Top Three
Schools Are Buying On-Demand Tutoring but a Study Finds That Few Students Are Using It: Via Hechinger.
"Aspire purchased an online tutoring service for the spring of 2021 to help these students. Students could log in to the tutoring service, called Paper, whenever they wanted, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and connect with a tutor to help with schoolwork in any subject. There was no video or audio, but students could text chat with a human tutor and work together on a virtual whiteboard and share documents. The tutoring was free to students no matter how much they used it."
"The researchers, from Brown University and the University of California, Irvine, tried three different ways of engaging students. But no matter what they tried, a majority of students never used the tutoring service."
"Even their most successful effort, which involved nudging both parents and students with frequent text messages and emails, convinced only 27 percent of the students to try an online tutor at least once. More than 70 percent of the students never tried it."
“The real key takeaway from the study,” said lead researcher Carly Robinson, is that just telling students about a tutoring service isn’t enough to make them use it. “And it happens even less for those students who we think probably need it the most,” said Robinson, a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University’s Annenberg Institute and a researcher at the National Student Support Accelerator, which is promoting the use of evidence-based tutoring at schools."
NYC Enrollments: Bloomberg: "NYC Kids Are Still Leaving Public Schools in Pandemic-Fueled Exodus."
"Enrollment in the largest school district in the US is down 1.8% in 2022 from a year ago, representing 16,000 students in 3K through 12th grade, according to preliminary estimates released Monday by the city’s Department of Education."
"To put the New York City losses in context, the education department said the Los Angeles Unified School District enrollment declined by 1.9% and Chicago Public Schools enrollment declined by 2.5% from a year ago."
22% of Kids With COVID-19 or MIS-C Had Neurologic Involvement in 2020-21: CIDRAP:
"A study of US patients aged 0 to 20 years hospitalized for COVID-19 or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) in 2020 and 2021 shows that 22% had a neurologic condition, including 9% with life-threatening illness."
"Life-threatening neurologic disorders were more common during the Delta variant surge than in previous waves (64% vs 36%). Ten of 42 (24%) of patients with neurologic involvement were released from the hospital with new-onset neurologic conditions, and 8 (19%) died. Among patients with non–life-threatening neurologic involvement, 4% were released from the hospital with neurologic deficits, 90% had no neurologic disorders, and 5% died."
"COVID-19 vaccination is effective at preventing hospitalization for acute COVID-19 and MIS-C and may decrease associated neurologic complications."
Federal
CDC: CDC Director Walensky announced that she has fully recovered from Covid.
Covid Research
Novavax: Says Omicron shot shows strong immune response as second booster.
"Meanwhile, the prototype vaccine produced a broad immune response against the original strain of the virus as well as both BA.1 and BA.5 Omicron variants, data showed, but the company did not disclose details about the levels of antibodies produced in the study."
Italian Study Examines the Experiences of Expectant Mothers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Study.
State
DC: The Election Day lunar eclipse blood moon sets behind the U.S. Capitol dome in Washington, D.C.
Idaho: Showing strong recovery in test scores especially in math.
New Hampshire: How schools and state officials are using $500 million in COVID relief money.
New York: Grade 3-8 state assessment results by level of access to full in-person instruction. Recovery in 2022 in ELA, still declines in math compared to 2019.
Rhode Island: Rhode Island Grade 3-8 state assessment results by level of access to full in-person instruction from the 2020-21 school year.
International
China: New coronavirus cases surged in Guangzhou and other Chinese cities with the global manufacturing hub becoming China's latest COVID-19 epicentre and testing the city's ability to avoid a Shanghai-style lockdown.
Economic Recovery
Covid’s Drag on the Workforce Proves Persistent. ‘It Sets Us Back.’: Via WSJ.
"In the average month this year, nearly 630,000 more workers missed at least a week of work because of illness than in the years before the pandemic, according to Labor Department data."
"That is a reduction in workers equal to about 0.4 percent of the labor force, a significant amount in a tight labor market. That share is up about 0.1 percentage point from the same period last year, the data show."
"Another half a million workers have dropped out of the labor force due to lingering effects from previous Covid infections."
Too Many Apps: Axios: "A study in Harvard Business Review suggests workers are switching from app to app, website to website, nearly 1,200 times a day."
Resources
What Will End of COVID Public Health Emergency Mean for School-Based Telehealth?: Via Mario Ramirez & Andrew Buher in The 74.
Don’t Forget: To hold on for takeoff.