Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday. Time for the News Roundup.

Confusion as Kids Head Back to School and RFK Jr. Calls the Shots on Vaccines (The 74)

Last week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met with members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. Not surprisingly, Democratic members of the committee were especially critical of Secretary Kennedy’s approach to vaccines and the confusion happening in our nation’s schools because of his unpredictable positions. Here’s a summary of a portion of that meeting from The 74:

“Eleven of 12 Democratic Senate Finance Committee members called on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign Thursday just before a charged – and at times explosive – committee hearing with the embattled health secretary.”

“Committee Democrats and two Republicans, both of them physicians, accused Kennedy of peddling misinformation, pressuring officials to rubber stamp policies not based on science and making it harder for Americans to access COVID vaccines. Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat from Washington, called Kennedy a charlatan.”

“Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat from Colorado, said he was questioning Kennedy on behalf of ‘parents and schools and teachers all over the United States of America who deserve so much better than your leadership.’”

“Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat from New Hampshire, accused the secretary of denying parents the right to vaccinate their children against COVID.”

“’You’re making things up to scare people,’ Kennedy loudly interrupted. ‘And it’s a lie.’”

“Kennedy defended his running of HHS, which was thrust into turmoil after his decision last week to fire the Senate-confirmed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, issue confusing new COVID vaccine guidelines and cut funding for mRNA vaccine research, among other contentious moves. A number of committee Republicans applauded Kennedy for his work, noting he had reduced spending and shifted the agency’s focus to ‘promoting prevention first.’”

“During a moment that appeared to confuse senators, Kennedy said he had fired former CDC head Susan Monarez because he asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ and she replied ‘No.’ Several in response cited Monarez’s claim that the firing came after a dispute in which Kennedy asked her to preemptively promise that she’d sign off on forthcoming recommendations from a newly installed vaccine committee. Kennedy refuted these claims and repeatedly accused Monarez of lying.”

“He also appeared to double down on his assertions that childhood vaccines and autism are linked, citing a since-retracted study.”

“Senator Tina Smith, Democrat from Minnesota, attempted to push the secretary on his past statements: ‘When were you lying, sir? When you told this committee that you were not anti-vax, or when you told Americans that there’s no safe and effective vaccine?’”

“’Both things are true,’ he replied.”

I can only imagine the confusion in schools right now regarding vaccines and public health. It’s a mess.

When I was a kid, if you didn’t have your vaccines, then you didn’t enter school. Period, End of discussion.

I guess we now live in an age where all of that has not only been called in question, but policy has made it difficult, if not impossible, for families to access vaccinations. That seems to be something we would see in a Third World country.

English Teachers Work to Instill the Joy of Reading. Testing Gets in the Way (The 74)

According to The 74, “A new national study shows that Americans’ rates of reading for pleasure have declined radically over the first quarter of this century and that recreational reading can be linked to school achievement, career compensation and growth, civic engagement, and health. Learning how to enjoy reading – not literacy proficiency – isn’t just for hobbyists, it’s a necessary life skill.”

“But the conditions under which English teachers work are detrimental to the cause – and while book bans are in the news, the top-down pressure to measure up on test scores is a more pervasive, more longstanding culprit….”

Cell phones have recently been accused of preventing kids from gaining a love of reading (for example, my wife is convinced that the cell phone is the sole cause of reading decline). But, before cell phones, there was test prep, when kids were asked to read small passages to prepare them for high-stakes testing. Instead of cell phones, maybe the root cause of reading decline is the 40-years plus we’ve stuck a three-paragraph reading comprehension passage in front of a student and expected them to answer two or three questions about the passage?

High Quality Research Rarely Informs Classroom Practice. Why? (EducationWeek)

 Thomas S. Dee, a Stanford professor, recently wrote an opinion piece for EducationWeek. Dee writes,

“Though the United States has a world-class research capacity, it has produced frustratingly few reliable insights into effective school and classroom practices that can meet this challenge. Case in point, data from the federal Institute of Education Sciences, which has led high-profile investments in rigorous, practice-relevant research but is currently beleaguered by staffing and funding cuts, illustrate the lingering shortcomings of the research produced by our universities and research organizations.”

Over the past 50 years, America’s K-12 system has done a poor job allowing research and policy to impact practice. ABPTL has asked the following question many times in this column:

Why don’t we do what we know?

Now, we face a new challenge. Many of the organizations tasked with research and policy have either vanished or had their budgets cut dramatically. Again, this is something you would expect to read about in a Third World country.

But, I guess a way to look at this might be –

If the system isn’t going to allow research and policy to inform practice, then is it really necessary to invest all this money into research and policy projects and organizations?

Have a great weekend! Til Monday. SVB