Covid-19 Policy Update #663
Covid-19 Policy Update #663
Monday 6/5
Top Three
Schools Received Billions in Stimulus Funds. It May Not Be Doing Enough: Via the NYT.
"Yet, while most schools have since deployed various forms of interventions and some have spent more on academic recovery than others, there are ample signs that the money has not been spent in a way that has substantially helped all of the nation’s students lagging behind."
"Robin Lake, the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, said the impact of the funding has been a “bit of a black box,” and she expected to see different recovery rates across districts. Ms. Lake said giving across-the-board bonuses, completing maintenance projects and plugging holes in budgets were less effective interventions."
"Sasha Pudelski, a director at AASA, the School Superintendents Association, said districts were prioritizing spending on additional learning time. According to July data from AASA, 68 percent of districts were spending some funds on expanded summer learning, 42 percent were adding learning time by compensating staff and 39 percent were providing high-intensity tutoring."
IES Director Mark Schneider on Education Research and the Future of Schools: Via The 74.
"But Schneider sees a new role for federal research endeavors. Through the use of public competitions and artificial intelligence, the director wants IES to help incubate breakthrough technologies and treatments that can help student performance take a giant leap forward in the coming years. Rapid-cycle experimentation and replication, he hopes, will help reverse more than a decade of stagnation in K–12 performance."
"ChatGPT just opened up a whole world of discussion about the use of AI. But what happened with ChatGPT is like what we’re trying to do. The world has been doing AI for literally decades, but the last 10 years have seen increased computing power and more complexity in the models, and the foundational models have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. We built an incredible foundation: machine learning, data science, AI. And all of a sudden, boom! ChatGPT is the first thing that caught the public’s attention, but it was built on this amazing foundation. Nobody knows what the next thing is that will break through, but they’re all being built on decades’ worth of work that established this foundation. It’s the same thing with mRNA research — the COVID vaccine could not have happened without that foundation."
More Than 70% of Household COVID Spread Started With a Child: CIDRAP on a new study.
"A total of 15.8% of readings met the criteria for fever, making up 779,092 fever episodes. The number of fever episodes predicted new COVID-19 cases, which the researchers said lends validity to using fever as a proxy for infection. Of these cases, 15.4% were considered household transmissions, the percentage of which rose from 10.1% in March to July 2021 to 17.5% in the Omicron BA.1/BA.2 variant wave."
"Among 166,170 households with both adult and child participants (51.9% of households with multiple participants), there were 516,159 participants, 51.4% of whom were children. In these households, 38,787 transmissions occurred, 40.8% of which were child to child, 29.6% child to adult, 20.3% adult to child, and 9.3% adult to adult. The median serial interval between the index and secondary cases was 2 days."
"Of all households transmissions, 70.4% began with a child, with the proportion fluctuating weekly between 36.9% and 87.5%. Pediatric transmissions reached a high of 68.4% the week of September 27, 2020, and fell to a low of 41.7% the week of December 27, 2020 (0.61 times less frequent). The next high was 82.0% the week of May 23, 2021, which stayed stable until June 27 (81.4%) and then declined to 62.5% by August 8 (0.77 times less frequent)."
"Once US schools reopened in fall 2020, children contributed more to inferred within-household transmission when they were in school, and less during summer and winter breaks, a pattern consistent for 2 consecutive school years."
Federal
CDC: Dr. Deborah L. Birx: "Now that the COVID-19 national public health emergency is over, it’s time to fix the CDC."
"We need a new public health model that includes integrated data systems based on our health care delivery network and an annual report to Congress on the top five public health issues. Funding should be linked to improved outcomes to hold the CDC accountable for its mission. It's not about more money; it's about how each dollar is spent."
"The CDC must transform itself into a body that acts and uses data for continuous programmatic improvement – and one that holds itself accountable for both preventing and controlling disease. We need a CDC that combats misinformation and disinformation with data-driven decision-making in partnership with local communities. One that lives and works at the local level and empowers and evolves with information."
"The new CDC must recognize that Americans need choices, and that it needs to help bring communities together rather than drive them apart. It should engage behavioral scientists to develop clear strategies to address vaccine hesitancy and prevent chronic disease. It must ensure its evidence-based guidance is practical and can be implemented on the ground."
Debt Ceiling: Via K12 Dive: "Education spared from severe cuts with the signing of debt ceiling deal."
MTP: Chuck Todd announced that he would be stepping down with Kristen Welker taking the helm.
“Listen more to what the voter has to say and listen less to what the candidates claim the voters are saying."
"As I’ve watched too many friends and family let work consume them, before it was too late, I promised my family I wouldn’t do that."
Covid Research
MSA Innovation Challenge 2023: Via the Market Shaping Accelerator:
"Our inaugural MSA Innovation Challenge 2023 will award up to $2,000,000 in total prizes for ideas that identify areas where a pull mechanism would help spur innovation in biosecurity, pandemic preparedness, and climate change, and for teams to design that incentive mechanism from ideation to contract signing."
State
Illinois: Via The 74: “This Rural Illinois District Curbed Learning Loss With Help From a Burmese Church”
New York: New tutoring initiative will combat pandemic learning loss at NYC schools.
Virginia: "New FOIA response reveals texts between the CDC Director & Randi Weingarten & Becky Pringle, showing close collaboration prior to the CDC's 2021 school reopening guidance."
Economic Recovery
Population Dynamics and Economic Inequality: NBER paper.
"Broad movements in American earnings inequality since the mid-20th century show a correlation with the working-age share of the population, evoking concerns dating to the 18th century that as more individuals in a population seek work the returns to labor diminish."
"This paper reconsiders the impact of supply-side dynamics on inequality, in the context of a literature that has favored demand-side explanations for at least 30 years, and a recent movement toward equality that coincides with the retirement of the baby boom generation, reduced immigration, and a long trend toward reduced fertility."
"Evidence suggests an important role for the population age distribution in economic inequality, and coupled with demographic projections of an aging population and continued low fertility portends a broad trend toward greater equality over at least the next two decades."
Resources
Margaret Spellings Named New Bipartisan Policy Center CEO: Very exciting. Congrats to Margaret and the entire team at BPC.
Moving from “Reform” to “Rethinking”: Via Rick Hess
"In education, we may be in the midst of such a moment. The COVID-19 pandemic stressed and stretched schooling in unprecedented ways. Routines that had been in place for generations came to a crashing halt. Some families went a year or more without sending their children to school. The pandemic shattered established relationships, eroded many parents’ trust, and exhausted educators."
"During the pandemic, new routines took hold. Parents expressed frustration and an appetite for new options. The visibility into the curriculum and students’ work that came with remote learning led many parents to become newly engaged—sometimes to educators’ consternation. The pandemic fueled an explosion in homeschooling, greater familiarity with virtual learning, and unprecedented declines in district enrollments."
The Five Habits of Rethinking
Ask why … a lot!
Be precise and specific.
Be deliberate.
Know that new problems may call for new solutions.
Reject change for change’s sake.
‘There Were Fists Everywhere.’ Violence Against Teachers Is on the Rise:Via the WSJ.
Emily Oster: Launched a redesign of her website:
"Today we’re launching a new website that I hope will become your go-to destination for all questions about pregnancy and parenting. You can now easily explore and search for data-driven insights on the topics that are most relevant to you, whether that’s taking antidepressants during pregnancy, giving your baby a pacifier, or preparing to talk to your kids about sex".
Apple Introduces Vision Pro: Announcement.
The Verge: "What does the Apple Vision Pro look like? Imagine a pair of ski goggles. The fanciest, most sci-fi ski goggles you’ve ever seen. There, you’ve got it."
WSJ: "The Vision Pro will be Apple’s first entry into the headset market when it launches early next year. It bridges virtual reality—where you are fully transported to a virtual world—with augmented reality—where you see virtual objects in your real world."
No controllers. It relies solely on your eyes, hands, and voice. 12 cameras, 5 sensors, and 6 microphones.
One review: "Apple has something big here, and they know it. This is the future of computing. My experience was trippy, freaky. Hard to describe but almost like a dream. Spatial photos/video gave me goosebumps. Will revolutionize memories."
Some education use cases are featured along with Zoom and other integrations.
It will cost $3,499, which is high. But that's what the "Pro" in the name suggests - a high end device for professionals with a lower cost consumer version planned for sometime in the future.
I Still Don't Know: How pandas survive in the wild.
The Oscar for Best Drama Goes To: This flying squirrel faked his own death, and created a whole crime scene…for attention. Make sure to wait until the end.