Editorial Staff

COVID-19 Roundup from Pioneer: How some countries are succeeding, Tips for maintenance staff safety, Shelter in place?, Equity in remote learning policies

/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, shares some news about the supply chain from Forbes: Puerto Rico Can Help The U.S. End Its Dependence On Chinese Pharmaceutical Ingredients.

William Smith, Visiting Fellow in Life Sciences: Here‘s one Stanford University professor’s take on where this could go.

Mary Connaughton, Director of Government Transparency: New York Times’ health reporter Donald McNeil writes: “If we had enough tests for every American, even the completely asymptomatic cases could be found and isolated… Obviously, there is no magic wand, and no 300 million tests. But the goal of lockdowns and social distancing is to approximate such a total freeze.”

Barbara Anthony, Senior Fellow in Healthcare: Terrific, must-read piece, in The Boston Globe: “Understanding what works: How some countries are beating back the coronavirus.”

Our Picks for Public & Private Sector Best Practices:

Barbara Anthony, Senior Fellow in Healthcare, offers some tips to help ensure the safety of our residential building maintenance and management staff.

Mary Connaughton, Director of Government Transparency: As a public service, along with major national news outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, many of our state’s newspapers have lifted their paywalls and are offering free online access to Coronavirus coverage including the Boston Herald, Berkshire Eagle, The Boston Globe (through Boston.com), Metrowest Daily News and many other regionals. If your newspaper is doing the same – please let us know. We’d love to give them a shout out for this terrific public service. Keeping people informed saves lives.

Micaela Dawson, Communications Director: Kudos to Chelmsford-based company Zoll for ramping up ventrilator production to fight COVID-19. Read the story in the Boston Herald.

Questions for Our Public & Private Sector Leaders:

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has just issued a stay-home advisory and emergency order regarding non-essential businesses. Should he issue a shelter-in-place order? Let us know your thoughts – take our poll below.

Jamie Gass, Education Director: On our latest episode of “The Learning Curve,” Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson discuss the Philadelphia school district’s decision not to offer remote instruction to any of its 200,000 students due to concerns that not all have access to technology. Is this reaction to COVID-19 reasonable or irresponsible?

Do YOU have interesting 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.

Kelly Smith, Prenda CEO, on Microschooling & the Future of K-12 Learning

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Kelly Smith, founder and CEO of Prenda, a company that helps create flexible learning environments known as microschools. Often described as the “reinvention of the one-room school house,” microschools combine homeschooling, online education, smaller class sizes, mixed age-level groupings, flipped classrooms, and personalized learning.

Lockdowns – Lawless or Laudable? Grading Gov. Baker’s COVID-19 Emergency Orders 6 Months On

Join Joe Selvaggi and Pioneer Institute’s executive director Jim Stergios for a conversation with Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby about the lawsuit against the Massachusetts Governor’s executive orders. They will explore what can be learned from the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what must be considered when devising a new way forward.

“City Upon a Hill” Massachusetts Monuments & Memorials: 25 Resources for K-12 Education

In Pioneer’s ongoing series of blogs here, here, here, and here on curricular resources for parents, families, and teachers during COVID-19, this one focuses on: Introducing K-12 schoolchildren to Massachusetts monuments & memorials.

U-Ark Prof. Jay Greene & EdChoice’s Jason Bedrick on Yeshivas vs. New York & Religious Liberty

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and Gerard are joined by Jay Greene, the Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and Jason Bedrick, the Director of Policy for EdChoice. They discuss their timely new book, Religious Liberty and Education: A Case Study of Yeshivas vs. New York, about the recent battle between Orthodox Jewish private schools and New York's state government over the content of instruction.

Drug Rebates: How Pharmacy Benefit Managers Manipulate Price & Limit Choice

0 Comments
/
Join host Joe Selvaggi and his guest Dr. Bill Smith as they discuss the complex incentive structure between drug manufacturers, health plans, and pharmacy benefit managers. In this episode, they focus on how drug rebates work and how a system intended to optimize value may actually deliver higher costs and fewer choices. Joe and Bill also use this framework to speculate on the price of a COVID-19 vaccine, and who will likely pay for it.

Michelle Rhee, Former Chancellor, D.C. Public Schools, on Leading Urban District Reform & the COVID-19 Moment

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Cara and guest co-host Kerry McDonald are joined by Michelle Rhee, founder and former CEO of StudentsFirst and prior to that, former chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS).