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Top Three Takeaways – September 8th, 2021
- South Florida’s schools are failing. That can’t be a good thing for our students. As I discuss in today’s Q&A, and as highlighted by the Sun Sentinel yesterday, Florida isn’t providing all schools with grades for performance based on the pandemic, but if they were, up to half would be failing. Yes half. According to the state’s records, a third of Palm Beach County’s Schools produced “D” or “F” outcomes last school year while half of Broward's performed that poorly. Now as awful as that is, especially with the end of the prior school year having ended with the remote learning debacle, it’s not complicated and it’s not surprising. It’s also a certainty that it’s happening right now. I’m talking about the failure of teachers to effectively teach and students to effectively learn. If our school districts were to actually pay attention to science, as opposed to simply paying rhetorical homage to it, they’d see that teachers of all subjects at all grade levels teach less effectively with masks on. They’d also see that students at all grade levels learn less with masks on. So naturally our school districts continue to mandate the wearing of masks in the classroom which only ensures that less teaching and less learning takes place, leading to a third to a half of our schools outright failing our kids. Our schools are failing our kids because the very reason we have schools, education, has taken a backseat to mask militance in which students and teachers must wear masks when they’re socially distanced in a classroom, but are allowed to take them off when they’re congregated with others while eating. Commonsense and pragmatism are in short supply in our schools, which explains why up to half are currently failures. Now parts of three school years have been negatively impacted and one has to begin to worry about the long-term impact of what isn’t being learned in the classroom. As a parent you have enough to worry about already, but this is an extremely important consideration you should be mindful of and another reason to be as plugged in as ever with your kids about what is and isn’t being learned in the classroom. In better news...
- Down with the virus. Not only has Florida had the fewest new COVID-19 cases over the past week that we’ve had in about five, but all signs also point towards continued improvement. At least according to the Mayo Clinic’s COVID-19 14-day projection tool which has been highly accurate throughout the pandemic. According to the Mayo Clinic, Florida’s new rona’ cases will decline by a minimum of 23% over the next two weeks and potentially by as much as 60%. It looks safe to assume the worst of the summer surge of the pandemic is in the rearview mirror and God-willing, the worst of the pandemic as well. Meanwhile it sounds safe to...
- Mix it up with vaccines. In a conversation with FIU’s Dr. Aileen Marty yesterday, she offered up interesting information for those who might be looking to switch vaccine brands with COVID-19 boosters. It looks safe to do it. Citing studies in Canada and the UK, she suggested that while it’s unlikely to be recommended by government officials in this country, because there haven’t been US sponsored studies, it seemingly worked elsewhere. A lot of people have asked about the possibility with greater knowledge of efficacy rates of the different vaccines, especially against the variants. With this information in hand, I’d not be surprised to see a lot of people looking to mix it up with the boosters.