Covid-19 Policy Update #668: The Final Issue
Wednesday 6/28
Here it is. Your final Covid-19 Policy Update.
It comes after some great discussions at the Aspen Health Festival last week that reflected on the pandemic response and ongoing recovery. Andy Slavitt was also kind enough to include me in a small dinner organized to honor Tony Fauci. It was a great group dedicated to public health, including FDA Commissioner Califf and CMS Director Meena Seshamani. I had the chance to share some of the work this community has done and discuss the pressing academic recovery and youth mental health challenges that lie ahead of us.
We also had a great turnout at the reception last evening, especially considering how many of you were attending ISTE, the National Conference on Student Assessment, or enjoying vacation (based on your emails, it seems like Europe is quite the hotspot right now). It was great to see many familiar faces and also to meet some of you in person for the first time.
I also want to acknowledge that while the immediate public health crisis is fading, the magnitude of the challenges our children are facing is becoming glaringly evident. We can see it in rising chronic absenteeism rates, declining NAEP scores, poor state assessment results, and concerning trends in youth mental health.
Responding to Covid involved the immense challenge of making sense of confusing and often conflicting information in our effort to be safe in the moment, plan for the future, and better understand rapidly changing events in the world. Yet I wonder if an even greater and more complex challenge lies ahead in our efforts to ensure that we do not fail this generation of young people who have borne the brunt of these unprecedented times. We have important and urgent work to do moving forward, and I look forward to working with you toward that end.
I’ll have one more post sharing some final thoughts and reflections, but for now, I just want to express my appreciation for you and the important work you’ve led over these last three years. It’s been a privilege to learn from and support you through these updates.
With gratitude,
—John
Top Three
The Myth of Early Pandemic Polarization: Via NYT:
"The story is this. When Covid arrived on American shores, the United States did not have to collapse into Covid partisanship, with citizen turning against citizen and each party vilifying the other as the source of our national misery. Instead, political leaders could have moved forward more or less in unison, navigating epidemiological uncertainties unencumbered by the weight of the culture war."
"This is one of the revelations of “Lessons From the Covid War, an Investigative Report,” by 34 experts, published in April by PublicAffairs."
"On average, those [stay at home] orders lasted for a couple of weeks longer under the 23 Democratic governors than 17 Republican ones in those states — seven weeks compared with five, at the beginning of a public health emergency that lasted 171 weeks."
"The states that reached the highest peaks of policy stringency — mostly from late March to early May 2020 — were Maine, Idaho, New Mexico, Kentucky, Maryland and Alaska. Not far behind were Montana, Minnesota, Wyoming, New York, Delaware, Rhode Island and Hawaii. Just try to draw an ideological line connecting these groupings."
"Probably the most explosive and long-lasting fight was over school closings, but those fights didn’t take off in earnest until September 2020 at the earliest. According to a database maintained by Education Week, all but nine states ordered their schools closed for the remainder of the academic year in spring 2020. Of the nine that didn’t, three with Democratic governors, including California, and four with Republican governors, including Florida, recommended it. Two controlled by Republicans left the question up to local school districts."
"The 41 states that ordered statewide closings did so almost in unison. The earliest closings were announced on March 16 by 18 states — half run by Democrat governors and half by Republican governors at the time. Even when states began to relax restrictions on in-person instruction in the fall of 2020, Oxford researchers found a remarkable uniformity. In September 2020, 36 of the 50 states required the same level of stringency, and by December, 42 of the 50 states exhibited the same level of guidance."
"Second, there was simple exhaustion over mitigation policies — closed schools, limited socialization, suspended professional and family and romantic life — with each party offering different perspectives on how to put the previous six months behind us."
"Third was the normalization of mass death, with many Americans tuning out the ongoing illness and mortality as a kind of annoying background noise."
"There is a common view that politics, a ‘red response’ and a ‘blue response,’ were the main obstacle to protecting citizens, not competence and policy failures,” they write: We found, instead, that it was more the other way around. Incompetence and policy failures, including the failure of federal executive leadership, produced bad outcomes, flying blind, and resorting to blunt instruments. Those failures and tensions fed toxic politics that further divided the country in a crisis rather than bringing it together."
Study Estimates 6-Times-Higher Odds of COVID in Households Amid Omicron: Via CIDRAP:
"The risk of infection rose significantly among household contacts aged 0 to 19 years, from 3% before variants of concern to 38% amid Omicron. Infection rates for non-household contacts in this age-group, however, were lower."
Related: Household COVID Omicron Spread Lower Among Vaccinated.
Advancing Economic Development in Persistent-Poverty Communities: Via EIG.
35 million Americans reside in a persistent-poverty community.
"More than twice as many Black and Hispanic Americans are represented in PPTGs than in persistent-poverty counties, as well as 20 percent more white Americans in those PPTGs than at the county level."
"It is very rare that once-high poverty places eventually turn around. Only 7 percent of counties that were high poverty in 1990 had poverty rates fall comfortably below 20 percent by 2019 and also experienced population growth in the process."
Federal
NTIA/White House: Press Release: "Biden-Harris Administration Announces State Allocations for $42.45 Billion High-Speed Internet Grant Program as Part of Investing in America Agenda."
$200+ Billion in Covid Aid May Have Been Stolen: Via The AP
Head Start: Federal Registrar: Removal of the Vaccine Requirements for Head Start Programs.
Covid Research
U.S. Vaccine Program Now Flush With Cash, but Short on Key Details: Via NYT.
"Efforts to develop the next generation of Covid vaccines are running up against bureaucratic hassles and regulatory uncertainty, scientists say, obstacles that could make it harder to curb the spread of the coronavirus and arm the United States against future pandemics."
"Project NextGen, conceived with Covid deaths at their lowest level, has neither Warp Speed’s vast money nor the mandate to purchase shots in bulk."
Harassment Against Scientists Is Out of Control: Via Katelyn Jetelina.
False claim: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic Was Caused by Vaccines: Via Reuters.
US Intelligence Agency Releases Declassified Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 Lab Leak Assessments: CIDRAP on the declassified DNI report.
State
Connecticut: Via CT Insider: "CT criticized for denying dozens of grants to improve air quality in schools"
"Despite pledges from Gov. Ned Lamont over a year ago to spend $150 million on the initiative, the state has only approved grants totaling $56 million, or about one-third of the money available."
DC: Via Bellwether: "Students Speak: A Snapshot of Youth Well-Being in the District of Columbia"
Indiana: New Indiana education dashboard data sheds light on student performance, teacher retention.
Maryland: Tutoring Corps' to attack learning loss.
New Jersey: Via the NYT: "Newark public schools are cautiously trying out a new automated teaching aid from Khan Academy. The preliminary report card: “could use improvement."
New York: "Eric Goldstein, who oversaw the feeding of New York schoolchildren, took bribes to allow food with bits of bone and plastic in cafeterias."
Resources
Brookings: The next Brookings president is Cecilia Rouse who comes from Princeton University and previously served in the White House as the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Peering Past the Hype: K-12 Teacher and Administrator Perspectives on AI in the Classroom: Via Tyton
"Educators have a clear perception that the daunting tasks of managing behavioral issues (61%), counteracting learning loss (57%), and supporting student mental health needs (53%) – all amplified by teacher staffing shortages (35%) – take precedence over any discussion on innovative technology like AI (10%)."
"Educators also report a lack of clarity around what students are using AI tools for. 30% don’t know students’ primary use cases. Those who are aware of student use suspect they are primarily using AI in harmful ways, such as for composing complete writing assignments (39%)."
"Teachers themselves are at an early stage of adoption, not yet embracing AI tools at the same rate as students. Most educators are familiar with generative AI but have never used it (35%) or have used it just once or twice (27%). Only 8% are frequent users (using daily or weekly)."
‘School Leaders Have 99 Problems, But NAEP Scores Ain’t One’: Argues Larry Ferlazzo in EdWeek:
"While education pundits want to talk about test scores and to relitigate decisions about when schools should have returned to face-to-face learning, those charged with making building-level decisions are focused on much more human and operational challenges."
"There is more to be done to understand why students are choosing to not attend school. Lots of evidence points to the fact that students just don’t like or value school. That has long been true for lots of students. But, like so many other aspects of society, that phenomenon seems to have been exacerbated by the pandemic. And I understand."
"The educational pundit and think tank class likes to talk about NAEP scores and “learning loss,” particularly to be able to confirm their a priori beliefs. Their preferred “solutions” include more school (extended day, summer school, etc.) and “intensive tutoring.” But more school is not a viable solution when the problem is kids not coming to school in the first place."
New NAEP Scores Reveal the Failure of Pandemic Academic Recovery Efforts: Via Vladimir Kogan in The 74.
Child Care Cliff: 3.2 Million Children Likely to Lose Spots with End of Federal Funds: Via the Century Foundation.
A Work in Progress: How Covid Aid is Helping Schools Recover and the Need for Sustained Federal Support: Via Chiefs for Change.
The Teaching Profession is Facing a Post-Pandemic Crisis: Via Chalkbeat.
Why Aren’t More Women Running America’s School Districts?: Via Julia Rafal-Baer.
Create and promote support systems to prepare women for leadership.
Rebalance the hiring process by requiring and promoting best practices.
Provide family and well-being supports.
Set public goals for female leadership and increase transparency.
Ensure financial fairness.
How AI Tutoring Can Reshape Teachers’ Days: Via EdWeek:
"So, here’s a potentially more feasible solution to work toward: Every student receives at least one to two hours of in-person tutoring each school day from professional teachers while the rest of their time is spent in two ways."
"They would either be using highly personalized, AI-based tutoring platforms along the lines suggested by entrepreneurial educator Sal Khan or participating in teacher-led academic and nonacademic group activities. Students’ days would be a mix of individualized, small-group, and large-group activities—some delivered by an artificially intelligent platform and the rest by regular teachers."
Pandemic Learning Loss: Why Is It So Hard to Get Kids Caught Up?: Via Marty West in The Boston Globe:
"Why has it been so hard to get students caught up? A lack of financial resources is not the problem; school districts are awash in federal funds to support recovery efforts. Research from Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research indicates that these efforts have been hampered by staffing shortages, scheduling challenges, and other implementation issues."
"To meet their needs, policymakers and education leaders should take a close look at NAEP results and other key data, be honest with families, and enact evidence-based recovery strategies. For many students, that will probably mean finding ways to increase instructional time, whether through high-dosage tutoring or supplemental programming during school vacations and over the summer."
State Spending Slows: NASBO: "State spending growth will likely slow in the coming fiscal year, as many governors recommend smaller increases and in some cases urge cuts, according to a survey of state officials released Thursday"
Remembering James Crown: Who passed away. Aspen Institute statement.
How To Spot An Idiot: Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker’s speech at Northwestern’s graduation.
Deputy Dog Radar: Give him all the cookies.
I'll Never Understand: How pandas survive in the wild.