Education professor hoping alternatives to suspensions work in middle school test
A new approach to poor classroom behavior that avoids suspensions and expulsions is being put to the test in Oregon, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, California, and Hawaii. Developed by associate professor Rhonda Nese and her team in the University of Oregon’s College of Education, the approach is different than exclusionary discipline, an approach involving removing students from classrooms and schools. Nese and her team recently got a $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to test the Inclusive Skill-building Learning Approach in 60 middle schools in Oregon and five other states. The project will evaluate how effective the model is in boosting education access and the “quality and the social and community environment to prevent school exclusion and substance misuse,” according to the University of Oregon. The approach aims to improve relationships between students and teachers. It also strives to make administrators interact with students better and to find alternative ways to solve behavior and social problems. Nese claims the approach improves student behavior and reduces the need to suspend or expel students. “We’re moving away from the holding cell mentality of in-school suspensions where you just sit in a room and do nothing,” she said. “That’s not a teaching strategy, it does not lead to improvements in children’s behaviors or academic performance, and in fact, it only makes things worse.” Nese said research shows exclusionary discipline “is inextricably linked to substance abuse, incarceration, academic failure, trouble with employment, and lots of horrible predictors for kids.” She added that her approach “creates environments that are inclusive, supportive, and built on the idea that we only succeed as a class when all of us succeed.” The Inclusive Skill-building Learning Approach trains teachers, office staff, counselors, and administrators “to help middle school students feel welcome and supported, resolve problems and avoid conflict,” the release said. Some strategies include having teachers greet students individually, setting expectations for classroom behavior, de-escalation techniques and practicing making amends. Nese said the approach dovetails with what teachers already do instead of creating more work for them. “Greeting students as they come into your classroom isn’t a new thing,” she said. “It’s about doing it thoughtfully and systematically because it’s actually been associated with an increase in classroom engagement and decreases in disruptive behavior. And it’s preventative, meaningful, and takes little to no prep.” Since the program trains an entire school’s staff, it offers teachers backup and support when they need help dealing with a difficult situation. “Everyone from front-office staff to top administrators gets trained, providing more ways for students to get help,” the school said. The approach’s development was initially funded via a $1.4 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences. “The new NIH grant will now allow the approach to be tested on a variety of indicators of student success and student risk, such as student engagement, inclusive teaching practices, racial and ethnic disparities in school discipline, and opioid and other substance misuse.” If the collected data yields positive results, the plan is to offer training materials to more schools nationwide. “Tax dollars are what funds our research,” Nese said. “So we give all our materials back to our public education systems because this is how we can positively impact the most students.” Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
Anthony Fauci hopeful COVID vaccines get full OK by FDA within weeks
The U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Sunday that he was hopeful the Food and Drug Administration will give full approval to the coronavirus vaccine by month’s end and predicted the potential move will spur a wave of vaccine mandates in the private sector as well as schools and universities. The FDA has only granted emergency-use approval of the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, but the agency is expected to soon give full approval to Pfizer. The Biden administration has stated that the federal government will not mandate vaccinations beyond the federal workforce but is increasingly urging state and local governments as well as businesses to consider such mandates. Fauci, who is President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said “mandates at the local level need to be done” to help curb the spread of the virus. “I hope — I don’t predict — I hope that it will be within the next few weeks. I hope it’s within the month of August,” Fauci said of FDA approval of the vaccine. “If that’s the case, you’re going to see the empowerment of local enterprises, giving mandates that could be colleges, universities, places of business, a whole variety, and I strongly support that. The time has come. … We’ve got to go the extra step to get people vaccinated.” Fauci’s comments come as the Biden administration is weighing what levers it can push to encourage more unvaccinated Americans to get their shots as the delta variant continues to surge through much of the United States. Biden recently approved rules requiring federal workers to provide proof of vaccination or face regular testing, mask mandates, and travel restrictions. Biden is also awaiting a formal recommendation from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on potentially requiring U.S. troops to get vaccinated. The administration has become more vocal in its support of vaccine mandates at a moment when high-profile companies have informed employees that coronavirus vaccination requirements are in the works, and some localities have adopted or are contemplating vaccine requirements to dine indoors. United Airlines informed its employees that they will need to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 25 or five weeks after the FDA grants full approval to one of the vaccines — whichever date comes first. Disney and Walmart have announced vaccine mandates for white-collar workers, and Microsoft, Google, and Facebook said they will require proof of vaccination for employees and visitors to their U.S. offices. Tyson Foods has also announced it will require all U.S. employees to get vaccinated by November. There’s also been pushback. The U.S. Supreme Court last week was asked to block a plan by Indiana University to require students and employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. It’s the first time the high court has been asked to weigh in on a vaccine mandate and comes as some corporations, states, and cities are also contemplating or have adopted vaccine requirements for workers or even to dine indoors. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union, said on Sunday that she personally supports a vaccine mandate for educators. “As a matter of personal conscience, I think that we need to be working with our employers — not opposing them on vaccine mandates,” said Weingarten, who estimated about 90% of AFT members are already vaccinated. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, on Sunday all but endorsed vaccine mandates, saying, “I celebrate when I see businesses deciding that they’re going to mandate that for their employees.” “Yes, I think we ought to use every public health tool we can when people are dying,” Collins said. Fauci and Weingarten spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and Collins appeared on ABC’s “This Week.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Bill Miller: The critical ingredient to the success of vaccination programs
Only a few weeks into a new administration and with it comes unwelcome medical news. The age-old debate about the safety and appropriateness of vaccination has been renewed and a vocal stage has been delivered to a small group of anti-vaccination zealots. Reports have circulated that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, a highly visible critic of vaccination, has been invited to chair a commission on vaccination safety by the new administration. If it comes to pass, one result can be accurately predicted. It will become a confused platform of ideological rhetoric that will diminish trust in those scientific bodies charged with making sound judgments for the public welfare. This inevitable outcome is particularly unfortunate since there has never been any advance in medical history that has had a more positive impact on our lives than vaccination. Humanity has been in eternal conflict with infectious disease throughout history. Perhaps no disease better illustrates the vast range of impacts of epidemic disease than smallpox.In 18th Century Europe, at least 400,000 people died annually from smallpox. One-third of the survivors went blind. Mortality rates were as high as 60% in some communities. Infant mortality was even more frightening, approaching 80%. The ultimate success of smallpox vaccination is credited to Sir Edward Jenner in England. In 1796, he successfully introduced the technique of cowpox vaccination demonstrating its subsequent protective effect against smallpox. Today, due to the effectiveness of worldwide smallpox vaccination programs, that disease has been effectively eradicated from the planet. However, this is not the case for other consequential infectious diseases. Two years ago, a whooping cough epidemic swept through California where vaccination rates are steadily lagging. Contrary to any ordinary expectation, it is often the most affluent parents who are shunning immunization. Some of these anti-vaccine proponents are highly educated people being misled by social media. The trend appears to have originated with a fraudulent report in a British medical journal linking vaccination with autism. This report was subsequently revealed to have been based on fraudulent research and was retracted by that scientific journal. Similar rumors that vaccine stabilizers, such as thimerosol, contribute to autism have also been refuted. Nonetheless, damage has been done by ill-informed repetition. There is no doubt that those parents that refuse to vaccinate their children are well meaning. However, their actions are ill advised on two levels. The first is that refusing to appropriately vaccinate themselves or their child exposes both of them to the risks of deadly infections that can be entirely avoided. Yet, although vaccination is safe and highly effective it does have its limits. This links to the other critical factor that makes universal vaccination so crucial. No vaccination ever devised provides 100% protection and some individuals in any population cannot be vaccinated. This includes very young infants whose immune systems are not yet mature enough for vaccination and members of our community that are immunosuppressed due to diseases that weaken their immune system from a variety of illnesses including cancer. Their protection is through our actions. When there are high levels of vaccination within any community, the infectious agent is unable to find enough hosts to reproduce and sustain itself within that population. This level of community-wide protection is termed herd immunity. It is our joint responsibility, all of us together, to be part of the process of achieving this level of immunity both in our own interests and for the protection of the other members of our community. The next outbreak of a preventable infectious disease with its incumbent tragedies is always lurking. A political committee to examine the evidence based on ideological biases is not needed. Instead, our policies should rely on the expertise of already existing scientific organizations such as the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS), an independent expert clinical and scientific advisory body, as well as our own Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. The critical ingredient to the success of vaccination programs is education. Therefore, there needs to be a concerted program to recover our eroded memories of the consequences of now distant epidemic diseases that have been conquered or reduced through vaccination. The success of vaccination programs depends on being familiar with the bitter lessons of our continuous struggle with epidemic disease. Such an educational process must be ever ongoing. ••• Dr. Bill Miller has been a physician in academic and private practice for over 30 years. He is the author of The Microcosm Within: Evolution and Extinction in the Hologenome. He currently serves as a scientific advisor to OmniBiome Therapeutics, a pioneering company in discovering and developing solutions to problems in human fertility and health through management of the human microbiome. For more information, www.themicrocosmwithin.com.
Martha Roby: Democrats’ dangerous game with Zika funding
In June I relayed the good news that the House had passed appropriations legislation providing funding for our nation’s response to the Zika virus. It is important for Congress to ensure agencies like the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, and others have the resources they need to combat the disease and prevent it from spreading. Sadly, two months later, that compromise funding bill has yet to become law. Why? Senate Democrats, led by Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, have twice blocked the legislation by denying the majority the 60 votes needed to allow a vote on the bill. The Wall Street Journal opines further that “they walked out on their own bill on Thursday to use the issue as a campaign bludgeon against Republicans.” Is that fair? Let’s review their stated objections: First, Senate Democrats take issue with temporarily waiving a requirement to obtain a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency to use certain proven mosquito-killing sprays like DDT. However, killing mosquitoes is exactly what we need to be doing right now and an emergency waiver of this kind can help states and communities quickly respond to the Zika threat without a bureaucratic permitting delay. Furthermore, the bill specifically requires any pesticide used to already be approved under and applied in compliance with The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. Next, Senate Democrats objected to the bill offsetting the cost by reallocating $543 million from Obamacare funding. However, the Obamacare money in question is leftover funding meant for setting up healthcare exchanges in territories that became unnecessary — and unused — when Puerto Rico expanded Medicaid. Finding unspent funds to help offset the costs of emergency spending is basic fiscal responsibility, not a reason to block a bill. Finally, and probably most importantly, Senate Democrats are upset the Zika appropriations bill does not allocate funding for Planned Parenthood, arguing it leaves women without care options. But, that’s not true. The bill allocates $40 million for community health centers that are more plentiful and offer a wider range of care, plus $6 million for the National Health Service Corps and $95 million to the Social Services Grant Program that can distribute funds for preventive care to the most at-risk areas. It is simply not the job of the federal government to fund the nation’s largest abortion provider, and it is unconscionable that Senate Democrats would block funding aimed to help protect pregnant women and babies because their friends at Planned Parenthood don’t get a cut. Of course, President Obama has taken the Senate Democrats’ side for the most part. However, as Roll Call reports, the president’s spokesmen are having a hard time explaining why, amid all the clamoring for more funding from Congress, the administration has yet to tap into at least $385 million in unspent funds it could quickly access without congressional approval to combat Zika. The Zika threat is real and it is here. Critical legislation is one step (and about four Senate votes) away from the president’s desk. A public health crisis of this magnitude is no time to block emergency funding in the name of politics. ••• Martha Roby represents Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama with her husband, Riley, and their two children.
Martha Roby: Mental health, opioid bills advance
Congress took big steps this past week toward enacting legislation critical to addressing a few key national issues: the opioid epidemic and gaps in mental health services. Some weeks ago I relayed the good news that the House was working on a slate of bills aimed at combatting the growing heroin and opioid addiction epidemic facing our county. Drug overdoses account for as many as 47,000 deaths a year, and the number of those involving opioid prescription pain relievers has risen drastically over the last several years. Alabama is experiencing a particularly significant increase in opioid overdoses. Our state saw an almost 20 percent rise in opioid overdoses between 2013 and 2014, the last year full data is available, which was the fifth highest nationally. I’m pleased to report that the House and Senate negotiated a final Conference Report on S. 524, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016 that addresses these issues. This legislation will marshal the resources of the public and private sectors to better respond to opioid abuse and addiction. Of note, the bill: improves prevention and education efforts through the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the National Institutes of Health; enhances law enforcement capabilities by authorizing paid-for Department of Justice grants for drug fighting efforts that work; focuses attention on treatment and recovery by expanding access to addiction services and opioid overdose reversal drugs through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; and prioritizes services for veterans by improving drug policies, treatment offerings and patient advocacy efforts within the VA. The House has passed the package and it now awaits final approval by the Senate. The House also took an important step toward addressing our country’s mental health crisis. More than 11 million Americans deal with the significant mental health struggles of severe schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression. Serious mental health problems that go unaddressed can manifest in dangerous ways, as we saw with the terrible tragedies that took place in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, Aurora, Colorado, and other places. My colleague Rep. Tim Murphy has been crafting legislation that would address some of our nation’s deficiencies in identifying and treating mental illness. H.R. 2646, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, seeks to reform the broken mental healthcare system by refocusing outdated programs, improving the effectiveness of grants, and removing federal barriers to care. It will take a lot of work to rebuild our nation’s mental health network, but it must be done and this legislation is the first step. It passed by an overwhelming bi-partisan vote of 407-5 and now awaits action in the Senate. Opioid addiction and mental health are two acute problems facing our country, and I’m pleased that Congress is taking action on smart legislation to address them. ••• Martha Roby represents Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama with her husband, Riley and their two children.
Martha Roby: The Zika threat and our response
.By now you’ve probably heard of the Zika Virus and the harm it has caused in Brazil and other South and Central American countries. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Zika is comparable to the West Nile Virus, spread by mosquitoes and can cause fever, rash, joint pain and eye irritation. The real threat, however, is for pregnant women and their babies. Though rarely fatal, Zika can cause serious birth defects in newborn babies if an expectant mother is infected. Zika is also a growing threat in the United States, particularly here in the South where mosquitoes flourish in the Summertime. As of May 25, 591 Zika infections have been reported in the United States, including at least 162 in pregnant women. So far, all infections have be the result of travel and not local transmissions. This past week I met with CDC Director Dr. Thomas Freiden in my office for a briefing on the Zika situation. His team of experts is hard at work combatting this virus by closely monitoring its movement, controlling the mosquito population and educating the public about how best to avoid infections. The website www.CDC.gov/Zika is a great resource for anyone seeking information about the virus. Congress is also taking action to ensure our country is prepared to prevent and combat a Zika outbreak. The House recently passed bipartisan legislation to encourage the development, testing and distribution of a Zika vaccine as well as the Zika Vector Control Act to remove Environmental Protection Agency restrictions on mosquito sprays that can be essential to preventing infections. Of course, in situations like these it is also important to ensure our response agencies have the resources they need to meet the emerging threat. However, instead of writing a “blank check,” the House Appropriations Committee has sought to be responsible with the use of taxpayers’ money in crafting a funding plan. First, we insisted the Administration use existing funds left over from the Ebola outbreak response to meet any emergency needs. Next, we crafted a plan that includes $622 million allocated between the CDC, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Biomedical Advances Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and other agencies helping to administer Zika response and vaccine development. This appropriation is fully paid for through reprograming unused administrative funding from Health and Human Services and additional leftover Ebola response accounts. Finally, the House plan also places important constraints on the use of these funds and requires full transparency for how they are spent. House Speaker Paul Ryan asked me to serve on the Conference Committee charged with working out the differences between the House and Senate versions of Zika funding bills. I will work alongside my colleagues to reach a final bill that provides the needed resources to combat this virus while remaining responsible with the taxpayers’ hard-earned money. ••• Martha Roby represents Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama, with her husband, Riley, and their two children.
