Top Three
Babies Born During the Pandemic May Have Delayed Communication Skills: NBC News on a new study.
"Around 89% of the infants studied who were born between 2008 and 2011 could articulate a full word like "bowl" or "cup" at 12 months old, compared to around 77% of infants born during the early months of the pandemic. The share of infants who could point at objects fell from 93% to 84%, and the portion who could wave goodbye fell from 94% to 88%."
"The results were based on a questionnaire given to parents of 309 babies in Ireland during the pandemic. Around each infant's first birthday, their parents were asked whether the baby could perform 10 different tasks, such as standing up or stacking bricks."
"Dr. Susan Byrne, the study's author and a pediatric neurologist at the Royal College of Surgeons, said one-quarter of the babies in her study had never met another child their own age by their first birthday. When the babies were 6 months old, their families were only seeing four other people outside the home, on average, and each infant had only been kissed by three adults, including their parents."
"Pandemic-associated social isolation may have impacted on the social communication skills in babies born during the pandemic compared with a historical cohort. Babies are resilient and inquisitive by nature, and it is hoped that with societal re-emergence and increase in social circles, their social communication skills will improve."
Out of the Box: A new report, released by New Classrooms Innovation Partners and Transcend, highlights the role innovative learning models can play in modernizing K-12 education.
The 65 page report is broken out into four sections:
The Introduction, “Thinking Outside the Box,” describes why the pandemic provides a watershed moment to revisit the core assumptions around schooling.
Part One, “Seeing the Box,” makes the case for why innovation toward a student centered paradigm is essential to turning the page on the industrial model to schooling, given its inherent limitations.
Part Two, “Getting Out of the Box,” defines innovative learning models and describes how they are developed and adopted.
Part Three, “Moving Beyond the Box,” lays out recommendations for how leaders from government, philanthropy, and school systems can help realize the potential of innovative learning models at scale.
New UK Data on Learning Recovery: Four out of five pupils in England say progress suffered due to Covid.
"Half of the 16- and 17-year-olds questioned said the Covid disruption had left them less motivated to study, while 45% felt they have not been able to catch up with lost learning."
"Two-thirds (64%), meanwhile, said their education plans had changed as a result the pandemic, hinting at the long-term consequences for those who had long Covid, or ill health requiring them to shield, who were more likely to have changed their plans."
"The Covid Social Mobility and Opportunities Study (Cosmo) is the largest of its kind looking into the impact of the pandemic on young people’s life chances, and focuses on those in Year 10 when the pandemic first struck in 2020, resulting in their GCSEs being cancelled in 2021. They will sit their A-levels in summer 2023."
"The findings, published on Thursday, also point to a gap between the experiences of those in state and private schools – more than a third (37%) of state school pupils felt they had fallen behind their classmates, compared with just 15% in the independent sector. That may be explained in part by the fact that 96% of independent school pupils had live online lessons in the first lockdown, compared with 65% of state school pupils."
"Similarly, 41% of Year 11 pupils in state schools reported being offered some type of tutoring, with 27% taking it up, while 52% of students in independent schools were offered tuition by their school."
Covid Research
Pfizer Announces Positive Early Data From Clinical Trial of Omicron BA.4/BA.5-Adapted Bivalent Booster in Individuals 18 Years and Older: Press Release.
"Sera collected from participants 7 days after administration of a 30-µg booster dose of the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent COVID-19 vaccine showed a substantial increase in the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 neutralizing antibody response above pre-booster levels."
"Data suggest Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent booster is anticipated to provide better protection against Omicron BA.4/BA.5 sublineages than original vaccine across younger and older adults."
"Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine was well tolerated with early data showing a safety profile similar to that of the original vaccine."
"Additional data measuring responses at 1-month post-administration of the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine booster are expected in the coming weeks."
What the White House Sees Coming for COVID This Winter:NPR interview with White House Covid Coordinator Ashish Jha:
"There are at least three subvariants that we're tracking very, very closely, all of which appear to have a lot more immune escape. Now, the good news about them is while they seem to do a better job of escaping immunity, they are derived from BA.5 or BA.2, its closely related cousin, and the new vaccines we have, which protect you against BA.5 should really continue to work really quite well against these new variants. So we don't know all the details. Obviously we're studying that right now. One more reason for people to go out and get this new bivalent vaccine."
"I've been recommending to all my family and friends that they get it before Halloween. I mean, go get it now. And the reason is if you get it before Halloween, you're going to have a really high degree of protection as you get into Thanksgiving, as you get into the holidays. You know, you can't time these things too tightly. So in general, my recommendation is go get it, go get it soon. And certainly get it before Halloween."
Paxlovid May Interact With Heart Meds: Axios on a new study.
State
Colorado: The Colorado Broadband Office publishes five-year Colorado Broadband Roadmap.
Maryland: "Baltimore gets it": U.S. deputy education secretary visits Baltimore City schools.
Economic Recovery
Inflation: Consumer prices rose 0.4% in September and were up 8.2% from a year ago. Excluding food and energy, the core consumer price index accelerated 0.6% and 6.6%, respectively. The yearly gain for core was the highest since August 1982.
Core inflation, excluding food and energy, was 0.6% in September and 6.6% over the last 12 months, the highest since 1982.
"That all points to a problem of excessive demand, not idiosyncratic problems in a handful of industries. That will make the Fed inclined toward another 0.75 percentage point rate hike at a policy meeting concluding Nov. 2."
“Federal Reserve officials signaled they are more concerned about doing too little to rein in soaring US inflation than doing too much and doubled down on plans to tighten monetary policy so it constrains the economy,” the FT reports."
"A deceleration in price increases for autos, furniture and other goods is key to putting inflation on a steady downtrend, said Michael Gapen, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America. There are signs that pressures created by supply-chain disruptions could be subsiding, helped by a consumer shift from spending on goods to services. Prices for core consumer goods remained flat from August to September as well, in part due to a drop in used-auto prices."
Cities "Cautiously Optimistic" About Finances: Axios on a new National League of Cities report.
"Municipal governments are enjoying a much stronger revenue stream and are feeling confident about their abilities to finance public services and resources" in 2022 and beyond. But "unusually high inflation is putting a lot of pressure on cities' budgets."
"They've rebounded financially from the pandemic, thanks largely to ARPA funds," said Farhad Omeyr, an NLC program director and author of the City Fiscal Conditions report."
The American Opportunity Index: The Schultz Family Foundation, in partnership with the Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School’s Managing the Future of Work Project studied the careers of millions of workers at the nation’s 250 largest companies to rank them by how well they create economic mobility for their workers.
Resources
Technology is an Important Tool for Building Connections and Community Between Teachers and Students: New survey by Gradient Learning.
70% said the effective use of technology within learning was important for students' future success.
70% said the use of digital tools and resources help provide opportunities for students to develop self-directed learning skills.
69% said digital learning creates interactive and participatory learning experiences.
60% said digital learning expands access to online content that is current and relevant.
Who’s Left Out of the Learning-Loss Debate: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in the New Yorker.
"Analysts have labelled this as “learning loss,” and many have blamed school closures and remote instruction in the course of the past two years as the culprit. Essentially, schools serving largely Black and Latino populations were more likely to turn to remote teaching. And in major cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, schools serving poor and working-class students did not fully reopen until the fall of 2021. The experts contend that the learning loss experienced, if not recouped, may cost each student more than forty thousand dollars in lifetime earnings, adding up to around two trillion dollars."
"Much of the indifference to Black suffering, born out in the recriminations about learning loss, were apparent in the caustic fights concerning the return to school. Throughout the first year of the pandemic, large numbers of Black and Latino parents repeatedly expressed reluctance or fear about sending their children back into public-school buildings.”
"Many districts across the country are funding tutoring initiatives as a strategy to help students catch up. But this has run into the problem of staffing shortages, leaving Joe Biden, among others, to call for people to volunteer to be tutors. It is the most American thing of all to raise the alarm about the existential crisis of learning loss and then call upon volunteers to fix it."
"Those who have tried to wield learning loss as a cudgel to bash teachers’ unions or to score other political points haven’t been nearly as creative in offering solutions. A real plan for recovery from the devastation of the pandemic in public education can be found in the strikes initiated by teachers and their unions. Their demands—for smaller class sizes, better conditions within school buildings, more resources to attend to students’ mental health, and higher pay for teachers and teacher assistants—have created a map for how to boost learning achievement."
Just a Panda Bear: Living his best life.