Vanessa Abrahamson Blog: February 2021

Sunday, February 28, 2021

There is proof vaccines reduce danger of Covid-19 health problem

A post on Facebook has claimed that the Covid-19 vaccine “doesn’t stop you getting [Covid-19] or spreading it”.

The Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines, which have been approved for use in the UK, have both been shown in multiple rounds of studies to reduce your chances of getting severely ill with Covid-19.

The Facebook post is accompanied by a screenshot from the government website which says: “We do not yet know whether [getting vaccinated] will stop you from catching and passing on the virus.”

This is referring to the fact that it is not yet clear whether being vaccinated can stop you getting infected with the Covid-19 virus, and then passing it on. This is different to getting ill from Covid-19. For example, you can become infected with the virus but not show any symptoms, or get particularly sick.

However, some data from the initial roll-out of the Pfizer vaccine in the UK shows that one dose reduces the risk of becoming infected by more than 70%, rising to 85% after the second dose. This data looked at results of the tests given to healthcare workers every two weeks, whether or not they have symptoms.

These results show the vaccine may be able to stop transmission, as you cannot pass on the virus if you are not infected with it.

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Government advise special preventative measures for dealing with transmittable PPE

A Facebook post asks why, if SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) is so infectious, there are no biohazard bins for disposing of masks and gloves which may potentially be contaminated.

Whilst it’s correct that biohazard or clinical waste bins are not recommended for the general public, there are special recommendations for the disposal of personal protective equipment (PPE) that is at a high risk of being contaminated. Hospitals and health care facilities are also required to use clinical waste bins for disposing of PPE.

We’ve written before about how infectious Covid-19 is and it’s transmission in hospitals.

What is the guidance?

The government does not advise the use of biohazard bins for most people, but does state that special measures should be taken for disposing of face masks and PPE (including items such as gloves and aprons) if somebody is self-isolating due to a suspected contact, or infection with Covid-19.

It advises that to dispose of potentially infectious PPE in this instance, you should:

double bag them
store them for 72 hours before putting them in a ‘black bag’ waste bin

For all face masks and PPE, whether you are self-isolating or not, the government advises:

Do not put them in a recycling bin
Remove PPE carefully, and avoid touching the inside of your face covering
After you remove your PPE or face covering, wash your hands or use hand sanitiser

For people working in healthcare settings, where clinical waste bins are readily available, the advice is to dispose of PPE as clinical waste. This involves putting PPE in special orange or yellow and black bags which are sealed, labelled and disposed of by a specialist contractor.

These measures could help to prevent transmission of the virus, as it is suspected that it can live on some surfaces for up to 72 hours, and some studies of other coronaviruses (the family of viruses which includes SARS-CoV-2) have even suggested that coronaviruses can live for up to 9 days on surfaces.

The main route of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is through cough and sneeze droplets spread in the air. However, if these droplets contaminate a surface and are picked up by somebody else, who then touches their face, the virus may find a route of entry and cause infection. Studies in laboratories have demonstrated that this is possible, but often very large amounts of virus are used and therefore some experts suggest that this may overstate the risk of transmission through this route.

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Saturday, February 27, 2021

February Is Black Background Month. Periodt.

I swear I wasn’t trying to end Black History Month with white people and skinfolk that ain’t kinfolk foolery but …

Yesterday my homie, Dr. Charles Cole III, tagged me in a tweet with a screenshot of a proposed resolution by the Stockton, California school district to proclaim February 2021 as “Indigenous History Month”.

Remember when folks said I “didn’t deserve my doctorate Bc I will never get on that BIPOC train”? Well, this is what you get. Almost instantly.

Congrats Stockton, no more #BHM in favor of Indigenous History month. Those terms leave us with the bill but erase us from the benefit. pic.twitter.com/OtbJDidxvb
— Charles Cole, III, Ed.D., MPA (@ccoleiii) February 25, 2021

Now I don’t know about y’all but as long as I’ve been alive, February has always been Black History Month. And for those who don’t know, America didn’t just give us a Black History Month because it loves the hell out of us and thought we should have some time in the year commemorating and teaching our history … oh, absolutely not! It was Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History that kicked it off in 1926 with announcing the second week of the month as “Negro History Week.” And when it became a more widespread and month-long celebration, President Gerald Ford made it official in 1976.

So when I saw this screenshot, I immediately got irritated. Not because I’m against the celebration and representation of all indigenous people but because it’s an example of the continued disrespect, watering down and erasure of Black history in education.

This resolution was not passed, but the fact that this was even considered and proposed for February is still an ashy, heavy-handed slap to the face—hell, as I’ve said before, it’s added pressure from the knee that’s been on the neck of public education.

And as an education advocate and activist, my message is this: In order for America to take its knees off of our necks, it must also take its knees off the neck of public education. https://t.co/sP5kn5bEN5
— PeeplesVoice (@PeeplesChoice85) June 5, 2020

Stuff like this makes me keep asking myself and others why we—Black people—continue to entrust this raggedy, hateful and oppressive system with our most prized possessions? Because time and time again, we’ve proven that we are capable of doing this education and building strong communities thing ourselves—and, might I add, we do a damn good job at it.

There’s a blueprint for success that exists in our history, y’all. On one of our episodes of Talk Dat Real Shit, we dove into the significance of HBCUs to Black communities as esteemed centers of higher learning, as well as breeding grounds for liberation movements and self-determination. We built these institutions because we had to and they have not only transformed our educational experiences but also our lives.

About That HBCU Life https://t.co/vRgY3dZxLW
— Citizen Ed (@CitizenEdu) February 8, 2021

In this pandemic, many Black families are struggling and have had to figure out how to make a way out of no way. Parents have had to make decisions around quitting their jobs to stay home and support their kids in distance learning or continue to work, leave their kids at home unsupervised but risk being criminalized and penalized by the system that backed them into this corner.

Just imagine how many more parents are having to choose between going to work to feed their kids and staying at home to care for kids that are starving because they can't feed them? Criminalizing the poor is one of the things America does best.https://t.co/PaVMQImj6b
— PeeplesVoice (@PeeplesChoice85) February 17, 2021

Also, I’m pretty damn sure that the lack of meaningful engagement in remote learning, the absence of socialization that’s a benefit of being in school and overall, the environmental factors that come with living in low-income communities have contributed to trauma and an increase in crime involving school-aged youth.

Can we acknowledge the correlation b/t an increase in crime in #Chicago and the effects of the pandemic on the Black community?

I'm not hearing anybody talk about it for real and we're not seeing anybody practicing equity for real. @ChiCouncil @chicagosmayor
— PeeplesVoice (@PeeplesChoice85) January 22, 2021

And through all of this, Black families remain political pawns in this everlasting power struggle between school districts and teachers unions in the decision to reopen schools.

But our community has and continues to pull it together in these dark and desperate times.

Because school districts still aren’t giving our kids what they need, organizations like Serve Your City and The Oakland REACH have stepped up to deliver hot spots, laptops, learning hubs and pods, activities to keep youth engaged and mutual aid for families–all while continuing to advocate and activate for relief and reparations from the government.

This is the work we’ve always done. This is the work we need right now.

So here’s the point I’m trying to make. The gatekeepers to white supremacy are going to continue to stand guard in protecting their racism and privilege while launching attacks on our history and existence. And while we’re fighting that battle, we’re losing the people fighting for.

Going forward, we need not devote all of our time and energy to what this country hasn’t given or what it isn’t doing for us because our communities are suffering and need us in this moment. We have to dedicate more effort to strategizing around how we can better do for ourselves.

We’ve built strong and self-sustaining communities before and we can have those again. It’s in the history this country keeps trying to suppress and erase, it’s in the power derived from our ancestors and it’s in the self-determination born in struggle and brilliance. We gotta tap in now.

By: Tanesha Peeples
Title: February Is Black History Month. Periodt.
Sourced From: educationpost.org/february-is-black-history-month-periodt/
Published Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2021 00:05:15 +0000

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A fake City cover shares incorrect vaccine information

A fake front page of the Metro newspaper has been widely shared on Facebook. The fake page carries the headline “Vaccine danger warning” and is dated “Tuesday, February 16, 2021”.

The real front page of the Metro on 16 February 2021 was different, featuring stories about the end of lockdown and people quarantining in hotels.

The fake front page features false claims including that the vaccines in use against Covid-19 “have skipped essential animal testing and are still in the experimental phase”.

This is not true. The three Covid vaccines currently approved for use in the UK have already been shown to be safe and effective in clinical trials.

Before that, the Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines were tested on animals.

It’s normal that authorities continue to monitor the safety of these vaccines even after they have been approved. This monitoring happens with all vaccines, including those that have been in use for years, to detect any adverse effects. Just because studies into these vaccines are continuing, doesn’t mean anyone getting the vaccine in the nationwide roll-out is part of an experiment.

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Biden Hasn’t Decreased COVID-19 Checking at the Border

Quick Take

The Biden administration has made no changes to COVID-19 testing policies for either U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Patrol. But a claim circulating online falsely suggests that the administration has stopped testing detained immigrants before they are released.

Full Story

A Texas sheriff told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Feb. 9, “it’s absolutely true” that immigrants detained after crossing the border have been released into the U.S. without being tested for COVID-19.

The sheriff, A.J. Louderback, then cited and misrepresented a memo issued by David Pekoske, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, on the first day of President Joe Biden’s term.

That exchange was highlighted in a story on a conservative website, The Political Insider, with the headline: “Texas Sheriff Claims Biden Admin Releasing Illegal Immigrants Into U.S. Without COVID Testing.”

It’s true that Louderback made the claim — but the claim itself is false.

Despite that, the headline still garnered comments on Facebook calling for Biden to be impeached or charged with either murder or attempted murder.

In reality, the Biden administration has maintained the same procedures for COVID-19 testing in detention facilities that were in effect during the previous administration.

Nothing in the Biden administration’s policy indicates a break from the standing policy on COVID-19 testing, Josiah Heyman, director of the Center for Interamerican and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso, told us in a phone interview.

Both U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol confirmed to us that no such policies had changed.

Louderback didn’t specify on Carlson’s show which agency was no longer conducting testing, but he did say that the effect of the memo was to “defund ICE,” so he left the impression that he was talking about ICE.

It’s worth noting, though, that Louderback doesn’t work for either ICE or CBP — he’s the sheriff in Jackson County on the gulf coast of Texas. Louderback told us in an interview that he became vocal about immigration issues while former President Barack Obama was in office. He was invited to the White House at least twice for immigration-related appearances under former President Donald Trump.

Both ICE and CBP are part of the Department of Homeland Security, and the memo that Louderback referenced called for a review of policies in each agency.

“The United States faces significant operational challenges at the southwest border as it is confronting the most serious global public health crisis in a century,” Pekoske’s memo said. “In light of those unique circumstances, the Department must surge resources to the border in order to ensure safe, legal and orderly processing, to rebuild fair and effective asylum procedures that respect human rights and due process, to adopt appropriate public health guidelines and protocols, and to prioritize responding to threats to national security, public safety, and border security.”

It also specified that “all enforcement and detention decisions shall be guided by DHS’s ability to conduct operations and maintain custody consistent with applicable COVID-19 protocols.”

For ICE, those protocols, which were in effect when Biden took office, include testing all detainees upon arrival and then keeping them quarantined for 14 days while monitoring for COVID-19 symptoms. “New arrivals who have negative test results and remain symptom free can join the general detained population after the 14-day intake period. Detainees who test positive for COVID-19 receive appropriate medical care to manage the disease,” according to the agency’s guidance, which was last updated Aug. 12, 2020.

Also, the ICE manual for dealing with COVID-19 says that high-risk detainees must be tested before being released into the community.

CBP is supposed to limit its detentions to 72 hours and, according to a spokeswoman who answered our questions by email, officers “conduct initial inspections for symptoms or risk factors associated with COVID-19 and consult with onsite medical personnel, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or local health systems as appropriate. Onsite medical personnel can provide basic assessment and supportive treatment, but suspected COVID-19 cases are referred to local health systems for appropriate testing, diagnosis, and treatment.”

Again, this was the existing protocol when Biden took office.

When we asked Louderback to clarify his claim, he didn’t directly address the suggestion he had made on the show. Instead, he focused on the recent change to the Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as the “remain in Mexico” policy that was introduced by the Trump administration in 2019. Under that policy, asylum seekers were sent to Mexico to await their court appearances in the U.S.

The Biden administration has stopped enrolling people in the program and started processing the roughly 25,000 people currently waiting in Mexico.

The policy for processing them includes testing each individual in Mexico before they enter the U.S.

Louderback also suggested in the phone interview that another Trump-era policy was no longer in effect. “Title 42 was left out,” he said, referring to an order from the CDC that permits border patrol officers to send back immigrants in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. Louderback suggested that the order provided testing related to the MPP and, since it wasn’t mentioned in the memo from Pekoske, it was no longer in effect.

None of that is true.

Title 42 doesn’t address testing and it’s still in effect. Biden directed the CDC to review and evaluate the necessity of the order in his Feb. 2 executive order on immigration policy, but he didn’t end its use. Some Democrats have called on him to do so, while some Republicans have called on him to leave it intact. In January, the month Biden took office, more than 60,000 people were rejected at the Mexican border under the order, which is roughly the same number that were rejected in each of the previous three months, according to the most recent numbers from CBP.

Acknowledging that reduced testing isn’t mentioned in the memo, Louderback said in the phone interview, “Reality is, whether or not it’s mentioned in there, there is no testing being done.”

But Heyman, of the University of Texas at El Paso, said, “If there are people who haven’t been tested, it’s a breakdown on the behavior of ICE, not Biden administration policy.”

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.

Sources

“Texas sheriff claims Biden has ‘defunded ICE by memorandum.’” Foxnews.com. 9 Feb 2021.

Noble, Becky. “Texas Sheriff Claims Biden Admin Releasing Illegal Immigrants Into U.S. Without COVID Testing.” Thepoliticalinsider.com. 9 Feb 2021.

Heyman, Josiah. Director, Center for Interamerican and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. Telephone interview. 15 Feb 2021.

Spokesperson, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Email exchange. 12 Feb 2021.

Spokesperson, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Email exchange. 23 Feb 2021.

Louderback, A.J. Sheriff, Jackson County, Texas. Telephone interview. 16 Feb 2021.

Pekoske, David. Memorandum — Review of and Interim Revision to Civil Immigration Enforcement and Removal Policies and Priorities. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 20 Jan 2021.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE Guidance on COVID-19. Accessed 23 Feb 2021.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “COVID-19 Pandemic Response Requirements.” 27 Oct 2020.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Migrant Protection Protocols. 24 Jan 2019.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. DHS Statement on the Suspension of New Enrollments in the Migrant Protection Protocols Program. 20 Jan 2021.

Biden, Joe. Executive Order on Creating a Comprehensive Regional Framework to Address the Causes of Migration, to Manage Migration Throughout North and Central America, and to Provide Safe and Orderly Processing of Asylum Seekers at the United States Border. 2 Feb 2021.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Press release. “DHS Announces Process to Address Individuals in Mexico with Active MPP Cases.” 11 Feb 2021.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. DHS Begins to Process Individuals in MPP Into the United States to Complete their Immigration Proceedings. Accessed 23 Feb 2021.

Lavandera, Ed, Ashley Killough and Kim Berryman. “There’s an uptick in migrants crossing into the US, driven by economic woes and hopes for change under Biden.” CNN.com. 19 Feb 2021.

The post Biden Hasn’t Reduced COVID-19 Testing at the Border appeared first on FactCheck.org.

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Friday, February 26, 2021

A National Initiative to Combat COVID Discovering Loss? Research Study Your Black Background.

We know all too well Black and brown students in marginalized communities are now bearing the brunt of the pandemic’s effect on schools—with inadequate technology, lack of internet access, little to no basic training in typing and computer skills, not to mention canceled music, visual and performing arts, athletics, clubs and other enrichments that aren’t nice-to-haves, but life-saving for so many students.

Exponentially more of our underserved younger students won’t reach critical reading and math benchmarks. Exponentially more of our underserved older students will have been pushed out, their pathways to college further blocked, diminishing their motivations and dreams.

If we need a model of how to combat learning loss at scale, in a way that respects the culture of our students and simultaneously builds up the communities in which they live, look no further than America’s rich Black history.

The answer is in intergenerational education. I experienced it firsthand. My earliest education was at a pan-African elementary school, Nidhamu Sasa, which translates as “Discipline Now.” Nidhamu Sasa was modeled after the Freedom Schools of the 1960s—high expectations and lots of love.

More recently, I worked with fellow educator-activists at the Center for Black Educator Development to create the Freedom Schools Literacy Academy in Philadelphia, which we are now expanding to other cities. Our approach integrates proven best practices of the Children’s Defense Fund and the Philadelphia Freedom Schools with a culturally-responsive, affirming and sustaining early-literacy curriculum.

At our summer academy, expert Black educators coach aspiring Black college teacher apprentices and work with high school pre-apprentices exploring careers in education. The effect for our underserved Black and brown elementary students is the personalized literacy boost they need, coupled with a deepening of their racial identity.

Our Freedom Schools Literacy Academy is based on the idea Black and brown students learn best within a context of cultural understanding, where educators don’t under-expect them to achieve while over-disciplining them, and where educators serve as mirrors, and not just windows, to their world.

Freedom Schools Literacy Academy is no different from any other educational institution in that each assumes a cultural approach. It’s just that, unlike most, we proudly take a Black liberatory pedagogical approach. We believe this approach is critical for Black students’ school success, as studies show students’ higher racial/ethnic pride correlates with higher achievement measured by grades and test scores.

We also know that when Black students have Black teachers, they do better in school. When they have one Black teacher by third grade, they are 13% more likely to enroll in college. With two Black teachers in the mix early on, that stat jumps to 32%. When Black boys from underserved communities have a Black teacher, they’re far more likely to experience on-time high school graduation. In fact, their dropout rates drop by almost 40%.

Consistent with these findings, our Freedom Schools Literacy Academy scholars from this past summer made significant gains in vocabulary and reading comprehension. While their peers elsewhere were experiencing the typical summer slide in learning (a 20% loss on average of school-year gains in reading) worsened by the educational and social fallout of the pandemic, our young scholars beat the odds, making leaps in literacy and shoring up their academic confidence—all of which better positioned them for the tumultuous school year.

Moreover, our college students and high schoolers not only felt mentally stronger, psychologically healthier and emotionally nourished, all of them also reported an increased interest in teaching Black children. Fortifying the student-to-educator-activist pipeline is what we seek, because we know it is critical to teaching Black children superbly as a truly revolutionary act.

Once those stimulus dollars start flowing, I urge school leaders to mine the cultural pedagogies of the Black community as well as those of Latino and Indigenous communities for further models of intergenerational educational enterprises that can be integrated into public schooling. We can’t expect to create a more diverse pipeline of educators if we aren’t cultivating and building a strong corps of diverse educators for children at every grade throughout their schooling.

So let’s start now. We know our next president has made a huge commitment to making up our country’s educational losses due to the pandemic. But nothing will improve significantly for our students and educators without a holistic, intergenerational approach.

Black history month may be ending, but let’s commit to learning from Black history and the community-based solutions used by our ancestors and elders.

Photo courtesy of Philadelphia Freedom Schools, Facebook.

By: Sharif El-Mekki
Title: A National Effort to Combat COVID Learning Loss? Study Your Black History.
Sourced From: educationpost.org/a-national-effort-to-combat-covid-learning-loss-study-your-black-history/
Published Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2021 21:20:04 +0000

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The FCC Can Aid End Digital Partition Currently by Broadening E-Rate

Exactly 60 years ago, James Baldwin wrote in Esquire magazine that “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” Recent statements from some major internet providers across the country prove just how right he was.

In a time when families must use digital platforms to ensure their children are educated, proposed internet price hikes and data limits are, at best, a thoughtless measure that will inadvertently harm those most in need. At worst, they are a cynical move to extract more money from those who have no choice. In either reality, poor students lose. To ensure the success of all students, our leaders in Washington must address digital segregation as an issue of resource equity.

We have an urgent opportunity to counteract years of inequity and inaction. We can drastically expand access to the internet now. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently considering whether or not to expand the $4 billion E-Rate program to support remote learning during the pandemic. For students and families across the country who’ve struggled to access learning during this tumultuous year, this is exactly the type of action needed to begin leveling our country’s stark digital inequities.

We are almost a year into the COVID-19 pandemic and another school year into a largely digital school experience for hundreds of thousands of students nationally. The failures of our public education system to deliver basic internet access and support to learn at home—failures that keep poor students shut out of equitable access to a good education— compound with each subsequent day, week, and month of online learning.

Education leaders, teachers, families, and advocates have mulled over the issue for months. We have seen firsthand how digital segregation has affected families in Los Angeles. We know that if this is the reality in the nation’s second largest school district, there are thousands of districts across the country in even more dire circumstances. Study after study reiterates the scores of anecdotal evidence we’ve heard from every part of the United States.

Many low-income families are making unsustainable financial sacrifices to support their students’ education. Others have children learning on cell phones or using public Wi-Fi to complete schoolwork. For example, in Los Angeles, only about 50% of the lowest-income households have a desktop or laptop computer and subscribe to residential broadband. Nationally, just 63% of students from low-income households have a device they can use and internet access. Compare that to about 90% of students in the highest-income households. The contrast is staggering.

Furthermore, K-12 students who are Black and Latino are significantly less likely to live in households equipped with technology resources for distance learning. Thus, the socio-economic inequities are, once again, compounded by race. Moreover, many models of remote instruction rely in part on parents as educators, but many parents — especially low-income parents — work outside the home. These problems are not limited to just large urban cities, but reverberate in rural and suburban areas throughout the country.

Digital Segregation

With months of this knowledge under our belt, it is not enough to continue addressing the so-called “digital divide.” Many parent and student advocates have begun referring to these ongoing inequities as digital segregation. By acknowledging the segregation, we begin to remove the stigma that has been placed on the shoulders of low-income families and parents.

When we understand this phenomenon as digital segregation, we can acknowledge that the onus to solve the issue rests squarely with those of us in the public and private sectors with the means to transform these unjust systems.

The internet must be treated as a basic life necessity and regulated as such. The FCC’s outgoing chairman, Ajit Pai, has argued that expanding the E-Rate program to benefit homes and families is outside of the FCC’s sphere of influence. While it’s true the Communications Act limits E-Rate to delivering internet to classrooms and schools, in our current reality, the bounds of the American classroom have shifted.

If students must learn at home over the internet, our government must meet their needs there.

But meeting students’ internet needs doesn’t stop with the FCC. The companies that provide internet to families–Internet Service Providers (ISPs)–should also be held accountable to deliver for young learners. They should partner with public schools to automatically enroll families in free and low-cost internet access based on free and reduced-price lunch status. For those families of K-12 students seeking free or low-cost internet, ISPs should also be required to waive eligibility requirements based on past financial history or lack of a social security number. We call on the FCC to join us in pressuring business leaders and our elected officials to work together to meet these important obligations to students.

Even as the COVID vaccine rollout continues and classrooms reopen, remote learning is not going away in the foreseeable future. Many school districts will continue to use some form of hybrid instruction. Internet connectivity will remain a necessity for families across our country. If we don’t act now, to counteract digital segregation, we will lose a generation of students.

Photo by DragonImages, Adobe Stock-licensed.

By: Ryan Smith, Ana Ponce
Title: The FCC Can Help End Digital Segregation Now by Expanding E-Rate
Sourced From: educationpost.org/the-fcc-can-help-end-digital-segregation-now-by-expanding-e-rate/
Published Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2021 21:07:36 +0000

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What Will Take Place in Your School When Black History Month Is Over?

Black History Month is quickly coming to a close. This month is a time to highlight Black excellence and remind us all that Black history is part of American history. What happens when Black History Month is over? This is the conversation that many educators and school leaders need to have.

Let’s look at some common actions that take place during Black History Month and use them as a spring board to meaningful change and learning for our students.

Check Your Curriculum

Many educators highlight books written by Black authors or books about Black people. These books should be incorporated into the curriculum throughout the year. This is a good opportunity for a pulse check to see how many Black authors are in the curriculum. If the number is low, identify books that students enjoyed during Black History Month and add them to classroom libraries and to the curriculum. Remember, teachers are teaching standards, not books. Many of the books written by Black authors and/or features Black people can be used to teach the standards.

Representation

Another common feature during Black History Month are door decorating contests and bulletin boards featuring Black people. When the decorations come down off of the doors and the bulletin boards are replaced with different information, will students see Black people somewhere on display inside of the school? Even if a school has no Black students, Black people should be displayed. For example, if there is a bulletin board that features scientists, some of those scientists should be Black. This will help Black students feel seen, and it will help portray a positive image of Black people to non-Black students.

Black Excellence

Black History Month is typically filled with little-known Black history facts or different Black people, who exude Black excellence, being highlighted. Black History Month should not be the only time Black people are highlighted in a positive light. Our history started before Black people were kidnapped and enslaved. Black people being enslaved should not be the focal point nor the main history students learn about Black people. Black people are more than the tragic events that have happened. We are so much more.

This is only a start. I encourage teachers and school leaders to take some time to think about what took place during Black History Month and find meaningful ways to expand those activities throughout the year.

This post originally appeared on Indy Ed.

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Is Hybrid Understanding Killing Mentor?

A lot of us have been confused, angry, and frustrated by the reluctance of some teachers, and particularly their unions, to resume in-person instruction. It defies not just science, but common sense, and feels like an exercise in shifting the goalposts or flexing political muscles. No in-person class until teachers are vaccinated. Or until kids are vaccinated. No, until everyone’s vaccinated and Covid-19 is eradicated. Then and only then will it be “safe” to return to something approximating normal schooling.

Over the weekend, a New York math teacher named Michael Pershan tweeted an astute observation, later expanded into a blog post, which suggests one possible cause of many teachers’ reluctance to resume in-person instruction: It’s less that they’re scared of Covid. They’re scared of hybrid teaching. And this, Pershan argues persuasively, is “an entirely reasonable concern about working conditions.”

“I bumped into an elementary teacher friend yesterday who I admire a great deal. She has been fully vaccinated and I know she cares a lot for her students,” Pershan writes. “She understands that vaccines are effective. She works hard for kids. Still, she’s praying that they don’t return in-person. And she even said she has colleagues who are afraid of getting their shots, for fear that they will have to come back to school. This is seemingly crazy—sure, ventilation is awful in a lot of places, but are they less safe than not being vaccinated?”

What’s actually happening, Pershan posits, is that the response to the pandemic has made teaching much more difficult and a lot less satisfying, and this is manifesting itself in a reluctance to further entrench the practices that are making teachers miserable, specifically having to simultaneously teach students in class and online. His blunt but accurate observation (just ask a teacher who is doing it) is that this common form of hybrid teaching “hardcore sucks.”

For a significant percentage of teachers, in-person schooling for the foreseeable future is going to mean hybrid instruction, with some combination of “roomies and Zoomies.” It’s certainly not going away in the current school year and maybe not the next one either, owing to parental choice and CDC guidelines. Even where in-person instruction is currently an option, a significant percentage of parents don’t want their kids back in physical school buildings, and health guidelines make it all but impossible for most schools to fit a full complement of students in a classroom without violating social distancing requirements. For the time being, this makes a certain amount of hybrid learning inevitable, which materially alters the act of teaching.

I spoke to Pershan after reading his blog post. He cited the work of the late University of Chicago sociologist Dan C. Lortie, who noted that teaching is rooted in “psychic rewards” for teachers. When your contact with students is inconsistent or unpredictable, the emotional day-to-day payoff of teaching isn’t always there. It’s a struggle to build trusting relationships and a positive and effective classroom culture among a rotating and unpredictable roster of students. It’s also easy for a low level of rigor and sophistication to creep into the work. Student indifference and lack of motivation becomes hard to ignore or combat. In sum, hybrid instruction not only makes the job harder, “it also strips away a lot of the things that people love about the job,” explains Pershan, who notes that many teachers have students they’ve never even met in person.

Not all hybrid teaching is created equal. Pershan makes the subtle but important point that “synchronous” hybrid learning, with only a few kids present in-person is really hard; when just a few kids are online it’s more manageable. “When most kids are in the classroom and a few are online…it’s not more effective for the kids who are online,” he notes. “But at least I feel like my presence at school is worthwhile. I can more easily help kids with things, I can keep an eye on everyone, and more important, it feels like there’s a real social environment.” When the numbers are flipped, with only a few kids physically present, “that’s a recipe for frustration,” Pershan observes. “That feels like you might as well have everyone stay at home, since you’re basically teaching online anyway.” But you’re also responsible for the kids who are physically present.

My own sense is that teachers needn’t be consciously “afraid” of hybrid teaching for Pershan’s thesis to make sense. Confirmation bias seems enough to tip the balance. Much like putting off recommended dental work if you’re not in pain, it’s human nature to avoid unpleasant tasks if they can be avoided. Teachers might simply be more susceptible to cite concerns for their “safety” if it forestalls returning to a job that has been made more difficult or unpleasant due to circumstances beyond their control. A crisis or public health emergency brings out the best in us. But as the emergency goes from an acute to a chronic condition, creating permanent changes in the structure and rewards of the job, it makes sense that teachers might resist, even unconsciously, putting themselves in harm’s way—psychologically, if not physically.

Some will perceive this analysis as merely another flavor of excuse-making and putting adult interests ahead of kids, or argue that any in-person instruction is better than none, therefore teachers should just suck it up and get back in to class. But teacher effectiveness matters under any scenario. The proof of Pershan’s provocative hypothesis may be in teacher retention. Economic uncertainty tends to reduce teacher turnover. If the economy shows signs of life and the job market improves—with the demands of teaching remaining high and the psychic rewards diminished—we shouldn’t be surprised by a sudden rush for the exits.

It may already be underway. A new RAND study suggests that Covid-driven changes to schooling are pushing some teachers out of the profession before their scheduled retirement dates. Almost half of public school teachers who left the classroom after March 2020 did so because of the Covid-19 pandemic. “At least for some teachers, the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have exacerbated what were high stress levels pre-pandemic by forcing teachers to, among other things, work more hours and navigate an unfamiliar remote environment, often with frequent technical problems,” according to the RAND report.

Pershan’s astute observation and the RAND report post offer, for me at least, a kind of hammer through glass moment, offering a different context for my own frustration with teachers’ reluctance to return to the classroom. The resolution is not entirely clear. Perhaps schools and districts might curtail synchronous hybrid learning in favor of full-time online academies for parents who demand a remote option. At the very least, it’s another argument for dispensing with the “new normal” and returning to the old normal with urgency, for everyone’s sake—parents, students, and teachers.

Robert Pondiscio is senior fellow and vice president for external affairs at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

This post originally appeared on the Fordham Institute’s Flypaper blog.

The post Is Hybrid Learning Killing Teaching? appeared first on Education Next.

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No evidence for drop in US unexpected infant death syndrome cases

A Facebook post claims that there was a decrease in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in 2020 due to scheduled vaccinations being cancelled.

A link in the post to an article clarifies that the data shown actually represents the number of SIDS reports to the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), when a SIDS case has occurred after vaccination.However, this represents a tiny proportion of all SIDS cases and does not show that vaccines are linked to SIDS.

VAERS is a system in the US which allows people to report side effects which may be related to vaccinations, for the purposes of safety investigations, similar to the Yellow Card scheme here in the UK.

SIDS is the sudden death of an infant under the age of one which cannot be explained even after medical investigation.

Data on the total number of SIDS cases in the United States in 2020 has not yet been published. Data on all deaths among under ones in the US does not show significant changes during 2020. It is incorrect for the Facebook post to present data on the number of SIDS cases reported to VAERS as the total number of SIDS cases.

The number of SIDS cases reported to VAERS following a child being vaccinated fell in 2020 from around 20 in each of the previous ten years, to five.

By way of context that there are around 1,300 cases of SIDS each year in the United States.

But reports of events (including deaths) to VAERS are not proof they were caused by the vaccination, just that they happened some time afterwards. Similarly, a fall in reports after a fall in vaccination rates is not evidence that vaccines cause SIDS. There is plenty of evidence showing that SIDS is not associated with childhood vaccinations, and that in fact, being up to date on vaccinations is associated with a lower risk of SIDS.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which manage VAERS says: “While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness.”

As well as wrongly suggesting that VAERS reports are unequivocal evidence of side effects caused by vaccines, the “explanation” given for what is observed doesn’t really make sense.

If you have fewer children being vaccinated, then you’re going to see fewer cases of SIDS following vaccinations, whether or not you believe that vaccines were the cause or not.

Another point is that the step change in SIDS reports in 2020 was only observed if you look at all reports to VAERS, including those that came from outside the United States.

While VAERS is managed by agencies in the US, it does include some reports from outside the country.

If you exclude foreign reports, there were three SIDS reports to VAERS in 2020, compared to four in 2019.

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No evidence Boris Johnson stated he wanted to “lop the avoid of stinky peasants”

A Facebook post with almost 1,500 shares shows an alleged quote made by Boris Johnson in May 2015 saying: “I have to be honest here. I was born in the wrong time. I’d be much happier living in the middle ages, lopping the heads off of smelly peasants and then giving the stable boy a jolly good buggering.”

We are almost certain that Boris Johnson never said this. A search of this quote yields no results from any of the newspapers and publications that Boris Johnson has worked for. Nor does it appear to be a quote attributable to any other public figure or person. There is no evidence to suggest he has ever made this statement.

We spoke to Bob Stoker at Huddersfield Trades Union Council who said he republished the post but couldn’t remember where he found the original content, only that he had found it elsewhere on Facebook. It appears the quote has been circulating since at least December 2020.

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Thursday, February 25, 2021

Supply is the Missing Out On Variable in Selective Institution Equity Arguments

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Controversy over diversifying selective high schools is raging across the country, especially in the largest districts. Any number of solutions have been proposed, ranging from lowering admissions standards to the use of lotteries to eliminating the programs. But one idea – a necessary but insufficient solution – has rarely been discussed: Offer more advanced services in public schools. As currently designed, most school districts simply offer too little supply of advanced learning in the face of tremendous demand.

The purpose of advanced education is to provide challenging learning experiences to students who would not otherwise receive them. We think about youth development in sports and the arts this way, but we are less likely to think about it with respect to academic learning.

Yet the demand for advanced learning services far outstrips supply. In 2018-2019, New York’s 327,000 high school students were served by only 18,435 seats in the city’s selective high schools. That represents only 5.6% of the city’s public high school students. The problem is further compounded by severe restriction of supply at earlier points. Over 15,000 families apply for 2,500 kindergarten seats in the city’s gifted education program. Those are the applicants, not all the students who would benefit from the services.

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia’s Fairfax County has a more complicated but even more restrictive supply-demand problem. The 1,781 seats at that school are apportioned 70% to Fairfax County students and 30% to students in surrounding communities. To be fair, some surrounding communities have their own advanced high school options, but the availability of advanced services is still limited. Fairfax County Public Schools, one of the largest and highest-achieving districts in the country, can offer only 2-3% of its high school students admission to this advanced high school, regardless of how many would benefit from it.

These districts are not alone in underserving their advanced students. In a recent study, my colleagues and I found evidence that at least 15% of Grade 3-8 students perform three or more grade-levels above their current grade in reading (6% in math). Again, that is actual performance, and the percent of students with potential to perform at high levels is certainly much higher. The results also suggest these students can be found in nearly every single classroom, meaning this isn’t just a suburban phenomenon. There are huge numbers of bright students in our schools who do not have the opportunity to experience advanced education.

There are two reasons why equity is not possible with these limited services. First, students whose families have social capital will always have advantages given limited supply. That’s true whether the admissions process is based on a single test or a portfolio of different data points – I’ve yet to come across any measure of student potential or performance that isn’t correlated with social and economic class. The current reality need not be destiny – some interventions appear to narrow these testing gaps significantly, especially if implemented early and comprehensively. But those services will take years to show consistent results and are not likely to overcome supply limitations.

Second, even if current identification practices change, holding the number of seats constant will lead to a situation where current students lose services. In other words, if a large number of new advanced students is identified but the program capacity remains constant, some students – perhaps many students – will lose access to advanced services. Those families will turn to the pitchforks and torches, or turn to private schools and out-of-school programs that most other families can’t afford, widening excellence gaps in the process. Equity is rarely achieved by removing opportunity from those who have it.

Given the obvious demand for advanced education, why is the supply so artificially constrained? There are a myriad of reasons, but a key factor is that the vast majority of teachers prepare for their careers in states that do not require coursework on advanced or gifted education. Even worse, future educators are often inundated with anti-excellence tropes in their preparation programs, including that advanced students can learn just as well in the absence of advanced education. After educators enter the profession, many become building and district-level leaders. These leaders then hold to the belief that advanced services are unnecessary, and they hire teachers with little knowledge of advanced learning – and, more to the point, their hiring practices put no pressure on teacher prep programs to do a better job on advanced instruction.

This vicious cycle leads to and reinforces an ideology among administrators that advanced services are unnecessary and objectionable. Furthermore, there are incentives for administrators to maintain this anti-excellence ideology. For example, severely restricting advanced services – or not offering them at all – is perceived to save money. I often find myself conducting interviews with administrators during my work, and their commitment to this ideology would be impressive if it weren’t so damaging. In one district, the small talk among administrators before a focus group began was about their frustrations with differentiation and its lack of effectiveness for dealing with student learning differences. When we began the focus group, every single administrator criticized advanced learning programs as being an unnecessary expense. When I asked how they would meet the needs of students with diverse ability in the absence of their current program, they all said, “differentiation” at the same time. I laughed, assuming they were joking given their earlier comments, but let’s just say the mood in the group was pretty icy from that point forward.

Ideally, every school in the country would offer advanced education services to its students, which would massively increase the supply to meet this large demand. But until that happens, the use of special schools is going to be with us, and that approach will never provide anything resembling equal opportunity with such limited supply. Districts wrestling with equity issues regarding their selective programs need to increase the number of available seats if they have any hope to address these issues.

Jonathan A. Plucker is the Julian C. Stanley Professor of Talent Development at the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University, where he is also a Professor of Education. He currently serves as President of the National Association for Gifted Children. He can be followed on Twitter at @JonathanPlucker or reached at jplucker@jhu.edu.

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