Thanks to everyone who completed last night’s survey! I’ll keep it open for a few more days to give other’s the chance to weigh in. As a reminder, the survey is anonymous and should take no more than 3 minutes to complete. Feedback is a gift so thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Top Three
How Badly Did the Pandemic Deepen California’s Early Reading Crisis?: Asks EdSource.
"Only 42.1% of third-graders can read at grade level on the state’s latest Smarter Balanced test, down from 48.5% in 2019, a more than 6% percentage point decline."
"Disadvantaged third-graders fared even worse. The number who met the standard fell 7% percentage points from almost 37% in 2019 to 30% in 2022."
"Also troubling is the fact that the children who were in third grade in 2019 are now in sixth grade, and only 45.1% of them can read at grade level, suggesting that they’re not catching up."
‘Scorecard’ of 4,000 Schools Shows Rural Districts Fared Better in Math, Worse in Reading Than Urban, Suburban Peers: Via The 74.
"Students in urban and suburban schools were 65% and 54% of a school year behind in math, respectively, according to the Scorecard; yet young people at rural schools were buffered somewhat, losing half a year."
"Meanwhile in reading, where drops were less dramatic overall, rural students fell behind by a third of a school year while urban and suburban students were just 29% and 24% of a year back."
IES: NAEP Release: What to Know, What to Admit We Don't Know
"Here's an important caveat: NAEP ended its data collection in March 2022. There is some evidence that students were recovering from the pandemic-induced learning loss as schools reopened and more normal teaching conditions resumed in the spring of 2022. "
"The breadth of the declines across states is breathtaking. Given such widespread declines across the states, it is hard to see how state policy regarding the timing and duration of school closings affected NAEP scores. That doesn't mean that these policies didn't matter; rather, it is likely that NAEP state scores are simply too blunt an instrument to pick up any impact."
"Emily Oster, one of the nation's most careful researchers tracking school opening during COVID, has generously shared her school-by-school data with IES. Our plan is to merge these data with NAEP school level assessment data plus the detailed school, student, and teacher data NAEP collects to create a large and comprehensive dataset to help researchers better evaluate the relationship between a wide variety of school contexts and policies and NAEP scores."
Federal
ED: AP: "Miguel Cardona, who has been vaccinated and boosted against the virus, tested positive Tuesday and has mild symptoms, the Education Department said in a statement."
Covid-19 Research
Severe Adverse Events More Likely in Previously Infected COVID Vaccinees: CIDRAP: "Americans who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine after SARS-CoV-2 infection are more likely to experience severe systemic adverse events (AEs) than their never-infected counterparts, according to a study published in Vaccine."
Fact Checking Tucker Carlson’s Claims About Vaccines and School Attendance: Via the Dispatch: "It’s true that the committee voted to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the 2023 immunization schedule, but Carlson’s claim that the COVID-19 vaccine would be a requirement for school attendance is false. The ACIP recommends, but does not mandate, vaccines for children and adults."
State
California: "L.A. schools have a plan to reverse enrollment woes: Recruit newborn babies."
DC: The D.C. Council voted to delay its coronavirus vaccine mandate for students age 12 and older until next school year, despite reservations from some members.
Illinois: Governor JB Pritzker announced a new state program designed to help pediatricians and other providers meet children’s mental health needs by strengthening mental health services in emergency departments and schools.
Indiana: Via Chalkbeat:
"Indianapolis Public Schools is offering free virtual tutoring after school for all students at district-run schools. The program is offered through Tutored by Teachers. Students will meet virtually in small groups with a teacher for one hour each of math and English instruction."
"IPS also announced in July that it would expand virtual tutoring during the school day to more low-performing schools."
"Indiana is offering grants of at least $500 for fourth and fifth grade students who qualify for subsidized meals and who tested below proficiency on both sections of last year’s state assessment. But students who are enrolled in certain school districts could qualify for a matching grant and have up to $1,000 to spend on math and reading tutoring services."
Iowa: Iowa must permit school districts to require masks in some cases, federal court rules.
"The decision by Judge Robert Pratt comes in a suit filed by several families challenging Iowa's pandemic-era law, which Gov. Kim Reynolds signed in May 2021, banning school districts and local governments from mandating mask wearing."
"The plaintiffs are parents of children with chronic health conditions or disabilities rendering them particularly at risk for complications from the coronavirus. They sued, arguing that the state was violating federal disability rights law by denying reasonable accommodations for their children."
"Even though circumstances have changed since this case was filed, plaintiffs have shown that at least some of their children are still at high risk for severe illness if they contract COVID-19, despite being vaccinated," Pratt wrote. "And for these high-risk children, having others around them at school wear masks is essential for their protection."
Maryland: In Montgomery Co., bus driver shortages anger parents, strand students.
"Just over a week before school started, Montgomery County reported 70 open school bus driver positions; as of Friday, there were 32. Thirty people are in training, schools spokesman Chris Cram said."
"Shannon Ingram, a parent who lives in Olney, waits at the stop at 6:40 a.m. every day to see if a bus will come pick up her 13-year-old daughter. The eighth-grader attends Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring, a magnet school that is roughly a 45-minute commute from their home. If no bus arrives by 7 a.m., Ingram and her family change their schedules to make sure the 13-year-old makes it to class on time."
Nevada: The Clark County School District is about a third of the way through spending or committing its nearly $778 million in federal pandemic relief assistance.
Economic Recovery
The American Dream Prosperity Index: Released by the Milken Institute in partnership with the Legatum Institute, contains 200 indicators from 90+ data sources, providing a comprehensive assessment of prosperity across all 50 states, D.C., and 1,481 counties. Executive Summary / Full Report / State Profiles.
Parenting Promotes Social Mobility Within and Across Generations: NBER paper.
"Participants in programs that enrich home environments grow up with better skills, jobs, earnings, marital stability, and health, as well as reduced participation in crime. Long-run monetized gains are substantially greater than program costs for iconic programs."
"We investigate the mechanisms promoting successful family lives for participants and find intergenerational effects on their children."
"A study of focused home-visiting programs that target parents enables us to isolate a crucial component of successful programs: they activate and promote parenting skills of child caregivers... National implementation of the programs with long-run follow up that we analyze would substantially shrink the overall US Black-White earnings gap."
How Improving Economic Mobility Makes Lives Better: Melinda French Gates.
"Earlier this year, the Gates Foundation significantly expanded our work on economic mobility and opportunity, investing an additional $460 million over four years. It is—and it will be—a core foundation investment in the United States, alongside our longstanding programs in education."
"One of Michigan’s application forms for public benefits, felt like it was designed to make an already hard time even more difficult. It asked the same questions over and over, and many of those questions weren’t relevant in the first place. As she filled out the form, LaTina toggled between two reactions. As a policy expert, she knew that a 42-page application with 1,000 questions written in legalese was a really bad way to get people the help they desperately needed. As a human being, she felt demoralized."
"In 2018, after three years of prototyping, digesting 1,800 pages of federal and state regulations, prototyping again, and pilot testing, Michigan rolled out a new form. It is 80% shorter. Nine out of 10 applicants fill it out in 20 minutes or less. And it takes staff 42% less time to process."
Resources
How to Translate Research Findings into Policy: Good post by Doug Elmendorf for the Institute for Progress.
Free SAT Boot Camp & Tutoring Platform Is Getting Noticed by States, Colleges: Via The 74.
"Launched in 2020, the platform offers high schoolers free Zoom-based tutoring in math, as well as SAT and Advanced Placement test prep. Some 20,000 students so far have participated in over 8 million minutes of live learning through Schoolhouse.world’s evening homework help sessions, small-group math tutoring or test prep boot camps."
"Founded by Khan but operated separately from his online, nonprofit Khan Academy for grades K-8, Schoolhouse.world has forged partnerships with a dozen states."
"The fully volunteer service has over 3,000 tutors, the majority of them high school students."
"A handful of universities, among them MIT, Georgia Tech, Florida State University and the University of Chicago, “have places on their applications where they ask if you are a Schoolhouse.world tutor,” Bent says. “It is a great way to demonstrate mastery and a very powerful motivator for high schoolers.”
Bonovin: Our good friend Justin Barra just launched a new consulting practice that helps mission-driven organizations adapt their core values to new challenges they’ve never faced before. Congrats!
Helpful: Your iPhone can scan images or use your photos to identify information about art, insects, landmarks, plants, and more.
It's November: Sprinting to the end of the year.