Top Three
Engaging Chronically Absent Students: “A study shows that the Connecticut Learner Engagement and Attendance Program (LEAP) made a significant difference in reducing student absenteeism, particularly with secondary school students.”
FutureEd: "The new research is important for two reasons. First, it showcases a powerful intervention for improving student attendance, which is essential for academic recovery. Second, it highlights a second Connecticut initiative: using federal aid to create a research consortium that can turn around results quickly and guide district-level work."
"Fifteen school districts received money for Connecticut’s LEAP program, which they used to pay school staff and community organizers to visit nearly 8,700 chronically absent students and families at their homes or other locations. One district targeted entire neighborhoods rather concentrating on students with the most severe absenteeism problems and saw little change in attendance patterns."
Rapid Development of an Integrated Network Infrastructure to Conduct Phase 3 COVID-19 Vaccine Trials: Study on Operation Warp Speed.
"The COVID-19 pandemic caused over 400 million cases and 6 million deaths in just 2 years."
"Within weeks of the start of the crisis, the US government leveraged industry, government, and academic resources toward the study of COVID-19 vaccines and monoclonal antibodies in diverse populations worldwide."
"This effort leveraged the expertise of existing research networks, established a joint DSMB, deployed 5 phase 3 clinical trials with harmonized end points, and ultimately led to the successful completion of multiple studies and FDA-authorized vaccines in less than a year."
"Importantly, this success can be replicated for other important research initiatives and serve as a standard for future clinical studies. Investment and use of this collaborative cross-platform model will continue to provide answers to pressing COVID-19 questions and serve as a model for future pandemics."
Illinois Enrollment Drops: Via Chalkbeat:
"Preliminary data released last week by the Illinois State Board of Education shows overall enrollment dropped by about 31,000 students — or 1.7% — between last school year and the current one, according to numbers as of Dec. 14."
"Chicago Public Schools accounts for at least a quarter of the decline. The district lost 9,000 students and its place as the third largest school district in the country."
"The overall enrollment decline for students between pre-kindergarten to 12th grade across the state matches the trend prior to the pandemic. After the pandemic hit, state data showed about 69,000 students leaving public schools – about a 3.5% drop – during the 2020-21 school year."
Federal
ED: Press Release: "$63 Million to Expand Community Schools and Increase Social, Emotional, Mental Health, and Academic Support for Students, Educators, and Families.
The White House also released a toolkit.
White House: Chief of Staff Ron Klain is expected to step down and Jeff Zients, who ran President Biden’s Covid-19 response effort and served in high-ranking roles in the Obama administration, is expected to replace him.
A few reasons for why Zients is a great choice for this role:
His reputation as a pragmatic problem-solver with a strong ability to execute is well-deserved, given his role in fixing Healthcare.gov and the rollout of the Covid vaccines. These skills will be important given that the biggest policy risks over the next two years are implementing the IIJA, CHIPS, and the IRA - not necessarily in negotiating new bills with a gridlocked Congress.
He served as Director National Economic Council during the Obama administration and was acting director of the Office of Management and Budget during the 2011 debt ceiling fight. So he has experience navigating the economic headwinds currently facing the country.
I've had the chance to work with him in a few capacities, including as a member of the Aspen Institute Future of Work Taskforce and coordinating some Covid initiatives with our grantees. I appreciated his curiosity and his ability to just break down big problems into discrete, manageable components. Excited for him and the Administration!
Covid Research
Vaccine Legislation: Pluribus News:
"At least 82 measures targeting some element of state-level vaccine policy have been introduced in 18 states already this year, according to a tally by Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco who studies vaccine policy."
"Of those bills, at least 29 are specific to vaccines against the virus that causes Covid-19. Forty-six are related to vaccines in general, not just the coronavirus, while the rest are ambiguous or apply to some combination of vaccines, Reiss said."
Vaccinated Pregnant Women Less Prone to Serious Omicron: CIDRAP on new study.
No Holiday Bump, But XBB.1.5 Continues To Rise:
The CDC said in its weekly overview that the 7-day average for new daily cases is 47,459, down nearly 24% compared to a week ago. For the week ending Jan 16, the virus was hospitalizing just over 5,000 new patients each day, down 16.4% from the previous week.
In its variant update, the CDC estimated the more transmissible and immune-evasive XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariant makes up nearly 50% of sequences, up from 43% the previous week.
State
Florida: Florida Department of Education announced that the 2021-22 high school graduation rate was 87.3%, an increase of 0.4 percentage points over the 2018-19 pre-pandemic school year. Nearly all subgroups of students, including Black students, students from economically disadvantaged families, and students with disabilities, increased their graduation rates from the 2018-19 school year.
Indiana: "Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) students showed little to no learning loss when they returned to classes last fall."
"The on-grade level percentage on ELA NWEA for K-8 was about 2 percentage points ahead when comparing the fall of 2021 to 2022. Also, the projected proficiency percentage on Math NWEA for IPS was about 5 percentage points ahead of last fall as compared to the same point in 2021."
Massachusetts: The lights have been on at a school for over a year because no one can turn them off.
Michigan: Governor wants tutoring program in place before spring break.
Economic Recovery
Community College Enrollments: "Community colleges gained dual-enrollment students but lost recent high school grads and adult learners at high rates, according to a recent analysis of federal enrollment data."
State Priorities for Higher Education in 2023: Survey of SHEEOs. "Improving workforce development and addressing K-12 teacher shortages are top of mind for state higher education leaders as the 2023 legislative sessions begin."
Future of Work: NYT: "How These Dog Walkers Make Over $100,000 a Year."
STATION F Launches Immersion Program for International Ecosystems: Great opportunity for states and cities who are contemplating applying for the Regional Innovation Hubs or just trying to jump-start their start-up ecosystem.
Also - it’s in Paris.
Inflation: WSJ: "Consumer Prices Plateau as Inflation Slows to Prepandemic Levels."
Resources
Education in Governors' 2023 State-of-the State Addresses: FutureEd is tracking the issues covered in the speeches.
Creating Equitable Access to Computer Science Education: Gov. Hutchinson on his 2022-23 ECS Chair’s Initiative, following the incredible progress made through last year's NGA Initiative.
State Privacy Legislation in 2023: Via Multistate.
Connecticut, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, and Virginia have all introduced bills that would restrict the collection of information from children.
There has also been a trend of legislation giving parents more tools to filter access to the internet for their children. Lawmakers in Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia have all filed legislation for this session that would require age authentication to access certain websites or require certain parental filters.
Community Schools Forward: New resources from the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution (CUE), the Children’s Aid National Center for Community Schools (NCCS), the Coalition for Community Schools (CCS) at IEL, and the Learning Policy Institute (LPI).
Broadband:
The FCC announced it is committing over $40 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Program. To date, the program has provided support to approximately 10,000 schools, 1,000 libraries, and 100 consortia, and providing over 12 million connected devices and over 8 million broadband connections.
McKinsey: Five steps could help to bring broadband and digital equity to every Black household in the United States—urban and rural—while bolstering efforts to create a more inclusive economy.
The NTIA said that the next update to the National Broadband Map will come out June 30 as planned, rejecting requests made by some states for an extension. Those states wanted more time to file challenges to map data.
The Utah Broadband Center (UBC), powered by the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, announced two new broadband planning grants are available to help local governments, municipalities, nonprofits, and government agencies develop plans to expand high-speed internet access and adoption in Utah communities.
ESAs: "Capitalizing on parent’s frustration with public schools during the pandemic, Republican governors across the country are putting education savings accounts at the center of their legislative agendas."
Trying to Get Off the Phone: "I have a hard stop coming up..."
Good People: Delilah has been battling cancer for over 4 years.
During treatments her favorite song has been "Hey There Delilah", by the Plain White T’s.