This is our weekly briefing on the pandemic, vetted by John Bailey. .

This Week鈥檚 Top Story 

New Data Reveals XBB.1.5 Variant Surge in Recent Weeks 

• for the week ending Dec. 31. That鈥檚 up about 20% from the week ending Dec. 24.
• Good of what is known about the variant.
• Eric Topol: “, especially among seniors, in recent weeks as this variant has been taking hold. Of course, other factors are likely contributing, such as waning of immunity, indoor/holiday gatherings, cold weather, lack of mitigation. But it is noteworthy that New York鈥檚 COVID hospital admission rate is the highest since late January [2022] (and also exceeds the summer 2021 Delta wave, but with some ambiguity as to how hospitalizations were categorized then and now).”
• shared what we know and don’t know.

The Big Three

Quarantines, Not School Closures, Led to Devastating Losses in Math and Reading

• I have a piece up on 蜜桃影视 that explores the academic disruptions caused by COVID quarantines and how few districts had plans for live instruction.  
• “Quarantine guidance from the CDC required an entire class of students to be sent home for as long as two weeks if they had close contact with a child who tested positive. The result was massive learning disruptions that occurred throughout the school year, even in states where schools were officially reopened.”
• “A bipartisan poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and Impact Research found that on average, children missed five weeks鈥� worth of school in the first half of the academic year, due in part to quarantines.”
• “Only four of the largest 100 districts promised live instruction for quarantined students, and just 36% of quarantined students reported having live classes with teachers.”  
• “Even more devastating: A review of data from the Census Bureau鈥檚 Household Pulse Survey from March to June 2022 found that on average, a staggering 16% of students said they had no live contact with teachers over the previous seven days.”
• “It鈥檚 little wonder then that 7 out of 10 students found quarantine to be disruptive to their learning. And it should not be surprising that so many disrupted school days and so little interaction with teachers would contribute to the academic loss reflected in the NAEP scores.”

Racial Equity Effects of Pandemic Schooling Disruptions in Washington

• The Washington Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee released a new / / .
• Washington Legislative Auditor鈥檚 : 鈥淩acial disparities in student assessment scores increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in higher-poverty schools. [The Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction] does not yet have a process to monitor the effectiveness of federally funded interventions to promote learning recovery.鈥�
• “Student assessment scores [for all groups] declined during the pandemic. School poverty level had the greatest association with assessment scores.”
• The superintendent鈥檚 office 鈥渉as not yet established processes to monitor districts鈥� efforts to address the pandemic’s academic effects or the outcomes of emergency spending.”

In-Person Schooling and Youth Suicide Patterns

• : “We document three key findings. First, using data from the National Vital Statistics System from 1990-2019, we document the historical association between teen suicides and the school calendar. We show that suicides among 12- to-18-year-olds are highest during months of the school year and lowest during summer months (June through August).”
• “Second, we show that this seasonal pattern dramatically changed in 2020. Teen suicides plummeted in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S., and remained low throughout the summer before rising in fall 2020, when many K-12 schools returned to in-person instruction.”
• “Third, using county-level variation in school reopenings in fall 2020 and spring 2021 鈥� proxied by anonymized SafeGraph smartphone data on elementary and secondary school foot traffic 鈥� we find that returning from online to in-person schooling was associated with a 12% to 18% increase teen suicides.”
• “Auxiliary analyses using Google Trends queries and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey suggests that bullying victimization may be an important mechanism.”

Federal Updates

Education Department: Released

• 鈥淚n FY 2021, roughly 43% of expended funds from subgrants to [local education agencies] were used to meet students鈥� academic, social, emotional and other needs. This represents the largest category of LEA subgrant expenditures.鈥�
• 鈥淥ver 2,700 LEAs expended ESSER funds on mental health supports.鈥�
• 鈥淔or FY 2021, 44% of expended funds from subgrants to LEAs were used for personnel, including salaries and benefits for additional staff and additional staff time to address the impacts of lost instructional time.鈥�
• Related: using the latest Education Department data. 

Federal Spending Package: Congress reached consensus around . Some highlights:

• Total for Education Department: $79.6 billion (+$3.2 billion). Title I: $18.4 billion (+$850 million). The bill also directs the department to target $87 million within the Education Innovation and Research grant program to support SEL grants and an additional $87 million for STEM. The bill also directs the Institute of Education Sciences to “support a new funding opportunity for quick turnaround, high-reward scalable solutions.”
• Mental Health: $5.27 billion (+803 million), including $111 million for school-based mental health grants at the Department of Education.
• The National Science Foundation is in line for $10 billion in funding, the largest dollar increase ever for the agency and the largest percentage increase in two decades.
• Related: Omnibus Bill Includes Substantial New Funds for Education R&D

COVID-19 Research

The Economic Cost of the Pandemic

• Learning loss could shave $70,000 off the lifetime earnings of children who were in school during the pandemic.
• : “If the learning losses aren鈥檛 recovered, K-12 students on average will grow into less educated, lower-skilled and less productive adults and will earn 5.6% less over the course of their lives than students educated just before the pandemic 鈥� the losses could total $28 trillion over the rest of this century.”

COVID鈥檚 Winter Surge is Poised to Exceed Summer Peak: .

• “The number of people with COVID-19 is about to surpass the figure reached during this summer鈥檚 spike.”
• “Notably, the number of people hospitalized with COVID 鈥� roughly 40,000 鈥� is still far below the winter waves of 2020-21 and 2021-22 (the wave driven by the original Omicron variant) as well as the Delta wave in summer and fall 2021.”

More Than 1 in 4 Think Someone They Know Died from COVID-19 Vaccines 

• According to a new .
• “Seventy-seven percent of adults who have not gotten COVID-19 vaccinations believe it鈥檚 at least somewhat likely that side effects of COVID-19 vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths. Among those who have gotten the vaccine, just 38% consider unexplained deaths from the vaccine at least somewhat likely.”
• “46% of whites, 48% of Blacks and 57% of other minorities believe it is at least somewhat likely that side effects of COVID-19 vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths.”
• Related: The Inflated Risk of Vaccine-Induced Cardiac Arrest, via : “Damar Hamlin鈥檚 collapse on Monday Night Football calls attention to a medical myth that will not die.”

City & State News

Florida:  

• “ at Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis鈥檚 request to investigate any wrongdoing with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines.”
• 鈥淒eSantis鈥檚 petition for a grand jury investigation into COVID-19 vaccines, in which he decries the ongoing vaccine campaign as 鈥榩ropaganda鈥� by the Biden administration, is drawing fierce criticism from health experts,鈥� .

Louisiana: Louisiana鈥檚 education chief from public devices amid concerns about security and the privacy of user data.

Massachusetts: There are nearly for school nurse positions, accounting for more than 10% of all those in the state.

Michigan: with the state to help improve academic outcomes for students, state education officials announced in November 鈥� an increase over the previous year that reflects underfunding, a teacher shortage and the ongoing impact of COVID-19.

New Mexico: Students in Title I schools, including those in tribally controlled areas, with Paper through a nearly $3.3 million investment.

Viewpoints and Resources

: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation has launched a , seeking creative thinking for the next iteration of federal and/or state K-12 assessment and accountability policy. This design challenge is a part of the foundation’s ongoing partnership with its .

: Windy Lopez-Afilitto in Ms. Magazine

Learning Loss Is Worse than NAEP Showed. Middle School Math Must Be the Priority: David Wakelyn in 蜜桃影视

…And on a Lighter Note

Dance Your Style:

• . It’s fun watching the

Happy New Year: “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice.” T.S. Eliot

For even more COVID policy and education news, .

Disclosure: John Bailey is an adviser to the Walton Family Foundation, which provides financial support to .

This Week鈥檚 Top Story 

• “71% of adults say healthy children should be required to get vaccinated for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) in order to attend public schools, down from 82% who said the same in an October 2019 Pew Research Center poll.”
• “Almost three in 10 (28%) now say that parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their school-age children, even if this creates health risks for others, up from 16% in 2019. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, there has been a 24-percentage-point increase in the share who hold this view (from 20% to 44%).”

The Big Three

• “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, Kentucky, entered into a contract with FEV Tutor to offer about five hours of tutoring per week to around 7,000 third through 12th graders.”
• “The Jefferson County district made a point to ensure that its tutoring would follow the Annenberg research [Dena Dossett, the district鈥檚 chief of research, said]. That鈥檚 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鈥� Those students then participate in live video tutoring with the same tutor five hours a week during class time.”
• 鈥淪o far, it has worked for Jefferson County. Students who used FEV Tutor saw their math scores increase 4.5 points and their reading scores increase 4.2 points in a winter-to-spring 2021-22 analysis of NWEA MAP scores. Students who didn鈥檛 use FEV Tutor grew, too, but not as much.鈥�

‘Late-in-the-Game鈥� COVID Relief Fund Guidance Leaves Some Scratching Their Heads

• Via 蜜桃影视
• “Earlier this month, more than two years into schools鈥� attempts to spend an unprecedented $189 billion in COVID relief funds, federal officials released a that 鈥榮trongly encourages鈥� districts not to spend the windfall on construction.”
• “There鈥檚 one hitch: According to , districts are already spending, or planning to spend, almost a quarter of funds from the American Rescue Plan on facilities and operations.”
• 鈥� 鈥楪etting clarifications and new restrictions this late in the game is tough on [districts],鈥� said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. 鈥榃hat happens if money is already approved and spent before these recent鈥� guidelines were released?”

• on a new
• 鈥淭he implementation challenges district leaders recounted suggest that the simple-sounding logic of academic intervention 鈥� identify students in need and provide them extra support 鈥� 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鈥� days beyond core instruction.”

City & State News

California: 

• Gov. Gavin Newsom announces an unprecedented .

Illinois: .

Virginia: .

Federal Updates

White House: Fact Sheet:

• “The administration is announcing that is open for a limited round of ordering this winter.”
• The Department of Health and Human Services 鈥渨ill work with states to launch teams and 鈥� partner with their Quality Improvement Organizations, home health agencies and emergency medical technicians to deliver vaccines to residents of long-term care facilities.”

Congress: Lawmakers unveil sprawling spending bill to avoid shutdown. The compromise would keep the government open through next fall. Some highlights include:

• $285 million, an increase of $50 million, to support the apprenticeship program
• $20 billion, an increase of $2.8 billion, for the Child Care and Development Block Grant and Head Start.
• An increase of $850 million for Title I grants and an increase of $850 million for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act grants to states
• $150 million, an increase of $75 million, to support additional Full Service Community Schools
• $5.27 billion, an increase of $803.2 million, for mental health research, treatment and prevention

Federal Communications Commission: To date, the has provided support to approximately 10,000 schools, 1,000 libraries and 100 consortia, and provided more than 12 million connected devices and more than 8 million broadband connections.

COVID-19 Research

• Updated bivalent (two-strain) mRNA booster shots, which target the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 sublineages of COVID-19 and the original strain, cut the risk of contracting severe COVID-19 by up to 57%, according to a . 
• A second showed the bivalent boosters are particularly effective at preventing hospitalizations in elderly Americans.  
• and .

• on a new
• “Vaccinated or previously infected COVID-19 hospital patients had lower rates of severe illness and death than their unvaccinated, COVID-naive peers during both Omicron and Delta variant predominance.”
• “While the unvaccinated had fewer poor outcomes during Omicron than in Delta, their risk was similar to that seen with previous SARS-CoV-2 strains.”

More noteworthy research

• COVID-19 Vaccines Saved $1.15 Trillion, 3 Million Lives: A estimates that, through November 2022, COVID-19 vaccines prevented more than and 3.2 million deaths and saved the country $1.15 trillion. More via .
  
• Autopsies Show COVID-19 Virus in Brain, Elsewhere in Body: “An analysis of tissue samples from the autopsies of 44 people who died with COVID-19 shows that SAR-CoV-2 鈥� including into the brain 鈥� and that it lingered for almost eight months. The () was published 鈥� in Nature.”
  
• Only Half of COVID Preprint Studies Later Published in Journals: : “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 two years, according to a published [Dec. 8] in JAMA Network Open.” The 鈥渦nprecedented increase in preprints has been subject to criticism, mainly because of reliability concerns owing to their lack of peer review,鈥� the letter says.

Viewpoints and Analysis

• about the group of volunteers who quickly became Google鈥檚 and then the U.S. government鈥檚 best source on where to find vaccines during the pandemic. Some highlights:
• “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 鈥榟ealth care workers.鈥� “
• 鈥淭eachers unions worked tirelessly and landed teachers a 1B. They were ahead of 1C, which included (among others) non-elderly people for whom pre-existing severe disability meant that 鈥榓 CID-19 infection is likely to result in severe life-threatening illness or death.鈥� “

• 鈥淭hey had to increase their pace 鈥� and they did,鈥� said Marguerite Roza 鈥� who previously questioned whether schools would meet the September 2024 deadline to exhaust the funds. Her new forecast: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think there will be any money left over.鈥�
• 鈥� 鈥榊ou don鈥檛 snap a finger and do that in a week,鈥� said Dennis Roche, co-founder of Burbio, a data service that tracks school spending. 鈥業t takes time.鈥� 鈥�
  

• 5 best practices from EdWeek
• Be strategic about who receives tutoring
• Develop relationships with consistent tutors
• Ensure tutoring is high-dosage and done during the school day
• Involve teachers
• Evaluate throughout the school year

鈥� And on a Lighter Note

Breaking News: .

Kindness: In 1999 Ayda Zugay was an 11-year-old refugee fleeing the former Yugoslavia with her older sister when a stranger handed them an envelope on a flight to the United States. Inside 鈥� a $100 bill. .

For even more COVID policy and education news, .

Disclosure: John Bailey is an adviser to the Walton Family Foundation, which provides financial support to .

• Via AP: 鈥� and nearly a quarter of a school year in reading 鈥� during the pandemic.
• 鈥淲hen you have a massive crisis, the worst effects end up being felt by the people with the least resources,鈥� said Stanford education professor Sean Reardon, who compiled and analyzed the data along with Harvard economist Thomas Kane.”
• “Together, Reardon and Kane created a map showing how many years of learning the average student in each district has lost since 2019. Their project, the , compared results from a test known as the 鈥渘ation鈥檚 report card鈥� with local standardized test scores from 29 states and Washington, D.C.”
• Related: 鈥楽corecard鈥� of 4,000 Schools Shows Rural Districts Fared Better in Math, Worse in Reading Than Urban, Suburban Peers, via 蜜桃影视

The Big Three 鈥� November 4, 2022

NAEP Results: What We Know So Far

• The results from the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation鈥檚 Report Card, were released in October. Scores show the largest drops ever recorded in 4th and 8th grade math.
• Strong link in big city districts鈥� 4th-grade math scores and school closures 
• Damage from NAEP math losses could total nearly $1 trillion
• Amid the pandemic, progress in Catholic schools: .
  • “In the fall of 2020鈥� more than 92% of Catholic schools across the country re-opened for in-person learning, compared with 43% of traditional public schools and 34% of charters.”
  • The NAEP data 鈥渟how how important reopening was for learning. Today, the divergence between Catholic schools and public ones is so great that if all U.S. Catholic schools were a state, their 1.6 million students would rank first in the nation across the NAEP reading and math tests for fourth and eighth graders.”
• Reactions: 
  • Andrew Rotherham: Parents Are Owed the Truth About Learning Loss. NAEP Proves It
  • Robin Lake: 鈥� (and vary greatly in confidence level) in addressing skills gaps. From NAEP survey.鈥�
  • U.S. Institute of Education Sciences:

CDC Presents Updated Info on COVID-19, Vaccine Safety for Kids and Pregnancy

• “The biggest piece of news was that [the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] voted unanimously to add COVID-19 to the pediatric vaccine schedule. What does this mean? CDC adds the COVID-19 vaccine to the Vaccines for Children program. This means that when the federal government stops purchasing vaccines (funds are all but exhausted), kids without health insurance can still get them for free. This is incredibly important for health equity.”
• “No evidence of an increased risk for myocarditis following mRNA vaccination in children ages 6 months鈥�5 years.”
• 鈥淩isk of myocarditis is rare in adolescent and young adult males within the first week after receiving the mRNA vaccine. 鈥� The risk of adverse cardiac outcomes were 1.8 鈥� 5.6 times higher after SARS-CoV-2 infection than after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination among males ages 12 鈥� 17 years.鈥�

• “Jazeba Ahmad was a junior in high school when COVID-19 hit and her math education faltered. Ms. Ahmad was enrolled in an international baccalaureate math class intended to provide a strong foundation in areas like algebra, geometry, statistics and calculus.”
• “But her high school in Columbus, Ohio, made a rocky transition to remote learning, she said, and soon, math classes passed with little to show for them. By her first year at Columbus State Community College, Ms. Ahmad, 19, found herself floundering in something that should have been mastered 鈥� algebra.”
• 鈥� 鈥業 missed out a lot in those two years,鈥� Ms. Ahmad said. 鈥業f I had learned those skills in high school, I feel like I would have been better equipped to do well in that class.鈥� 鈥�

Federal Updates

Education Department: Secretary “, the Education Department said in a .”

White House: Fact Sheet: “.”

Education Department: Released a new report, “” which highlights six strategies including learning acceleration opportunities, high-quality tutoring and high-quality assessments. 

City & State News

California: “ amid the spike in absenteeism?”

• “Chronic absenteeism in the San Francisco Unified School District has more than doubled from pre-pandemic levels, rising from 14% to 28%, according to preliminary data for 2021-22. A student is considered chronically absent when they miss 10% of the 180-day school year.”

Washington, D.C.: The D.C. Council voted to , despite reservations from some members.

Illinois: found that “a slew of high-poverty districts across the state have spent small fractions of their relief funds, despite serving students who were especially hard hit by the pandemic.”

Iowa: , federal court rules.

Kentucky: Gov. Andy Beshear announces to address poor COVID-era test scores. 鈥淭he plan includes funding for a 5% pay raise for school staff, universal pre-K, textbooks, technology and training programs,鈥� Spectrum reports.

Maryland: In Montgomery County, .

COVID-19 Research

• on a new . 
• “COVID-19 at any level of severity is linked to an increased risk of dangerous blood clots that start in patients鈥� veins and travel to the heart, lungs and other parts of the body.”
• “Non-hospitalized COVID patients were 2.7 times more likely to develop dangerous clots called venous thromboembolisms and were more than 10 times more likely to die than individuals who avoided the disease, scientists at Queen Mary University of London found in a study of almost 54,000 people.鈥�

• in this great post. She answers three questions:
  • “First: bivalent boosters. Assuming you鈥檙e fully vaccinated already, what is the value of getting the bivalent booster?”
  • “Second: vaccines in pregnancy. Is there a best time to get boosted?”
  • “Third: vaccines for the under-5 set. We鈥檙e now a few months out. Have we learned anything more?”

• suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2 subvariant carries a significantly lower risk of death than that of Delta and the original Omicron strain, B.1.1.529.

Viewpoints

• “Several mainstream news organizations took pains to say that the latest NAEP study offered only murky evidence that school closures were the biggest culprit. For example, Texas opened its schools relatively early but still saw declines in math scores in line with the national average. California opened its schools relatively late, and its students鈥� scores declined less than the national average.”
• 鈥淏ut other studies have established a clearer connection between school closures and learning loss.鈥�
• “A forthcoming paper from several economists, including the Atlantic contributor Emily Oster, that in-person learning softened the blow of the pandemic on achievement scores.”
• “Democrats鈥� disproportionate support for school closures was very likely an unforced error that has contributed to worse achievement gaps between rich kids and poor kids, and that has set children back several years in math classes in which they were already struggling to demonstrate proficiency.”
• “With little evidence that school closures saved lives and ample evidence that they hurt kids, this is a policy that failed.”
• Related: , via The AP

• “The U.S. has a choice: Give up on a generation or confront this challenge head-on. Some adults find it easier to give up. They won鈥檛 say it out loud; they鈥檒l simply lower expectations. Or they鈥檒l explain away the drop in scores, blaming the pandemic when scores had already begun to decline before COVID hit. Rather than raise the bar, they鈥檒l dodge accountability, allowing today鈥檚 low math and reading scores to become tomorrow鈥檚 ceiling. That is unacceptable.”
• “Lawmakers must step up, too. One way to help parents is eliminating the barriers students face in accessing a better education. This year, Arizona became a national model by creating a universal education savings account program with flexible, portable and customizable funding. That kind of legislation is transformative for student learning.”
• “Early literacy is the foundation for long-term reading success. To ensure every child can read by the third grade and be ready to succeed in life, policy makers must ensure that all educators are trained in phonics and the science of reading 鈥� an evidence-based approach to teach the understanding of sounds, decoding, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.”
• “The same is true for math instruction. States should ensure that students have access to trained, effective math teachers. That may mean not all elementary teachers should teach math, only those who specialize in it.”

• “The need was so urgent that two-thirds of the money 鈥� $81 billion 鈥� was released less than two weeks after the plan was signed into law and before the Education Department could approve each state鈥檚 spending plan.”
• “But despite having access to the dollars, school systems throughout the country reported spending less than 15% of the federal funding, known as ESSER III, the most recent installment of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, during the 2021-2022 school year, according to a Washington Post analysis of data collected by Edunomics, an education finance group at Georgetown University.”
• “About half of the 211 districts the Post examined, where Edunomics estimates students are the furthest behind, spent 5% or less of their ESSER III money last school year, the data shows.”
• “In many cases districts are still spending earlier waves of federal funding, a total of $67.5 billion released during the Trump administration.”

…And on a Lighter Note

Things Got A Little Rowdy: At last weekend’s Tennessee vs. Kentucky football game. 

• At first, I thought this was from ‘Stranger Things’ 
• of the scene.

When the blue shirt man won鈥檛 get out of the way

For even more COVID policy and education news, .
Disclosure: John Bailey is an adviser to the Walton Family Foundation, which provides financial support to .

This is our weekly briefing on the pandemic, vetted by John Bailey. .