Top Three
Learning Loss Interventions Are Falling Short on Implementation: EdWeek on a new CALDER report.
“The implementation challenges district leaders recounted suggest that the simple-sounding logic of academic intervention — identify students in need and provide them extra support — belies a host of complex design and implementation decisions."
"For example, when it comes to virtual learning tools focused on academic recovery, the study shows that some schools use them during core instruction time while others expect students to use them outside of school."
"Virtual learning tools (e.g., iReady, ALEKS, Dreambox) were used in four of the 12 districts to add academic time to students’ days beyond core instruction."
The Story of VaccineCA: Amazing article about the group of volunteers that quickly became Google’s and then the US Government’s best source on where to find vaccines during the pandemic. Included this blurb:
"The essential workers list heavily informed the vaccination prioritization schedule. Lobbyists used it as procedural leverage to prioritize their clients for vaccines. The veterinary lobby was unusually candid, in writing, about how it achieved maximum priority (1A) for veterinarians due to them being ‘healthcare workers’."
Teachers’ unions worked tirelessly and landed teachers a 1B. They were ahead of 1C, which included (among others) non-elderly people for whom preexisting severe disability meant that ‘a covid-19 infection is likely to result in severe life-threatening illness or death’."
"The public rationale was that teachers were at elevated risk of exposure through their occupation. Schools were, of course, mostly closed at the time, and teachers were Zooming along with the rest of the professional-managerial class, but teachers’ unions have power and so 1B it was. Young, healthy teachers quarantining at home were offered the vaccine before people who doctors thought would probably die if they caught Covid."
COVID-Vaccinated Disdain Unvaccinated: CIDRAP on a new study in Nature.
"People around the world who are vaccinated against COVID-19 look down on the unvaccinated as much or more than they do often-marginalized groups such as immigrants, drug addicts, and ex-convicts, while the unvaccinated display little rancor toward the vaccinated."
"Unvaccinated targets face significantly more exclusionary reactions than immigrants in 11 out of 21 countries, while immigrants do not face significantly more exclusionary reactions in any of the countries," the researchers wrote. "We do not suggest that the characteristics of these groups are comparable but this finding nonetheless suggests that the substantive size of the exclusionary reactions facing the unvaccinated is high."
"The animosity could have serious repercussions for society, the researchers said. "The conflict between those who are vaccinated against COVID-19 and those who are not threatens societal cohesion as a new socio-political cleavage, and the vaccinated clearly seem to be the ones deepening this rift," lead author Alexander Bor, PhD, said in the release."
Federal
ED: Updates ESSER FAQ as spending reaches halfway mark, via K12 Dive.
“In a new section of the FAQ, for example, the Education Department describes how ESSER and Governor’s Emergency Education Relief funds can be spent on family engagement activities and assessments for multilingual learners. “
“Another section explains how the use of ESSER funds for purchasing and installing video security systems would be allowable in limited circumstances as it relates to promoting safe and secure schools.”
“The updated FAQ explains how ESSER funds cannot be used to renovate or construct athletic facilities, such as playing fields and swimming pools, unless there is a connection between the expenditure and the district’s COVID-19 response.”
Child Tax Credit: “The White House has privately signaled to Democrats that it would support a compromise deal to revive the expanded Child Tax Credit, even if it includes work requirements it once opposed,” Politico reports.
“A remarkable shift for an administration that has resisted applying such conditions to anti-poverty programs, it comes amid a recent push in Congress to include an expansion in a year-end legislative package while Democrats still control both chambers. And it reflects the growing urgency within the administration to salvage a policy that ranks among President Joe Biden’s signature achievements.”
Congress: House Republicans are moving toward forcing President Biden to issue his first veto — over a measure to terminate the national emergency declaration for COVID.
Related via Axios: "What happens when the COVID national emergency ends"
Congress: Sinema switches, scrambles Senate.
Related via Punchbowl: Sinema leaving the party gives Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) "outsized sway once again."
GSA: Your gift guide to the General Services Administration auction website.
White House: Biden Harris Administration Announces Bold Multi-Sector Actions to Eliminate Systemic Barriers in STEMM.
Covid Research
Only Half of COVID Preprint Studies Later Published in Journals: CIDRAP: "Slightly more than half of COVID-19–related scientific studies posted on the preprint server medRxiv were published in peer-reviewed journals within the next 2 years, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA Network Open."
State
California:
Governor Newsom announces an unprecedented $480.5 million in grants for youth mental health.
Only 1 in 9 Los Angeles students will attend extra learning days. What happened?
"In all, more than 45,000 students had signed up by midday Tuesday — nearly 11% of the district’s 422,276 students. More than 8,000 of the district’s teachers and administrators have agreed to take part as well as more than 6,000 nonteaching employees such as bus drivers, supervision aides, cafeteria workers and custodians."
"In all, 293 schools — out of about 1,000 campuses districtwide — will be open, including all 100 “priority” schools identified because of low academic achievement or because they’re in a community with deep poverty, high crime or other issues."
New York: NYC Health Commissioner issued an advisory "as NYC faces high levels of COVID-19, flu and RSV. New Yorkers are strongly urged to wear masks in public indoor settings and crowded outdoor settings," including schools.
International
China: "Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said China’s moves to abandon its Covid Zero stance probably amount to the biggest policy shift in decades, likely to have a powerful but unpredictable impact on the world’s second-biggest economy.
“We don’t yet know how this is going to work out,” Summers told Bloomberg Television’s “Wall Street Week” with David Westin. “Is this going to be a successful rejoining of the reality of the rest of the world? Or is this going to lead to catastrophic, de-legitimizing performance of the Chinese health-care system?”
Economic Recovery
This Boom's Here to Stay: Via Stripe: More than 350 cities are now home to businesses that collectively process more than $100 million in transactions annually using Stripe. In 2017, there were only 50. More via Axios.
Resources
Half of Largest School Districts Changed Leaders Since Pandemic: The 74 on a new report from the ILO Group.
"Half of the nation’s 500 largest school districts have changed superintendents or are in the midst of a transition."
"Forty-seven of those districts have seen two or more leadership changes. The turnover has been particularly hard on women: Of the 94 female superintendents who left their positions, two-thirds were replaced by men."
Broadband:
Minnesota awards $100 million in grants supporting 61 broadband expansion projects
Using the new maps, and a 100 Mbps download and 20 upload throughput as the threshold for acceptable broadband, 37% of households have access to 1 offering, 34% have access to 2 offerings, and 18% have access to 3 or more offerings.
Treasury authorizes CPF broadband funding for Colorado ($171M) and New Mexico ($117M)
Educational Resources Impact Fund: Maycomb Capital closes flexible, mission-aligned loans to increase access to high-quality instructional materials. The first two loans were made to Illustrative Mathematics and CenterPoint Education Solutions.
Schools Are Spending Big Bucks on Online Tutoring. Here’s What They’ve Learned:Via EdWeek
"Since the start of the pandemic through March 15 of this year, school districts across the country had spent $1.7 billion, or $199 per student, of their COVID-19 federal relief funding on tutoring, both online and in person, according to data from FutureEd, a Georgetown University research center that has been analyzing COVID-19 relief spending."
"In December 2020, the Jefferson County school district in Louisville, Ky., entered into a contract with FEV Tutor to offer about five hours of tutoring per week to around 7,000 3rd through 12th graders."
"The Jefferson County district made a point to ensure that its tutoring would follow the Annenberg research, Dossett said. That’s why the district went with FEV Tutor for the bulk of its program. The tutoring service helps schools in the district to identify students struggling with core subjects based on their MAP scores, which come from tests administered at several points throughout the year. Those students then participate in live video tutoring with the same tutor five hours a week during class time."
"So why does on-demand online tutoring seem to fall so short? For one thing, it requires students themselves to take initiative. Only students who log in three days a week for at least 30 minutes of live tutoring help are going to have significant academic gains, and those students are often already high achievers, Loeb said."
Parent & Public Polling: Via EdChoice and Morning Consult: Report / K-12 Parent Crosstabs / Adults 18+ Crosstabs.
One-fifth of the general population have heard about how their state has done on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). One-fourth of school parents have heard the same information.
The proportion of parents who are ‘very satisfied’ with their home school experiences is now higher than parents of children in other school types.
Parents cite location as the main reason their child is in their respective school type. Parents consider religion least often when choosing a school for their child.
In November, just under two in five parents indicated they are currently using a tutor or are interested in tutoring for their children.
New ChatGPT: Will force colleges to get creative to prevent cheating. One example of a detailed prompt I gave it this morning using a Common App essay question. Same with K12 schools! I've already heard reports of teens using it to do homework and write essays.
Just a Panda: Living his best life.