Top Three
Teacher Poll: Via EdChoice and Morning Consult. Report / Crosstabs.
Teachers are much less likely than school parents to believe that their students are performing ‘very well’ academically, emotionally, and socially this current school year. Teachers are also less positive than parents when assessing how their schools address mental health, guns, bullying, and violent behaviors.
Over the past three months, just over half of teachers under 55 have considered leaving the profession. Three-out-of-five teachers over 55 have considered retiring.
Teachers cite the impact of the pandemic, feeling undervalued and stressed, and politics surrounding the job as top reasons for considering leaving or retiring from the profession.
The monthly amount teachers would ask parents to pay (per child) in order to facilitate a learning pod increased slightly to $510 in June. That potential cost is roughly $90 higher than the amount school parents are willing to spend.
As the Pandemic Drags On, Americans Struggle for New Balance: NYT:
“While deaths have plummeted since the beginning of the year, about 315 Americans are still dying of Covid on the average day. This year’s toll has so far exceeded 219,000. More than 27,000 Americans with Covid are in hospitals on any given day, and an uncertain number face lingering complications, so-called long Covid. Declines in test positivity and hospitalization are flattening, hinting at a possible reversal.”
"Roughly half of Americans eligible for boosters have not gotten them, and just 10 percent have gotten the most up-to-date bivalent booster. Experts are warning that waning immunity and the arrival of new subvariants may lead to another surge of cases and hospitalizations."
"Holding two contradictory ideas in mind simultaneously — the pandemic is over, we still have a problem with Covid — is intensely discomfiting, psychologists say. It is a form of cognitive dissonance, experienced when one’s behaviors or actions are at odds with the information or understanding they have."
"People are driven to reduce the discord by reconciling conflicting thoughts and behaviors, but the process is not a conscious one, said Elliot Aronson, a professor emeritus of social psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. People who smoke despite the known risks, for example, may tell themselves that they plan to quit in five years, or that their health is otherwise excellent."
Report Analyzes School District Plans to Improve Air Quality and Facility Conditions: The Center for Green School analyzed Burbio data in a new report:
"Of all the funding categories tracked in the data set, air filtration/HVAC was the second highest category for district planned spending, at $5.5 billion, just behind staffing/teachers/academic interventionists/guidance counselors."
"Of the 2,379 school districts that planned to spend any of the ESSER III funding on facilities, large districts planned to spend the lowest percentage (on average, 22%) and small districts planned to spend the highest percentage of their total allocation (on average, 30%)"
Federal
FCC: Establishes grant programs to raise awareness of the Affordable Connectivity Program. There are four complementary grant programs:
National Competitive Outreach Program - $60 million (Deadline to apply 1/9/23)
Tribal Competitive Outreach Program - $10 million (Deadline to apply 1/9/23)
Your Home, Your Internet Program - $5 million (Separate NOFO/Application)
ACP Navigator Pilot Program - $5 million (Separate NOFO/Application)
White House: I never expected to see USDS, Taylor Swift, and student loan forgiveness in a single tweet, but here we are.
Covid Research
How a COVID Booster Campaign Could Keep Kids Out of the Hospital and in School: Via the Commonwealth Fund.
State
California: LA times Editorial: "LAUSD’s efforts to address learning loss should inspire hope, not chaos and frustration."
"The Los Angeles Unified School District has had months to fine-tune its “Acceleration Days” initiative to help students make up some of the academic progress lost during the pandemic school shutdowns. Yet no one knows how many students and teachers are going to show up when the program starts in five weeks. Not parents, not teachers and not school staff. And, except for top LAUSD administrators, few seem to know what’s supposed to happen during those two days."
"But though parents have recently received a barrage of texts, emails, and phone calls from the district urging them to sign up, they have been given little information about what the program entails. None of the communiques contain specific information that parents need to decide whether to send their children to the program, parents say."
"What will students do during the two extra days tacked onto the start of the winter break in December? Will they get to work with their own teachers in their own schools? Have some kids been identified as needing extra instruction? What are the planned enrichment activities? Will students’ work during those days count toward their grades?"
DC: D.C. public school enrollment has increased for the first time since the start of the pandemic. This year's enrollment is 50,204 students, up from 49,035 last year.
New Jersey: Gov. Murphy issues order to create task force to address teacher shortage.
Pennsylvania: Feeling a 'scarcity in the workforce,' Western Pennsylvania schools struggle with staffing shortages
"At Bethel Park on Thursday, 32 substitutes were available to cover classrooms for 44 teachers out for the day."
"That meant 12 classes in the district with almost 4,000 students had to be covered by whomever was available, Superintendent James Walsh said. When Bethel Park doesn’t have enough substitute teachers, other teachers have to give up prep time, principals teach math or English lessons and school counselors head to the classroom to make sure that the students receive some learning that day.
Resources
Workplace Absences for Child-Care Reasons Rose to an All-time High in October: Via the Washington Post.
"A new round of viral infections — flu, RSV, covid-19 and the common cold — is colliding with staffing shortages at schools and day cares to create unprecedented challenges for parents and teachers. More than 100,000 Americans missed work last month because of child-care problems, an all-time high that’s even greater than during the height of the pandemic, according to new data from the BLS."
Biden Administration Urges Schools to Expand Apprenticeships and Career Learning: Via EdWeek. The Education Department released new guidance on how schools should prioritize COVID-19 relief funds to develop, support, and expand work-based learning opportunities.
The Options Multiplier: Decoding the CareerWise Youth Apprentice Journey: A new white paper that uses a novel dataset from CareerWise Colorado.
"During the program, CareerWise students split their time between a traditional classroom and the workplace, allowing apprentices to earn a wage, while accessing meaningful work experience and debt-free college credits."
"Our research finds that nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of CareerWise apprentices achieve the program’s stated goal of serving as an “Options Multiplier”- they transition on to postsecondary education, employment, or both."
Entrepreneurs: Workshop Venture Partners is a venture studio that partners with founders to build startups in climate and education.
"Workshop is in search of exceptional entrepreneurs for two exciting K12 opportunities. The first will serve middle and high schools. The project expects its MVP and first paying customers this winter."
"The second opportunity is earlier stage, and we are looking for a technical founder to explore with us applications of natural language processing."
"Both roles will have founder level equity and the companies will be supported by up to $5M of initial funding from the studio."
"Additional detail available to interested candidates. Please email team@workshop.dev"
9 Lessons School District Leaders Should Learn From the COVID Pandemic: Via EdWeek including:
People, not programs.
Keep families at the center.
Stay nimble.
Virtual technology is here to stay, and we should embrace it.
Virtual Nightmare: One Student’s Journey Through the Pandemic: Via The 74: Jason Finuliar was a popular, gifted student. His descent into suicidal depression — and ongoing recovery — reflects the lingering trauma of lockdown."
To Improve the Nation’s Schools, First Close the Honesty Gap: Rianna Saslow in The 74.
When Your Friend: Unexpectedly shows up.
With covid, it's always a mistake to look at levels, because of data quality issues. Looking at trends is safer, because the (bad) quality isn't getting worse/better. US deaths have been declining since August. That's good news.
Urban schools continue to fail and implode. More and more places have realized that the only solution is to let the kids go elsewhere. That trend seems stronger than ever.
Boosters are not the answer. They lose potency too quickly. We need better vax. Please consider this topic more often.
So little harm has come from schools (lost school days from illness has far less costs than NPIs.) Improving air quality has the fewest downsides, even if the upside isn't awesome.