We recently had the honor of having Dr. Poland speak to us for the second time this year – this time focusing on upcoming vaccines.

Titled “SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines: Principles, Prejudices, Pipelines, Porcupines, and Products,” Dr. Poland’s presentation gives a comprehensive view at the state of COVID-19 vaccines today, and what we can expect in the months to come.

Principles:
Dr. Poland sets the tone of his presentation by emphasizing that science has a rational and defined basis – it has to be free of political bias, it has to be peer-reviewed, repeatable and generalizable, agnostic to results.

Prejudices:
Dr. Poland addresses the massive political and economic conflicts of interest that are impacting global response to COVID-19.

Porcupines:
Here Dr. Poland speaks about public perception, transparency of research, and the cacophony of misinformation in public and social media. He cites the public harm done by press releases about hydroxychlorine as an example.

Products:
While there are multiple vaccines in development, there are no vaccines currently licensed in the U.S., and there is an uncertain regulatory pathway for them to reach mass distribution.

Ideal Vaccine Profile:

● Excellent safety profile
● Can be quickly mass-produced
● Is stable at room temperature (to avoid chain and transportation issues)
● Can be stored indefinitely
● Mass-administration mechanisms that do not require highly-trained health care providers

In the webinar, Dr. Poland describes the nature and function of frontrunner and up-and-coming vaccines.

Adenovirus-Vectored Vaccines:

AstroZeneza
Johnson Johnson/Jannsen
Sputnik-V
CanSino – d5

MRNA Vaccines

Pfizer/BNT
Moderna

Up-and-coming Vaccines:

S-Protein Vaccines

Novavax
PittCoVacc
GSK-Dynavax

In the webinar, Dr. Poland compares the approach and potential efficacy of these vaccines in development, describes their effects on primates – including side effects and conditions, and their strong points and weaknesses in terms of potential mass production and distribution.

Dr. Poland addresses the recent Pfizer press release, with the widely-distributed claim of 90% effectiveness – sharing the several limitations and caveats behind this headline.

We invite you to watch the webinar, available here.

Virus Mutation

Dr. Poland addresses the recent headline from Houston News about the virus mutation. The strain medical practitioners are encountering currently is labeled D614G – a different strain than the original virus. While this new strain does not bring with is increased mortality, it has different behaviors that influence treatment.

Additionally, continuous mutation of the virus may make it a moving target, limiting the efficacy of developed vaccines. This may prove a key factor in getting the pandemic under control.

Human Behavior

Sadly, human behavior is a major factor in controlling this health crisis. The reluctance of the American public to socially distance and/or wear masks creates a major challenge. Dr. Poland attributes this behavior to the fact that the U.S. is driven by a “me” culture rather than a “we” culture. To some people, it is inconceivable that they be slightly inconvenienced in order to protect public safety. In Asian cultures, such behavior does not occur, because of social pressors that drive empathic/selfless conduct.

Stuart Ellis, CEO of Charter School Capital, talks also about the challenges caused by contradictory sources of information, offering conflicting views. Dr. Poland offers a humorous view of this, saying that his approach is, “what does your grocery store clerk think of your health condition? What does your mechanic think of your health condition?” – which of course prompts the reaction, “why would I ask HER?” – and that is the whole point. Why would one look to Fox News, or some pundit, as a reliable source of health information, over sources such as the CDC or the FDA. Dr. Poland further suggests one look at academic and clinical sources such as the Mayo Clinic or Harvard University.

Tensions

Dr. Poland speaks about the tension of speed vs. safety in terms of bringing vaccines to market. Vaccines often have side effects, and the severity of the side effects and the percentage of patients such side effects may affect, are key factors in the decisions of approving, mass-producing and distributing a vaccine.

While this is a quick summary, we encourage you to watch the full webinar. It provides highly-valuable information which will bring you much-needed certainty, from a reputable, highly-trustable source.

Watch the webinar here

Financial Opportunities for Minority Students: Closing the Gap

Financial opportunities for minority students (to support the attendance of higher education institutions) are often limited. According to a 2017 study, Hispanic and Black students graduate from college at a rate of up to 25% lower than their white and Asian counterparts. The persistent racial disparity in higher education is caused by a wide array of barriers, one of the prevailing ones being economic hardship among minority populations. We also know that traditionally underserved students, including minorities and low-income students, attend and complete college at far lower rates than their peers. These students are suspended, expelled, and drop out at higher rates, and are less likely to have access to strong teachers and challenging curricula.

We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools and educational opportunities, including informational resources, and how to support charter school growth and the advancement of the charter school movement as a whole. We hope you find this—and any other article we share—both interesting and valuable.
We believe that all children in our country deserve access to a world-class education. That anyone with dreams and determination should have the opportunity to reach their potential and succeed.

But we are not yet where we need to be. While we often might expect that schools in low-income communities receive extra resources, the opposite is often true; a Department of Education study found that 45 percent of high-poverty schools received less state and local funding than was typical for other schools in their district. In order to help alleviate the financial burden on these underserved communities, you’ll find two resources of information for minority/BIPOC students.

EduBirdie.com

EduBirdie.com, a platform for writers and students, put together a solid list of scholarships available to black students. In its post entitled List of African American Scholarships And Grants for 2020, you’ll find an exhaustive list of scholarship opportunities to explore.

Best Colleges.com

The team at BestColleges.com researched and compiled information on financial aid opportunities for minority students. You can check out some of their findings below:

Their comprehensive guides can help aspiring college students attain their dreams, without their socio-economic class acting as an obstacle. You can also use this College Scholarship Database to search for the perfect opportunity.

BestColleges.com partners with HigherEducation.com to provide students with direct connections to schools and programs suiting their educational goals. They also host a wide array of free college planning, financial aid, and career resources to help all students get the most from their education and prepare for the world after college.

Here are a few additional resources you might find helpful:

Since the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We provide growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.8 billion in support of 600 charter schools that have educated over 1,027,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us. We’d love to work with you!

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This post was originally published on October 18, 2018, and was updated with new resources on June 12, 2020.

Charter schools serve diverse communities where immigration concerns can significantly impact student attendance and academic performance. Understanding these challenges helps ensure all students can access quality education regardless of their family’s immigration status.

The Impact on Student Attendance

Research shows concerning patterns of how immigration enforcement affects school communities. From 2019:

Las Cruces, New Mexico saw a 60% spike in student absences following an immigration raid
Hamblen County, Tennessee experienced 20% of Hispanic students missing school after workplace enforcement
Seven percent of U.S. children are born to parents without legal immigration status

These impacts extend beyond attendance to include decreased family engagement, academic performance decline, and increased need for counseling services.

Creating Supportive School Policies

Safe Learning Environment Strategies

Policy Considerations:

Limit collection of unnecessary immigration-related information
Establish clear protocols for handling immigration enforcement requests
Train staff on supporting students experiencing family stress
Create welcoming environments that encourage family engagement

Communication Approaches:

Provide multilingual resources and translation services
Offer cultural competency training for staff
Use community liaisons who understand local immigrant communities
Clearly communicate the school’s commitment to serving all students

Supporting Academic Continuity

Student Support Services:

Enhanced counseling for students experiencing family stress
Flexible attendance policies accounting for family circumstances
Academic intervention programs to address learning gaps
Mentorship programs connecting students with supportive adults

Family Engagement:

Alternative communication methods that respect privacy concerns
Community partnerships with trusted local organizations
Flexible meeting times and locations for parent engagement
Educational workshops providing valuable information to families

Building Community Partnerships

Partner with local organizations serving immigrant families to:

Access legal resources and immigration support services
Provide cultural competency training and community insights
Secure additional funding for student support programs
Build trust within immigrant communities

Understanding Educational Rights

The Supreme Court’s Plyler v. Doe decision ensures all children, regardless of immigration status, have the right to public education through grade 12. Schools should also support DACA-eligible students with college and career counseling that addresses their unique circumstances.

Creating Inclusive Communities

Charter schools that successfully support students affected by immigration concerns focus on creating environments where education is treated as a fundamental right, schools serve as safe havens for learning, and family engagement respects diverse circumstances.

By implementing thoughtful policies, providing comprehensive support services, and building strong community partnerships, charter schools ensure that immigration concerns don’t become barriers to educational success.

Is U.S. Education on the Wrong Track? One Study Says Yes

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published here, by The 74. The most intriguing finding from this study about how U.S. education affects industries was that 85 percent of business leaders surveyed said one or more market-driven reforms must take place: implement greater school autonomy (59 percent), replace underperforming schools (39 percent), and expand charter schools (34 percent). Just 15 percent of respondents said traditional school management models should remain intact.
We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources, and how to support charter school growth and the advancement of the charter school movement as a whole. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable. Please read on to learn more.

Exclusive: New Survey Shows a Majority of Business Leaders Believe U.S. Education ‘on the Wrong Track,’ Many Fear Poorly Performing Schools Could Harm Their Industries

Cities and towns looking to grow their economies are likely misdirecting their efforts if their priorities are not centered on education, a new national survey of business leaders suggests.
In canvassing 234 local business leaders on the state of their public schools and how they could be improved, Business Forward found that a majority believe that American K-12 schools are “on the wrong track” — and 1 in 4 are concerned that poorly performing schools will negatively impact their businesses.
“When considering relocating, good schools are a primary consideration for both companies and prospective employees,” P. Morgan of San Antonio, Texas, said in response to the survey.
The leaders surveyed represent a wide spectrum of industries, business sizes, and more than 40 U.S. states and territories. Two out of three also have children who either graduated from or are currently enrolled in public schools. Business Forward is a national nonprofit that works with local business leaders across the country for networking, programming, and advocacy.
“My children have graduated. The schools seem worse since then,” E. Karle of Lexington, Kentucky, said in the survey. “We need a strong commitment to education across the country or we will have trouble finding qualified employees. … Whatever else we must skimp on to save money, we must not skimp on our schools.”
Half of those executives surveyed said American schools are underfunded, and half of those business leaders were more concerned with poor students than their own. Many called for increasing funding for the state’s neediest schools as a means of closing the opportunity gap between rich and poor districts, reducing income inequality, and supplying integral talent to their businesses.

This trepidation comes as the U.S. economy surges, readying itself to expand in the second half of this year at the fastest rate since the Great Recession. The rapid growth has allowed employers to continue to hire, driving the unemployment rate — sub-4 percent — toward its lowest level in 50 years.
But there’s a widening gap between the rising number of job openings and the number of workers with enough education and skill to fill them, which could debilitate economic growth in the long term, according to a paper released last week by President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Proposals in the House and Senate seek to allocate more federal funding toward workforce training in fiscal 2019 — albeit at lower levels than advocates have hoped.
Overall, 3 out of 4 business leaders surveyed expressed the need for one of three issues:

Greater accountability and autonomy for teachers and principals
Practical skills and technical training
Equitable and more funding for schools in poor communities

While there is support for greater accountability, the leaders surveyed expressed caution in handling schools like businesses. A number of respondents denounced reforms that create schools modeled like factories, treating students as “outputs” or “widgets.” Instead, they said, schools should act as service providers in which students are the “customers.”
To improve schools so they can provide skilled workers, 85 percent of business leaders surveyed said, one or more market-driven reforms must take place: implement greater school autonomy (59 percent), replace underperforming schools (39 percent), and expand charter schools (34 percent). Just 15 percent of respondents said traditional school management models should remain intact.
Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation provided support to Business Forward for this survey and provides support to The 74.

Since the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We provide growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.6 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 800,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us. We’d love to work with you!

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Editor’s Note: This post was written by Philissa Cramer and Monica Disare. It was originally published here on April 19, 2018 by Chalkbeat. As the election season is upon us, there is no better time to think about how some charter school solutions could potentially make students more civically minded. I think we’d all agree that our young people – our future voters – should understand that their voices and their votes both matter and count. This interesting article asks (and answers) the question, “Can schools encourage students to be more involved citizens?”

We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources, and how to support charter school growth and the advancement of the charter school movement as a whole. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable. Please read on to learn more.

Can schools encourage students to be more involved citizens? A new study suggests yes they can.

In a city of roughly 1,800 schools, many have names that have little to do with what students experience.
Not so for Democracy Prep, a network of charter schools that a new study concludes makes students far more likely to vote once they turn 18.
The study, conducted by independent researchers commissioned by Democracy Prep, took advantage of New York City’s charter school admissions rules to examine the impact of applying to, getting accepted to, and enrolling in the network’s schools on later civic participation.
Looking at more than a thousand students who applied between 2007 and 2015 who were old enough to vote in 2016, the researchers found that just being selected in the admissions lottery was correlated with a slight increase in voting rates. Students who were chosen voted 6 percentage points more often than students who were not.
The impact was much greater on students who were chosen and actually enrolled: They voted 24 percentage points more often than students who applied but never got a chance to attend.
The findings suggest that Democracy Prep is achieving its explicit goal of promoting civic participation. They also offer one answer to the question of whether charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed, undermine democracy.
“Democracy Prep provides a test case of whether charter schools can successfully serve the foundational purpose of public education—preparation for citizenship—even while operating outside the direct control of elected officials,” the researchers write. “With respect to the critical civic participation measures of registration and voting, the answer is yes.”Seth Andrew, who started the network with a single middle school in Harlem in 2006, said he was pleased by the findings — and unsurprised because the network has baked civic participation into its culture and academic program. Students must take on a personal “Change the World” project and pass the U.S. citizenship exam to graduate.
“This idea of ‘change the world’ was very central to what we were trying to get our kids prepared and excited to do,” he said.
Creating more engaged citizens takes more than just adding a civics class, said Katie Duffy, the CEO of Democracy Prep. Schools have to make democracy a part of the daily culture, she said.
“The more you talk about the importance of voting, the importance of elections, the importance of advocacy,” she said, “the more it becomes ingrained in our kids.”
The network has also long used Election Day — when district-run schools are often closed so their buildings can be used as polling stations — as a teachable moment.
In 2008, Democracy Prep students spent the day working to get out the vote in their neighborhoods. Four years later, Democracy Prep schools were among the few housed in city space that got special permission to stay open — and the network sent students out to advance the “Vote for Somebody” campaign it had kicked off in a catchy viral video. The next year, students promoted a different message — “I can’t vote but you can” — in an effort to boost the city’s 11 percent primary election voter participation rate.
The network’s influence extends far beyond its students. In 2012, six years into the network’s existence, officials estimated that students had helped 5,000 New Yorkers register to vote. Now, the network runs 22 schools in five states.
Andrew said the study’s findings about the impact of the network — which he left in 2012 to work on other civic engagement initiatives, including at the White House — offer only a start at a time when the United States lags behind other developed countries in voter turnout.
“I was thrilled with the outcome,” said Andrew. “But then as the guy that founded Democracy Prep I feel like there’s a whole lot of room to grow.”
Correction: A previous version of this story described the increase in voting caused by Democracy Prep as a percent figure, rather than in percentage points.

Since the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We provide growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.6 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 800,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us. We’d love to work with you!

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CTE and Non-Cognitive Skills: Finding the balance

Editor’s Note: As a parent myself, this topic was of particular interest. I often wonder if our schools are actually teaching non-cognitive skills like grit, perseverance, and work ethic — which I thought were solely my job to lovingly impart at home — alongside the more traditional cognitive skills provided by standard curriculum. I found this article that I thought was an interesting analysis of the state of things as it pertains to both cognitive and non-cognitive learning in the school environment. This article was originally published here on February 16th by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and written by Jessica Poiner. We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational education resources, and how to support charter school growth. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.

Non-cognitive skills are an increasingly popular topic in education. These include capabilities like perseverance, grit, self-efficacy, work ethic, and conscientiousness. Research shows that possessing them can affect both scholastic and life outcomes.
Their popularity and apparent effectiveness have led to calls on schools to pay more attention to these non-cognitive factors. These calls were answered in part by ESSA, which requires states to have an indicator of “school quality or student success” that goes beyond state standardized test scores and graduation rates. Sometimes referred to as the “nonacademic indicator,” the inclusion of this measure in federal requirements opened the door for schools to focus, at least in part, on non-cognitive skills. California’s CORE districts, for example, use a social-emotional learning metric that measures four non-cognitive competencies with student surveys.
But incorporating non-cognitive skills into schools is still quite difficult. Paul Tough, author of the widely-cited How Children Succeed, explained why in a 2016 Atlantic article:
But here’s the problem: For all our talk about noncognitive skills, nobody has yet found a reliable way to teach kids to be grittier or more resilient. And it has become clear, at the same time, that the educators who are best able to engender noncognitive abilities in their students often do so without really “teaching” these capacities the way one might teach math or reading—indeed, they often do so without ever saying a word about them in the classroom. This paradox has raised a pressing question for a new generation of researchers: Is the teaching paradigm the right one to use when it comes to helping young people develop noncognitive capacities?
Tough raises an important issue: If we know these skills matter, both in terms of academic achievement and long-term outcomes, then we have a responsibility to make sure that students graduate with a firm grasp of them. But if we don’t know how to teach the capacities effectively, what are we supposed to do?
When I taught high school English, my students and I discussed non-cognitive skills all the time—Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet should have practiced more self-control, Dr. King’s speeches and letters are a great example of self-efficacy and perseverance, and The Cask of Amontilladois a fascinating (albeit disturbing) look at the interplay between a conscientious character and a careless one. But similar to what Tough implied in the Atlantic, I often wondered if my classroom was the best place for students to actually practice these skills. That’s not to say it was impossible; I’m sure a few students improved their teamwork skills during group projects, or their grittiness during our seemingly endless trek through research papers. But overall, a traditional classroom with rows of desks and textbooks and a smart board might not have been the best place for them to exercise their non-cognitive muscles.
But what about non-traditional classroom spaces? Take for instance career and technical education (CTE), which integrates traditional academic subjects with technical, job-specific skills. These programs are typically designed to follow both a state’s academic standards and technical content standards that align to a chosen field and allow for hands-on training and real work experience. So, for CTE students, school isn’t just about the three R’s. It might also involve performing blood tests, interning with a pediatric physical therapy team, working on utility restoration and workplace improvement projects at places like GM, participating in mock trials, or even designing animation and software. Each of these programs puts students into real-world situations that demand the development and use of non-cognitive skills.
These are not the “vo-tech” programs of yesteryear, into which academically struggling students were shoved because their teachers didn’t know what to do with them. Today’s CTE helps students earn associate and bachelor’s degrees and industry-recognized credentials that will place them in good-paying jobs—and they value learning through doing and the development of soft skills, not just the imparting of academic knowledge.
Unfortunately, despite all the research on the positive effects of career and technical education, there seems to be little analysis of whether specific programs cultivate non-cognitive capacities. That’s something that should be remedied soon.
But resources like the Ohio Department of Education’s CTE success stories post shows CTE’s potential in this regard. The student profiles therein evince the mastery of hard, cognitive skills: cardiopulmonary resuscitation and emergency patient care, sous-vide cooking, and expertise in automotive technology, to name a few. But the stories also show students developing non-cognitive abilities that all children need—grit and self-control, leadership and interpersonal communication skills.
As education stakeholders continue to mull over the best way to teach students non-cognitive skills, offering CTE to more students is an evidence-backed, bipartisan solution that already exists to some degree in the vast majority of states. More rigorous research is needed, but the blend of academic and technical material within these programs offers a great opportunity to teach today’s students cognitive and non-cognitive skills in real-world environments.

What are your thoughts on this topic? We’d love to hear! Share in the comments below.