Archives for February 2021

The Education Department said Monday that it will not allow states to forgo federally required standardized testing in schools this year but will give them flexibility to delay testing or hold it online during the pandemic.

Aiming for a middle ground in a polarized debate, the Biden administration said states must continue with annual testing but can apply to be exempted from certain accountability measures tied to the results.

States also will be allowed to move tests to the summer or fall, or they can offer shortened tests or online assessments.

In a letter to state education chiefs on Monday, Ian Rosenblum, an acting assistant education secretary, said testing will help schools understand the impact of the pandemic and how to help students.

“In addition, parents need information on how their children are doing,” he said.

The move aligns with proposals from Democrats who have pushed for testing to identify and address learning setbacks, but who say schools should not be penalized for falling short of goals. But it was blasted by Republicans and by some teachers unions.

The American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation’s major teachers unions, called it a “frustrating turn.” Randi Weingarten, the union’s president, said federal tests should have been canceled and replaced by locally created evaluations.

“We have always known that standardized tests are not the best way to measure a child’s development, nor do they particularly help kids or inform best practices for teaching and learning,” Weingarten said. “That is especially true in these unprecedented times.”

States including New York and Michigan previously said they would apply to be waived from testing this year, and several other states signaled plans to follow. Republicans in Congress also opposed testing and called for a blanket exemption for all states.

Federal law requires states to test students each year in subjects including math and reading as a way to gauge schools’ progress and to identify learning disparities among different groups of students.

The Trump administration allowed all states to forgo tests last year, but then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rejected calls to issue another blanket waiver for this year.

In a September letter to state education chiefs, DeVos said parents deserve to know how their children are performing even during a pandemic. Failing to test would “have a lasting effect for years to come,” she wrote.

But other Republicans have questioned the need for testing this year. At a hearing this month with Miguel Cardona, President Joe Biden’s nominee for education secretary, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., urged against assessments.

Burr called for a conversation to consider “whether we need to pause for one more year the accountability and testing requirements as we grapple with the pandemic.”

Cardona countered that, without testing, it would be difficult for schools to know where to focus their efforts as they help students recover. But he also opposed a “one size fits all” solution and appeared to support flexibility.

“I don’t think we need to be bringing students in just to test them on standardized tests,” Cardona said.

The Biden administration’s new guidance tells states that, although testing in some form will be required, they can apply for waivers to be exempt from accountability measures related to the federally required testing.

Test results would not be used to measure progress toward long-term goals, for example, and it would not be used to identify struggling schools. It also would waive a requirement that states administer tests to at least 95% of students.

States will still be required to publicly share school report cards showing how students performed at the state and local levels, with breakdowns by race and other student characteristics.

It adds that “as a condition” of the flexibility, schools must report new data showing how many students are persistently absent, and other data on their access to computers and home internet.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the ranking Republican on the House education committee, condemned the Biden administration for offering flexibility “in exchange for states’ acceptance of unrelated new requirements.” She urged Biden to take stronger action to reopen schools.

“Families are demanding it and students desperately need it,” Foxx said in a statement. “And where flexibility with federal requirements is needed, I call on the president to offer them without conditions as the law requires.”

In its Monday letter, the administration said it would work with states that may need “additional assessment flexibility” based on the conditions in their areas.

“Certainly, we do not believe that if there are places where students are unable to attend school safely in person because of the pandemic that they should be brought into school buildings for the sole purpose of taking a test,” the letter said.

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Louisville coach Chris Mack admitted it was “not a good look” to be shown maskless in a video while celebrating the Cardinals’ Dec. 26 victory over rival Kentucky.

The 33-second clip, tweeted Saturday night by Kentucky Sports Radio, shows the third-year Louisville coach with former Cardinals football player Eric Wood, celebrating Christmas with family and neighbors who stopped by his house. In the video, Wood yells that former Kentucky associate head coach Kenny Payne, now an assistant with the NBA’s New York Knicks, was responsible for the Wildcats’ previous victories over the Cardinals before noting he’s gone, and that Hall of Fame coach John Calipari “will never beat U of L again.”

Mack tried to offer context for the video during a virtual news conference Monday. He said some of his neighbors were golfing buddies of Payne, a Louisville standout, and wanted to “give him grief” for the game. The coach also recognized the potential fallout for going maskless during the pandemic, even at home.

“When people come over to my house, which hasn’t been very often since last March, I’m probably a violator and obviously was that night,” Mack said. “Neighbors or friends stopped by and not putting on my mask around the house. … Not a good look and for that, I’ve got to do better.”

Mack added that he called Calipari upon learning about the video and told him it was a joke directed at Payne “that went sideways.”

“As I tell my players, when you do things that happen in the spotlight, you’ve got to own it,” Mack said. “Fortunately about me, I own things. I live and learn by them and we’ll move forward.

“I feel bad for doing that. But that wasn’t what the intention was by any means.”

During his weekly radio show Monday night, Calipari said he was fine and appreciated Mack’s call, but added: “He really didn’t have to.”

The video was shot less than two weeks after a previous pause within the Louisville program.

The Cardinals lost 99-54 at North Carolina on Saturday in their first game since Feb. 1, a break caused by COVID-19 protocols. Mack himself tested positive with mild symptoms and returned to practice last week.

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ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Albert Pujols’ wife apparently disclosed that the Los Angeles Angels slugger intends to retire after the upcoming season, although she later amended her social media post to be less definitive.

The 41-year-old Pujols, a three-time MVP and 10-time All-Star, reported to spring training with the Angels on Monday.

In a post on her Instagram account later in the day, Deidre Pujols wrote: “Today is the first day of the last season of one of the most remarkable careers in sports!” Shortly afterward, she amended the statement with a parenthetical “based on his contract.”

Pujols’ 10-year, $240 million contract with the Angels ends after this season, his 21st in the majors. But the fifth-leading home run hitter in major league history has repeatedly declined to say whether this season will be his last, and he repeated his uncertainty earlier this month in an interview with ESPN Deportes.

Pujols is the oldest player in the majors, and he is a decade removed from his heyday in St. Louis. He won three NL MVP awards and two World Series titles with the Cardinals from 2001-11 but hasn’t come close to those feats with the Angels.

On Instagram, Deidre Pujols went on to praise her husband “as he finishes this good race.”

“God isn’t finished with you yet my love and as you finish out this season I know, already prepared for you is another journey full of goodness waiting on the other side,” Deidre Pujols wrote. “Thank you for 21 years of incredible baseball thrills! Finish strong like the Angel you are and I know you will wow us all this 2021 season as usual! 700 we are coming after you.”

Albert Pujols has 662 career homers, trailing Alex Rodriguez (696) for fourth. Pujols has hit more than 31 homers just once in his nine seasons with the Angels, which means his chances of becoming the fourth player in major league history with 700 homers this year would hinge on an extraordinary power resurgence.

Pujols still is one of the greatest hitters of his generation, combining power and consistency at the plate during a two-decade career.

He parlayed his success in St. Louis into an extraordinary contract from Angels owner Arte Moreno in December 2011. But Pujols’ production in Anaheim has never consistently reached the heights of his 11 years in St. Louis, and the Angels haven’t won a playoff game during his tenure alongside three-time AL MVP Mike Trout.

Pujols has batted .257 with 217 homers and 771 RBIs in his nine seasons with the Angels, dropping his career average to .299. He batted a career-worst .224 last season with nine homers and 25 RBIs in the coronavirus-shortened campaign.

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For weeks after Cindy Pollock began planting tiny flags across her yard — one for each of the more than 1,800 Idahoans killed by COVID-19 — the toll was mostly a number. Until two women she had never met rang her doorbell in tears, seeking a place to mourn the husband and father they had just lost.

Then Pollock knew her tribute, however heartfelt, would never begin to convey the grief of a pandemic that has now claimed 500,000 lives in the U.S. and counting.

“I just wanted to hug them,” she said. “Because that was all I could do.”

After a year that has darkened doorways across the U.S., the pandemic surpassed a milestone Monday that once seemed unimaginable, a stark confirmation of the virus’s reach into all corners of the country and communities of every size and makeup.

“It’s very hard for me to imagine an American who doesn’t know someone who has died or have a family member who has died,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics at the University of Washington in Seattle. “We haven’t really fully understood how bad it is, how devastating it is, for all of us.”

Experts warn that about 90,000 more deaths are likely in the next few months, despite a massive campaign to vaccinate people. Meanwhile, the nation’s trauma continues to accrue in a way unparalleled in recent American life, said Donna Schuurman of the Dougy Center for Grieving Children & Families in Portland, Oregon.

At other moments of epic loss, like the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Americans have pulled together to confront crisis and console survivors. But this time, the nation is deeply divided. Staggering numbers of families are dealing with death, serious illness and financial hardship. And many are left to cope in isolation, unable even to hold funerals.

“In a way, we’re all grieving,” said Schuurman, who has counseled the families of those killed in terrorist attacks, natural disasters and school shootings.

In recent weeks, virus deaths have fallen from more than 4,000 reported on some days in January to an average of fewer than 1,900 per day.

Still, at half a million, the toll recorded by Johns Hopkins University is already greater than the population of Miami or Kansas City, Missouri. It is roughly equal to the number of Americans killed in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. It is akin to a 9/11 every day for nearly six months.

“The people we lost were extraordinary,” President Joe Biden said Monday, urging Americans to remember the individual lives claimed by the virus, rather than be numbed by the enormity of the toll.

“Just like that,” he said, “so many of them took their final breath alone in America.”

The toll, accounting for 1 in 5 deaths reported worldwide, has far exceeded early projections, which assumed that federal and state governments would marshal a comprehensive and sustained response and individual Americans would heed warnings.

Instead, a push to reopen the economy last spring and the refusal by many to maintain social distancing and wear face masks fueled the spread.

The figures alone do not come close to capturing the heartbreak.

“I never once doubted that he was not going to make it. … I so believed in him and my faith,” said Nancy Espinoza, whose husband, Antonio, was hospitalized with COVID-19 last month.

The couple from Riverside County, California, had been together since high school. They pursued parallel nursing careers and started a family. Then, on Jan. 25, Nancy was called to Antonio’s bedside just before his heart beat its last. He was 36 and left behind a 3-year-old son.

“Today it’s us. And tomorrow it could be anybody,” Nancy Espinoza said.

By late last fall, 54 percent of Americans reported knowing someone who had died of COVID-19 or had been hospitalized with it, according to a Pew Research Center poll. The grieving was even more widespread among Black Americans, Hispanics and other minorities.

Deaths have nearly doubled since then, with the scourge spreading far beyond the Northeast and Northwest metropolitan areas slammed by the virus last spring and the Sun Belt cities hit hard last summer.

In some places, the seriousness of the threat was slow to sink in.

When a beloved professor at a community college in Petoskey, Michigan, died last spring, residents mourned, but many remained doubtful of the threat’s severity, Mayor John Murphy said. That changed over the summer after a local family hosted a party in a barn. Of the 50 who attended, 33 became infected. Three died, he said.

“I think at a distance people felt ‘This isn’t going to get me,’” Murphy said. “But over time, the attitude has totally changed from ‘Not me. Not our area. I’m not old enough,’ to where it became the real deal.”

For Anthony Hernandez, whose Emmerson-Bartlett Memorial Chapel in Redlands, California, has been overwhelmed handling burial of COVID-19 victims, the most difficult conversations have been the ones without answers, as he sought to comfort mothers, fathers and children who lost loved ones.

His chapel, which arranges 25 to 30 services in an ordinary month, handled 80 in January. He had to explain to some families that they would need to wait weeks for a burial.

“At one point, we had every gurney, every dressing table, every embalming table had somebody on it,” he said.

In Boise, Idaho, Pollock started the memorial in her yard last fall to counter what she saw as widespread denial of the threat. When deaths spiked in December, she was planting 25 to 30 new flags at a time. But her frustration has been eased somewhat by those who slow or stop to pay respect or to mourn.

“I think that is part of what I was wanting, to get people talking,” she said, “Not just like, ‘Look at how many flags are in the yard today compared to last month,’ but trying to help people who have lost loved ones talk to other people.”

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Associated Press video journalist Eugene Garcia contributed to this story.

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