Hit Supply Chains Hard. Climate Shocks May Hurt More: Via Bloomberg:
"A first step companies can take to fight extreme weather’s effects is to map their supply chains to better understand exactly where risks lie, whether that’s a supplier on the Gulf Coast subject to hurricanes or a transport hub vulnerable to flooding. “Companies don’t even know the locations of their first-tier suppliers, let alone who their suppliers are buying from,” says MIT’s Jay. “And many times these supply chains are four or five steps deep.”
"This year may not bring “this level of profound disruption we saw in 2021 from the pandemic, but the challenges are going to continue to build over time,” says Mekala Krishnan, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute who specializes in climate risk. “Assumptions of a stable climate are built into every aspect of our daily lives in ways we don’t appreciate.”
More Workers Find Their Wages Falling Even Further Behind Inflation: Report from the Dallas Fed.
"Despite the stronger wage growth due to the tightness of the labor market, a majority of workers are finding their wages falling even further behind inflation. For workers who experienced a decline in their real wage in second quarter 2022, the median decline was 8.6 percent."
"While the past 25 years have witnessed episodes that show either a greater incidence or larger magnitude of real wage declines, the current time period is unparalleled in terms of the challenge employed workers face."
Hurricane Ian Will Cause Short-Term Economic Hit, Economists Say: Via WSJ.
"Greg Daco, chief economist at EY Parthenon, estimated the storm could lower Florida’s economic output by about 6 percentage points in the third quarter. That will shave about 0.3 percentage points off nationwide economic growth from June to September and roughly 0.1 percentage point in the fourth quarter of the year, he said."
"But some of that lost economic activity is slowly made up in subsequent years when federal disaster assistance and insurance payouts allow for rebuilding."
"One factor that could complicate and lengthen Florida’s rebuilding is the shortage of construction workers and materials that has pushed up prices. The price that producers pay for inputs to residential construction rose 10.6% in August from the previous year. The rate of growth has slowed since last year but remains well above where it was before the pandemic. Construction worker wages were up 5.3% in August from a year ago. In 2019, by contrast, year-over-year wage increases averaged 2.9% a month."
U.S. CEOs Preparing for Recession: KPMG survey of CEOs.
91% believe that there will be a recession in the next 12 months; only 34% of U.S. CEOs think it will be mild and short.
79% have expected and planned for a recession. 51% are considering workforce reductions over the next six months in preparation for a potential recession.
Over the next six months, U.S. CEOs are confident in the resilience of their companies (83%), the domestic economy (80%) and global economy (72%).
73% of CEOs believe their organization’s ability to retain talent will be impacted by inflation and the rising cost of living.
76% said they need to address burnout from accelerated digital transformation over the past two years.
Resources
Is There Really a Teacher Shortage? Some Perspective and a “Challenge”: Via EdTrust.
Back to School and Back to Normal. Or at Least Close Enough: Via the NYT.
Instructional Time Lost to Covid Will Likely Mean Persistent and Widening Gaps in Literacy: Via Robert Pondiscio.
"Critically, gaps don’t merely persist, they widen. Common sense suggests that months or years of school lost or disrupted by Covid did far less damage to kids who spent the last two years marinating in their linguistically rich homes, earning compound interest on the foundational language and knowledge they already possessed. Low-income kids in comparatively disadvantaged homes enjoyed fewer of these advantages and gained less as they spent time away from school, perhaps the most knowledge- and language-rich environment they have."
"None of this is intended to discourage or deprecate the earnest and energetic efforts visible in many places to make up for lost time. There’s really no other choice. But we should be skeptical of any efforts to minimize the challenge or to waive away the damage that has been done. Time not spent in environments rich in knowledge and language can never be recovered. The language-rich grew richer. The language-poor mostly waited."
Broadband:
AT&T thinks its public-private fiber builds could be a model for BEAD projects.
The City of Boston releases digital equity assessment; announces next steps.
The State of New Hampshire seeks broadband consultant to facilitate CPF-funded programs.
The Dispatch interviewed me for an article on bridging the digital divide.
Parent Poll: Via EdChoice/Morning Consult: Report / K-12 Parents Crosstabs / Adults 18+ Crosstabs.
It's Always Ok: To change your mind...