Nation's Schools Grade Out at B-Minus.

• Position: EDUCATION

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the nation was making steady progress on an array of family, school, and socioeconomic factors that contribute to the prospects of positive outcomes over a lifetime, the latest analysis from the EdWeek Research Center shows, though it remains too early to say how the pandemic's disruption has affected that trajectory.

The annual Chance-for-Success Index, the first of three installments of Quality Counts 2021 being rolled out between now and September, awards the nation a B-minus grade and an average score of 79.5 on a basket of indicators. That is up from a grade of C-plus and a score of 79.2 last year.

Separately, however, this year's report includes an exclusive analysis of Census Bureau data showing that the pandemic has put stress on families with children in all parts of the country in the areas of food insecurity, household income, steady employment, and access to technology needed for remote schooling.

"While the nation's progress on the Chance-for-Success Index is encouraging, COVID has posed extreme challenges that threaten the continued well-being of communities, families, and schools," says EdWeek Research Center Director Holly Kurtz.

The annual Chance-for-Success Index captures a range of 13 academic and socioeconomic indicators designed to measure opportunities for residents of each state during three key stages of their lifetimes--early foundations, school years, and adult outcomes. The indicators are family income, parental education levels, parental employment, and the share of children whose parents are fluent in English; pre-K and kindergarten enrollment, fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math scores, high school graduation rates, and postsecondary participation; and adult educational attainment, annual income, and steady employment.

Among the highlights from the Index:

* Massachusetts (91.6) and New Jersey (89.6) post the nation's highest scores and earn A and A-minus grades, respectively. New Mexico (69.0) finishes at the bottom of the rankings, with a D-plus.

* The nation's B-minus grade represents its high point since the current Chance-for-Success ranking system rolled out in 2008, followed by dips in the wake of the Great Recession that same year.

* The nation's long-term gains have been driven largely by progress in the South. The District of Columbia increased from 76.4 in 2008 to 86.8 this year, going from a C-plus to a B-plus. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee each saw gains of at least four points, and eight other Southern states improved by more than a point.

* At the same time, the data shows continued disparities in overall opportunity among the states, marked by double-digit differences in areas that include family income above 200% of the poverty level, eighth-grade math proficiency, and the portion of adults with two- or four-year postsecondary degrees.

* Peaks and valleys persist, as 17 states rank in the top 10 for at least one stage of the educational pipeline. At the same time, 16 states rank in the bottom 10 in at least one category. Using a more-recent data lens, Census Bureau surveys in October and November show wide disparities on pandemic-driven indicators affecting already disadvantaged families of school-age children.

* Nationwide, 16% of families with children reported they had enough food to eat before March 13, 2020, but now do not. That percentage is highest in Mississippi (38%) and lowest in Maine and South Dakota (five percent).

* For the majority of households with K-12 students in 43 states and the District of Columbia, classes normally taught in-person have moved to some form of distance learning due to the pandemic. The percentage of households experiencing a shift to remote learning ranges from 95% in Oregon to 33% in Nebraska.

* In states at the lowest end of the spectrum for lost instructional time--including South Dakota, Florida, Nebraska, and Wyoming--households were the most likely to say that their children had not experienced remote learning, canceled classes, or any other changes resulting from the pandemic.

* Nationally, 17% of families with school-age children said they lost employment income due to pandemic-related reasons during the survey period, but the impact is uneven: 19% of families in the Northeast and the South documented job loss or the inability to find a job, compared with 12% in the Midwest.

ANXIETY

Risk Factors for Young Adults During COVID

A study has identified early risk factors that predict heightened anxiety in young adults during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The findings from the study, supported by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, could help predict who is at greatest risk of developing anxiety during stressful life events in early adulthood and inform prevention and intervention efforts.

The investigators examined data from 291 participants who had been followed from toddlerhood to young adulthood as part of a larger study on temperament and socioemotional development. The researchers found that participants who continued to show a temperament characteristic called behavioral inhibition in childhood were more likely to experience worry dysregulation in adolescence (age 15), which in turn predicted elevated anxiety during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic when the participants were in young adulthood (around age 18).

"People differ greatly in how they handle stress," says study coauthor Daniel Pine, chief of the National Institute of Mental Health Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience. "This study shows that children's level of tearfulness predicts how much stress they experience later in life when they confront difficult circumstances, such as the pandemic."

For the current study, the participants, at an average age of 18, were assessed for anxiety twice during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic after stay-at-home orders had been issued (first between April 20 and May 15 and approximately one month later).

At the first assessment, 20% of the participants reported moderate levels of anxiety symptoms considered to be in the clinical range. At the second assessment, 18.3% of participants reported clinical levels of anxiety. As expected, the researchers found that individuals with high behavioral inhibition in toddlerhood who continued to display high levels of social wariness in childhood reported experiencing dysregulated worry in adolescence, and this ultimately predicted increased anxiety in young adulthood during a critical stage of the pandemic. This developmental pathway was not significant for children who showed behavioral inhibition in toddlerhood but displayed low levels of social wariness later in childhood.

"This study provides further evidence of the continuing impact of early life temperament on the mental health of individuals," says study coauthor Nathan A. Fox, Distinguished University Professor and director of the Child Development Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park. "Young children with stable behavioral inhibition are at heightened risk for increased worry and anxiety, and the context of the pandemic only heightened these effects."

COVID-19

Is Remdesivir Safe for Pregnant Women?

The effects of remdesivir in pregnant women who have been prescribed the drug to treat COVID-19 is the subject of a study at 17 sites in the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico. It aims to determine how pregnant women metabolize the drug and whether there are any potential side effects.

"Pregnant women with COVID-19 are at high risk for hospitalization, for intensive care admission, and for needing ventilator support," says Diana W. Bianchi, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. "There is an urgent need to identify effective treatments for this population and to determine whether drugs prescribed for other adults are appropriate for use in pregnancy."

Called IMPAACT 2032, the study is being conducted by the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials (IMPAACT) Network.

Originally developed to treat Ebola and Marburg virus infections, remdesivir was shown in a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases-funded clinical trial to accelerate recovery in patients with advanced COVID-19 disease. Remdesivir has since been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of COVID-19 in adults and children over age 12 years.

Although it has not been approved specifically for use in pregnancy, remdesivir can be prescribed to pregnant women if their physicians believe the drug may benefit them. However, physicians currently lack scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy of remdesivir for treating pregnant women with COVID-19. Because pregnancy may influence a drug's effects, IMPAACT 2032 is comparing remdesivir use in pregnant and nonpregnant women of reproductive age who are hospitalized with COVID-19.

The study is evaluating remdesivir's pharmacokinetics--how a drug is absorbed, moves through the body, and is broken down and eliminated in pregnant women and nonpregnant women of childbearing potential who receive it as part of clinical care.

PREGNANCY

Low-Dose Aspirin May Improve Chances

Contrary to previous findings, lowdose aspirin therapy before conception and during early pregnancy may increase pregnancy chances and live births among women who have experienced one or two prior miscarriages, suggests a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine by researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development,

Rather than looking solely at the difference in pregnancy rates between women who were given aspirin and those receiving a placebo, the study accounted for differences in total aspirin use between women who deviated from the daily regimen and those who adhered to it.

A study in 2014 included more than 1,000 women between 18 and 40 years...