Freedom? Sure, I'm In! Wait, What? Plus, Covid Learning Loss And Fish.
Learning loss is serious and addressable...
Jed Wallace and I want freedom, too (from dysfunction and lame education policies and for parents to choose schools...)
Jed Wallace and I have a WonkyFolk out today. Looks at the D and R conventions, education implications (that part is short), and what might be next. Plus, Jed talks about Milliken v. Bradley, an anniversary that passes with a lot less attention than Brown but is also quite important. I talk about how the off-the-rails Kamala Harris - Drew Barrymore "Momala" moment obscured a really interesting and significant moment and discussion with education and family implications.
Transcript and show notes here. Listen here or wherever you get podcasts.
Did federal Covid dollars matter?
It seems like you run into two relatively prevalent views about learning loss from pandemic policies. One is the idea that it's mostly cooked up by politicians, designed to make schools look bad, or overstated in order to re-litigate pandemic-era decisions.
The second, said more quietly, is that the learning loss is so substantial it's sort of a lost cause to try to address it.
These are both wrong. Learning loss is a big deal - especially for students already behind pre-pandemic. The average loss is a big deal, the more substantial impact is catastrophic. But, with targeted high quality interventions it can be addressed. Just as impact varied across districts, so does recovery. That's important!
It's also one of the things Dan Goldhaber, Tom Kane, and I discussed yesterday while talking about Covid relief dollars on LinkedIn Live. Tom and some colleagues have an analysis here and Dan and some colleagues here. Times account on both here. The Republicans say the money did nothing. The Democrats say the opposite. Both those claims are false according to the evidence. It did matter though not like it might have, and there are some lessons for how it might have mattered more that matter going forward. We get into all of that, learning loss, and what might be next.
As we note for transparency, the convo is a hive of personal and professional overlaps, Dan and I collaborate on projects, I'm on Tom's advisory board for CEPR, friends etc...
End of summer Fish Porn
I am really behind on posting fish pictures. Here are a few good ones that have come in to land the summer:
Gemma Lenowitz of Samvid Ventures with a trout on the Salmon River:
Here's Bellwether's own Kate Neifeld with one on Montana's Gallatin River, an amazing resource where parts of River Runs Through It were filmed:
Here's Kevin Kosar, the mayor of Fish Porn, with a longnose gar from the Potomac River (we did this once before):
New reader? Wondering what this is all about? Check out this unique archive of hundreds of pictures of education types with fish. Send me yours!