Top Three
Massive Learning Setbacks Show COVID’s Sweeping Toll on Kids: Via the AP, the average U.S. elementary-school student lost more than half a school year of learning in math — and nearly a quarter of a school year in reading — during the pandemic.
“When you have a massive crisis, the worst effects end up being felt by the people with the least resources,” said Stanford education professor Sean Reardon, who compiled and analyzed the data along with Harvard economist Thomas Kane."
"Together, Reardon and Kane created a map showing how many years of learning the average student in each district has lost since 2019. Their project, the Education Recovery Scorecard (and Press Release), compared results from a test known as the “nation’s report card” with local standardized test scores from 29 states and Washington, D.C."
"In Memphis, Tennessee, where nearly 80% of students are poor, students lost the equivalent of 70% of a school year in reading and more than a year in math, according to the analysis. The district’s Black students lost a year-and-one-third in math and two-thirds of a year in reading."
"In some districts, students lost more than two years of math learning, according to the data. Hopewell, Virginia, a school system of 4,000 students who are mostly low-income and 60% Black, showed an average loss of 2.29 years of school."
More Money on Learning, Less Learning Loss? Variations in How Rhode Island Districts Spent Federal COVID Relief Funding: Via the Urban Institute.
During the first COVID relief package, 27 percent of funds were used for health-related equipment or facilities improvements, and 10 percent were used for additional services for helping students and teachers to navigate the pandemic.
In districts that faced large declines in revenue because of state aid reductions or enrollment declines, spending on teaching mostly went to teacher salaries and compensation.
Spending patterns in Rhode Island largely shifted to instructional support in the second COVID funding package, with 42 percent of funds concentrating on classroom instructional needs and 34 percent supporting teachers and students.
In the 2020–21 school year, students enrolled in districts that spent more funds on instruction had an 8 percentage-point higher proficiency rate in math and a 2 percentage-point higher proficiency rate in English than students in districts that spent more on other areas like facilities, compared with only a 0.6 percent difference in both math and English in 2018–19.
Amid the Pandemic, Progress in Catholic Schools: Kathleen Porter-Magee in the WSJ.
"In the fall of 2020, after we had learned more about curbing superspreader events and as it became clear that children were the least vulnerable to the virus, more than 92% of Catholic schools across the country re-opened for in-person learning, compared with 43% of traditional public schools and 34% of charters."
"This week’s NAEP data show how important reopening was for learning. Today, the divergence between Catholic schools and public ones is so great that if all U.S. Catholic schools were a state, their 1.6 million students would rank first in the nation across the NAEP reading and math tests for fourth and eighth graders."
"Catholic-school students now boast the nation’s highest scale scores on all four NAEP tests. The average score among fourth-graders in Catholic schools was 233, 17 points higher than the national public-school average, or about 1½ grade levels ahead. In eighth-grade reading, the average score for Catholic school students was 279, 20 points higher than the national public-school average, or about two grade levels ahead."
"When disaggregated by race, Catholic schools showed significant gains since 2019. In particular, achievement among black students enrolled in Catholic schools increased by 10 points (about an extra year’s worth of learning), while black students in public schools lost 5 points and black students in charter schools lost 8 points. Similarly, on the eighth-grade reading test, Hispanic students in Catholic schools gained 7 points while Hispanic students in public schools lost 1 point and Hispanic students in charter schools lost 2 points."
Federal
What to Expect When You're Electing: Via FiveThirtyEight: Voters Don't Think Either Party Deserves To Govern.
Covid Research
White House on Boosters: CBS reports: White House still expects new COVID boosters will offer better protection, but two new studies cast doubt (and Twitter thread).
"In an interview with CBS News, Dr. Ashish Jha also said he does not think another imminent change to the COVID boosters will be needed."
"Jha's comments come after researchers found, in two smaller groups of volunteers, data suggesting that the updated boosters provide only similar but not superior antibody boosts against BA.5, compared to the original vaccine formula."
"I do think that the protection against infection is going to be better than if you were getting the original prototype booster," Jha told CBS News.
"There was no significant difference in neutralization of any SARS-CoV-2 variant tested between individuals who received a fourth monovalent vaccine and those who received a fourth dose of a bivalent vaccine," concluded one study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, posted by the team led by Ho."
Fall Bivalent Boosters: Science Update Round 2: Via Katelyn Jetelina.
"Researchers found two things: Neutralizing antibodies increased after the fall booster. Not surprising, but good to see. Neutralizing antibodies were not higher after the fall booster compared to the original vaccine formula booster. Bummer."
"Does this mean the fall booster isn’t working? Absolutely not. First, an increase in neutralizing antibodies will help prevent infection and transmission in the short term. The old vaccine formula did this. The new formula does this. It’s not a surprise and will help. Second, these studies extracted blood 3-5 weeks after people got the fall booster. The timeframe is important given the intricacies of the immune system."
"The two preprints this week offered fantastic insight into the short-term impact of fall boosters. However, don’t be swayed by the headlines, as one or two preprints are not the whole story. We already have data showing the fall boosters provide broader protection. We have studies showing boosters boost neutralizing antibodies. We just may need time to see the full potential of an updated booster formula compared to the original."
XBB and BQ.1: WHO advisers weigh in on Omicron XBB and BQ.1 subvariants.
"The WHO advisory group said XBB and BQ.1 don't currently diverge sufficiently from each other or from other Omicron lineages that have extra immune escape mutations to warrant a variant of concern designation or a new label. "The two sublineages remain part of Omicron, which continues to be a variant of concern," the group said."
"In its updated variant proportion estimates today, the CDC reported another steady rise in BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, which together make up 27.1% of subtyped lineage - up from 13% a week ago."
30% of COVID Patients Had Rebound After Two Days Without Symptoms: Study "Reported symptoms are inherently subjective, and our observed variation may explain some of the rebound of symptoms after treatment for COVID-19, like in cases of what has been described as Paxlovid rebound."
U.S. Government to Test Pfizer's Paxlovid for Long COVID: Reports Reuters.
Senate GOP Report Argues Lab-Leak Theory is Most Likely Origin of Covid: Washington Post on House report.
Measuring Preparedness: Are Public Health Systems Ready for the Next Pandemic?: Via McKinsey:
"Answer the following 11 questions on future pandemic preparedness in your country or region. When completed, you will find a dynamic high level overview of your pandemic preparedness across various dimensions and actions to improve."
Four steps for improving preparedness:
Ensure access to innovation
Invest in public health data systems and IT
Plan to rapidly scale operations
Prepare for effective response governance
State
DC --> NYC: Seaplane Corridor.
Illinois: New Covid School Data Hub data: "Lots of variation in in-person status. Recovery overall has been very low in ELA in particular."
Kentucky: Gov. Beshear announces Education First Plan to address poor COVID-era test scores.
The plan includes funding for a 5% pay raise for school staff, universal pre-K, textbooks, technology and training programs
The governor wants to set aside funds to assemble statewide staff and eight regional Social Emotional Learning institutes to help educators have access to training on how to help students with their mental health.
He also plans to implement two new grant programs for school districts to provide wrap-around services to students impacted by violence, substance abuse, child abuse and parental incarceration, as well as other resources.
New York: NYT: "Covid, Flu, RSV: Hospitalizations Rise as Wave of Viruses Hits New York."
"Look at the increase in NYC emergency departments visits for <5 year olds w/acute respiratory infection. Last time it was this severe was middle of 1st Omicron surge (Christmas day '21, in fact)."
Oklahoma: Registration now open for Spring 2023 Math Tutoring Corps.
Texas: Texas is increasing Black students’ reading scores more than any other state.
Economic Recovery
6 States Awarded Grant Funding To Boost Workforce Participation, Economic Mobility: Via NGA
"Technology plays a key role in allowing employers to embrace skills-based practices by enabling the adoption of IT systems that support digital learning and employment records (LERs), which are essentially digital resumes with secure, verifiable, and readily accessible records of people’s skills, educational experiences and work histories."
Resources
Choose to Learn 2022: Research from Tyton Partners (with support from the Walton Family Foundation and Stand Together Trust):
52% of parents prefer to direct and curate their child’s education rather than rely on their local school system and 79% believe learning can and should happen everywhere (as opposed to in-school alone).
Parents want a well-rounded education experience that delivers on academic promises as well as key personal growth outcomes.
Providing families with clear and easily accessible information is critical to catalyze parents’ broad aspirations into action.
Affordability is the most significant market gap—most families must pay out-of-pocket for alternative school and out-of-school offerings, and parents cite their “ability to afford a program” as the number one barrier preventing them from enrolling their child in any K-12 environment.
Made It to the End of the Week: Nailed it.