Covid-19 Policy Update #626
Covid-19 Policy Update #626
Thursday 1/19
Top Three
"Exhausted Majority" Wants to Rethink K-12 Education: New report by Todd Rose and the Populace team (Axios / The 74)
55% of Americans want schools to rethink how they teach kids, rather than simply returning to the way things were before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Preparing students for college has fallen from the 10th highest priority to 47th.
Student success being evaluated based on standardized tests was ranked as a bottom 10 priority (#49).
"The top five privately-held priorities, according to the survey, were:
"Students develop practical skills (e.g. manage personal finances, prepare a meal, make an appointment)"
"Students are able to think critically to problem solve and make decisions"
"Students demonstrate character (e.g. honesty, kindness, integrity, and ethics)"
"Students can demonstrate basic reading, writing, and arithmetic"
"All students receive the unique supports that they need throughout their learning"
"One privately prioritized outcome of the education system is that students demonstrate character (e.g. honesty, kindness, integrity, ethics), not only among the general population (#3), but also among parents (#5), and most demographic subgroups."
Common Ground How Public K-12 Schools Are Navigating Pandemic Disruptions and Political Trends: New 117 page Bellwether report.
NYC Funding Cliff: Chalkbeat on a new report by Advocates for Children of New York:
"City officials have used a significant chunk of that one-time relief on initiatives that have recurring costs."
"A range of programs are receiving one-time federal money, including expanded summer school ($236 million), hundreds of new prekindergarten seats for students with disabilities ($88 million), screening for students with dyslexia and other literacy programs ($7.4 million), and a raft of hiring including new social workers and nurses (roughly $135 million)."
"City officials declined to say whether they plan to slash any of those programs or, if not, where the funding will come from."
Federal
State Department: Announced a pilot program - Welcome Corps - that will allow groups of private American citizens and permanent residents to financially sponsor the resettlement of refugees fleeing war and violence across the world.
Private Sponsor Groups will support the refugee newcomer(s) in enrolling any school-aged children in school, available child development programs and/or childcare.
CBS: "Under the program, modeled after a long-standing system in Canada, groups of at least five U.S.-based individuals could have the opportunity to sponsor refugees if they raise $2,275 per refugee, pass background checks and submit a plan about how they will assist the newcomers."
Debt Ceiling: Was reached today, leading the Treasury Department to use “extraordinary measures” to postpone a potential default until early June at the earliest.
WSJ: "This kicks off a potentially lengthy and difficult debate in Congress over raising the debt ceiling."
"President Biden and Democrats who control the Senate say they won’t allow Republicans to pressure them to cut federal programs, pointing to recent agreements to raise the debt limit that didn’t include spending cuts."
Covid Research
Lack of Vaccination, Severe Illness Tied to Higher Risk of Long COVID: CIDRAP on a US military study which suggests that people who are unvaccinated against COVID-19 and those with moderate or severe infections are at significantly higher risk for persistent symptoms for 1 to 6 months.
Among the 1,832 participants, 236 (12.9%) were hospitalized for COVID-19 and 39.7% were ill for at least 28 days, with 19.9% each sick for at least 90 days and 364 days.
The most common moderate or severe symptoms 1 month after illness onset were fatigue (6.5%), exercise intolerance (5.9%), difficulty breathing (4.7%), loss of sense of smell and/or taste (5.3%), and cough (3.8%).
Of the 62.1% who completed a 6-month survey, 9.8% said they still had at least one COVID-related symptom.
All participants had a higher risk of diabetes, and lung, neurologic, and mental illness-related healthcare visits 6 months after symptom onset than before infection.
Review Finds Hybrid Immunity Provides Best Protection Against Omicron: CIDRAP on a review and meta-regression of 26 studies which found that hybrid SARS-CoV-2 immunity provides the highest level of protection against the Omicron variant.
Pregnancy Risks: A large pre-Omicron study involving more than 13,000 women across 12 nations finds that pregnant women with COVID-19 have a sevenfold increase in death rates compared with uninfected women and a much higher risk of severe disease.
A Better Covid Winter: NYT: Covid hospitalizations have not surged so far this season.
State
Colorado: The number of public school students decreased to near 2020 levels, with a total of 883,264 students in preschool through 12th grade.
Ohio: Fordham: "Ohio should be more transparent about its federal Covid relief spending."
Washington: Via Richard Reeves, "The case for a Commission on Boys and Men: Will Washington state lead the way?"
Resources
Numeracy for All: Zearn’s Shalinee Sharma in EdNext: "U.S. kids were struggling in math even before the pandemic. Here are four key ways to help students understand."
Create learning experiences that equip students to make sense of math.
Accelerate the math learning of every student.
Implement scalable and coherently connected, extra learning time.
Share real-time data to make ongoing, evidence-based improvements.
The Kids Are Not Alright: Student Engagement is a Major Concern: Via Gradient:
50% of students say they are not engaged in what they are learning in school most of the time.
78% said building stronger teacher-student connections is highly effective at increasing student engagement.
72% said connecting learning to real-world skills helps students stay engaged in their learning.
School Boards Are Limiting Public Comment. Will That Erode Trust?: Via EdWeek.
Expanding Publicly Funded Pre-K: How To Do It and Do It Well: Via McKinsey.
Ultra Ultra Marathon: Marathon runner Erchana Murray-Bartlett ran across Australia.
On Monday, the 32-year-old finished her 3,900 mile journey - a marathon every day for 150 days.
Related: My iPhone notified me that I closed my Stand ring today.
The Detroit Youth Choir: Performs Thunder
"Thunder, feel the thunder (never give up, never give up)"