Without education, children are paying the price of the covid-19 pandemic

(CNN) – Nine months after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States (and many other countries) have yet to figure out how to get all their children back safely to classrooms. And now we are beginning to see the cost of individual decisions and cumulative policies that have made it so difficult to open schools.

This is exactly what was feared

The pandemic affects black children more than white children. Test scores have declined disproportionately in schools with high poverty rates, according to a new report from the nonprofit NWEA. The group analyzed more than 4.4 million test scores for children grades three through eight in 46 U.S. states.

It is probably worse than the data suggests. The NWEA researchers warn that the data may not capture the entire universe of students. They saw a higher dropout rate on tests in 2019 than in 2020 among minority students, those with the lowest scores last year, and those in schools with more students in financial difficulty.

“In the fall of 2020, a sizeable population of the most vulnerable students was not assessed and as a result their results are not reflected in the data,” the report said.

The impact of closing and opening

The recent decision in New York City to close schools amid the peak of Covid-19 and then reopen some is indicative of the impact that American students and their parents face. And even when you see ads like “Schools reopened”, it’s important to remember the fine print.

In New York, for example, there are a few children from the lower grades, from kindergarten to fifth grade, who will gradually enter in-person learning starting December 7. Middle and high schools will not open until January. So while it’s good news that 330,000 children will start transitioning back to the classroom, the bad news is that that’s less than a third of the more than 1 million children in New York City’s public schools.

And what it also produced was a complete rollback of the 3% positivity threshold for covid infections in New York.

A lack of data on schools and the impact of covid-19

Schools, districts and states are not systematically testing children, Emily Oster, an economics professor at Brown University, who opened her website to share data on covid infections in schools, told CNN last week.

The data collected, which he cautioned are sadly incomplete, have been cited by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as evidence that the virus is not spreading since the same way in schools. In fact, since many children are asymptomatic, it is unclear how or if the virus is spreading in schools.

Schools have to decide for themselves what to do. Like New York City, Kentucky and West Virginia have temporarily closed all schools, although both are planning to reopen their doors this month.

The model schools of El Paso, Texas

El Paso, Texas has been a major source of covid in the United States in recent weeks. The schools aren’t exactly open, but they aren’t completely closed. The county has a color-coded re-entry plan based on the percentage of people in Texas hospitals for COVID-19.

The current hospitalization rate for covid-19 in the El Paso area is over 36%. The area has been in the “red zone” for 45 consecutive days, which means that 20% or more of the people hospitalized in El Paso have Covid-19. The rate is falling – it was more than 50% a few weeks ago, said Daniel Martinez, deputy superintendent of public relations for the Ysleta Independent School District.

The district allows some in-person classes, although they have only been used by fewer than 2,000 students, according to Martinez. And education isn’t exactly pre-pandemic style in the classroom, but more like internet hubs with substitutes that facilitate online learning.

However, it is education outside the home for those who want or need it. Interestingly, there are students who still play football in high school, in a sense, even though Martinez said there is a strict test policy.

The Florida school model

In Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis made keeping schools open his business card. This Monday he announced that he will continue with that pressure until next year.

Among the largest school districts in the state is Broward County, where officials publish a detailed chart of self-reported covid-19 cases by staff and students. The cases have been split equally between staff and students since schools reopened in October. More than half of the cases have occurred in the past 30 days. Each outbreak of more than a dozen people occurred in a high school.

More than half of the students – 55 percent – in Florida’s largest school district have chosen to virtually attend instead of attending in person, according to data maintained by the Miami-Dade School District, which serves nearly 300,000 students.

The district has taken an aggressive approach to tracking down students and staff members who may have been infected and has identified more than 1,300 since October. Two schools were closed for a period of 24 hours.

In states where many or most schools are open, there have been increases in covid-19 associated with schools.

Not all school closures are due to covid-19. The Baltimore School District was the victim of an attack by malware save that he interrupted online learning for three days.

Even children get sick

Nearly 154,000 children were diagnosed with coronavirus infections in the week leading up to Thanksgiving. This is the highest tally so far, the American Academy of Pediatrics said Tuesday.

This brings the number of childhood infections in the United States to a cumulative total of more than 1.3 million cases.

“As documented in previous weekly reports, serious illness due to COVID-19 appears to be rare among children. However, there is an urgent need to collect more data on the long-term impacts of the pandemic on children, including the ways the virus can harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects, “the said. Academy in a press release.

The count is not complete, because not all states report data in the same way. These numbers come from 49 states, New York City, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

But the doctors still think it’s time to send the kids back to school

Dr Tanya Altman, spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, wrote for CNN that the solution for schools, for now, is to make masks mandatory and focus on reopening:

“Some may argue that closing bars, shopping malls, theaters and other businesses to the public will decimate our economy and ultimately harm students as parents struggle to survive. But in these contexts, people are indoors and, in relaxed social settings, they are likely to break the rules.

“We are aware that there is a lot more broadcast related to indoor gatherings such as weddings, bars, restaurants, shopping malls and other non-school gatherings. It is not during school that covid-19 is transmitted. It is on days when children are not in school that they tend to come together without masks.

…

«The United States must establish universal recommendations such as the mandatory use of masks, physical distances and tests to detect covid-19. Also limit events and exhibitions and reduce the number of cases without sacrificing our children’s education, mental health and their future. Maybe if everyone followed the school guidelines, we could flatten the curve.

The lost generation

Miguel Cervantes del Toro is the principal of Callaway Elementary School in Baltimore. He wrote that he was “worried about losing an entire generation of students to this pandemic.”

Cervantes del Toro gave a tip to President-elect Joe Biden: that the next Secretary of Education should work to raise federal funds to help schools: “We need the next Secretary of Education to act urgently to ensure we don’t lose anymore. land with students We need resources to help schools reopen safely and we need funds for mental health support to address the trauma caused by the pandemic.