Editorial Staff

COVID-19 Roundup from Pioneer: Will plans to re-open hurt civil liberties?; COVID-19 model skeptic; SCOTUS returns!; New podcast, HubWonk; 5 Tips for online learning & more!

/0 Comments/in , , , /by Editorial Staff
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

Pioneer staff share their top picks for COVID-19 stories highlighting useful resources, best practices, and questions we should be asking our public and private sector leaders. We hope you are staying safe, and we welcome your thoughts; you can always reach out to us via email:  pioneer@pioneerinstitute.org.

Our Top Picks for COVID-19 Pandemic News:

Jim Stergios, Executive Director: This piece by Ezra Klein is a brief overview of the four plans thus far released to re-open the economy. All involve trade-offs, especially related to civil liberties. The big takeaway is that if we want to avoid significant curbs into our liberties, the country needs to go from 100,000-150,000 tests a day (the current rate) to somewhere closer to 20 million daily tests.

William Smith, Visiting Fellow in Life Sciences: Meet a skeptic of the COVID-19 models, former NY Times reporter Alex Berenson.

Also from Bill: Gilead released data on patients who had received compassionate use of remdesivir. While 68% of patients improved while on the drug, this was not a randomized clinical trial, so there was no group of placebo patients who could be compared to those receiving the drug. Gilead is expected to release actual clinical trial data by the end of the month.

Saylor Scheller, Development Coordinator: The U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will be hearing oral arguments via teleconference for a number of cases postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, beginning May 4th.

Our Picks for Public & Private Sector Best Practices:

Micaela Dawson, Communications Director: Pioneer’s new podcast, HubWonk, debuted this week, with co-hosts Joe Selvaggi and Pioneer Senior Fellow in Healthcare Josh Archambault interviewing Dr. Andrew Le, co-founder & CEO of Buoy Health, which is partnering with Massachusetts to help residents self-diagnose COVID-19 symptoms.

Jamie Gass, Education Policy Director: Online learning pioneer Julie Young of ASU Prep Digital co-authored a new report for Pioneer that offers guidance to state leaders seeking to make the transition to online learning. And, here’s a good story on different approaches states are taking to help students left hanging as a result of COVID-19 earn a high school diploma.

Also from Jamie: An excellent piece from Heritage’s Lindsey Burke on the lack of preparedness of students and citizens in their knowledge of the Constitution and America’s Founding Documents. This kind of civic background knowledge is vital as state and federal government authority and civil liberties often clash in times of national crisis, including during the two world wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War, 9/11, and COVID-19.

Questions for Our Public & Private Sector Leaders:

Barbara Anthony, Senior Fellow in Healthcare raises grave concerns about Massachusetts’ COVID-19 care standards in a new report released today.

Greg Sullivan, Research Director: When the COVID-19 emergency mercifully ends, some businesses may decide to put their newly-gained telecommuting experience to continued use.

Charlie Chieppo, Senior Fellow, has appeared on WGBH’s “Greater Boston,” Boston Neighborhood Network, and Bloomberg Bay State to discuss his recent report co-authored with Greg Sullivan, warning about the impact of skyrocketing unemployment on the state budget.

Andrew Mikula, Peters Fellow: Will the COVID-19-related economic recession cause a spike in crime? Social distancing makes it harder to burglarize homes, engage in gang activity, or commit petty theft. But it could make domestic violence and online black-market operations more prevalent in the short-term. In his blog, Andrew analyzes crime rates of past recesssions.

Do YOU have interesting questions and/or articles to share with us? Please email us, or message us through our social media channels below!

Get Our COVID-19 News, Tips & Resources!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Related Content

CRPE’s Robin Lake on COVID School Closures & Learning Loss

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Gerard Robinson and Cara Candal talk with Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), a non-partisan research and policy analysis organization developing transformative, evidence-based solutions for K-12 public education.

Prof. Raymond Arsenault on the 60th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides & Civil Rights

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Gerard Robinson and Cara Candal talk with Raymond Arsenault, the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History at the University of South Florida, and author of several acclaimed and prize-winning books on civil rights, including Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. He shares how he became interested in researching, writing, and teaching about the Civil Rights Movement.

Study: After Years of Steady Increases, Homeschooling Enrollment Rose Dramatically During COVID

After steadily increasing for years, the number of parents choosing to homeschool their children skyrocketed during the pandemic, and policy makers should do more to acknowledge homeschooling as a viable option, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

ASU’s Julie Young, Virtual Schooling Pioneer, on Digital Learning during COVID-19

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-host Cara Candal talks with Julie Young, ASU Vice President of Education Outreach and Student Services, and Managing Director of ASU Prep Academy and ASU Prep Digital. They discuss the implications of COVID-19’s disruption of American K-12 education and the future of digital learning.

UChicago’s Dr. Leon Kass on Genesis, Exodus, & Reading Great Books

This week on “The Learning Curve," guest co-host Jason Bedrick and co-host Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Leon Kass, MD, the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago. Dr. Kass describes the important pieces of wisdom and humanity people today can still learn from reading the Book of Genesis, the topic of his 2003 work, The Beginning of Wisdom.

“America Today is on Bended Knee” – 20th Anniversary of 9/11 – 20 Resources for Parents & Students

The heroic stories of 9/11 are part of our national consciousness and memory. It’s the duty and obligation of the living and those who survived to pass along this history to the next generation. As Americans mourn the events of 20 years ago, while in the midst of another national crisis during COVID-19, let’s recommit ourselves to teaching students and the younger generation about seminal events like 9/11 that still shape our world today. To support this effort, we’re offering a variety of resources to help parents, teachers, and high school students.

NYT Best Seller Dr. Kate Clifford Larson on Fannie Lou Hamer & the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Kate Clifford Larson, a New York Times best-selling biographer of Harriet Tubman and Fannie Lou Hamer. Kate shares why she has written about these historical African-American figures, and how she thinks parents, teachers, and schools can draw on their lives to talk about race.

Valhalla Foundation’s Nancy Poon Lue on STEM Access & Equity

This week on “The Learning Curve," host Gerard Robinson talks with Nancy Poon Lue, incoming Senior Director at the Valhalla Foundation, where she will be leading their K-12 math funding initiatives. Nancy shares her recent work with the EF+Math Program, some of the challenges America has faced in ensuring students have a strong grounding in math and science, and the kinds of results she aims to achieve for kids in all ZIP codes. 

Untangling Variants & Outbreaks: Can Vaccines & Natural Immunity Outrun Delta?

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with author, surgeon, and public health expert Dr. Marty Makary about the COVID-19 Delta Variant, the durability of natural and vaccinated immunity, the benefits of booster shots, and the health risks for children as we move into the fall.

Trevor Mattos Shows How Massachusetts Runs on Immigrants

This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Trevor Mattos, research manager at Boston Indicators, the research center at The Boston Foundation, which educates state and local leaders on the important contributions immigrants are making. They discuss the urgency of this work, particularly in a time of divisive disinformation about immigrants and the uncertainty of the pandemic, and some of the surprising findings on the disproportionately large impact immigrant workers, entrepreneurs and innovators are having on the local economy

Yale’s Pulitzer-Winning Prof. David Blight on Frederick Douglass, Slavery, & Emancipation

This week on “The Learning Curve," Cara Candal and guest co-host Derrell Bradford talk with David Blight, Sterling Professor of American History and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

UVA Prof. E.D. Hirsch, Jr. on Core Knowledge, Equity, & Educating Citizens

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Professor E.D. Hirsch, Jr., founder and chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, and acclaimed author of the books, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know and How to Educate a Citizen: The Power of Shared Knowledge to Unify a Nation.

“Key of the Gulf” – Exploring Cuba – 35 Resources for Parents & Students

Castro’s despotism, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Embargo, remains the Cuban people – vibrant, creative, pious, and poor, who have continued to inspire and awe with their smiles, culture, music, dance, food, tobacco, resilience, and hopes. With the desire of passing along some of this magic to American families, students, teachers, and schools, we’re providing a variety of resources to educate our people about their neighbors, who live a mere 100 miles from our shores, in Cuba.

Human Rights Advocate Kristina Arriaga on Cuba, Religious Liberty, & Cancel Culture

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Kristina Arriaga, president of Intrinsic, a strategic communications firm, and former vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Kristina shares her family’s experiences fleeing Castro’s communist regime in Cuba and other hardships, and how her background has shaped her commitment to religious liberty.

Pandemic Pension Payout: Essential COVID-19 Public Workers Rewarded Whether Essential or Working

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute’s Director of Research and former Massachusetts Inspector General and State Representative Greg Sullivan about HB 2808, COVID-19 Essential Employee Retirement Credit Bonus, discussing the merits of the recently proposed joint bill, its cost, and our current public debt burden in the Commonwealth.

MBTA Ridership Trends Compared to Public Transportation Agencies Nationwide

0 Comments
/
The COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating effect on our economy,…

Public Statement on Implementation of the Charitable Giving Deduction

Despite being awash in cash, the state Legislature just overrode Gov. Charlie Baker’s veto of a provision to delay by yet another year a tax deduction for charitable donations. Rep. Mark Cusack, House chair of the Joint Committee on Revenue, said “it doesn’t mean no, just not now.” If not now, when?

The Globe’s Ornaments – Celebrating the Great Cities of the Ages – 35 Resources for Parents & Students

Celebrating the Great Cities of the Ages - This is part of Pioneer’s ongoing series of blogs on curricular resources for parents, teachers, and students during COVID-19.