Science & Education
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Fear of mass teacher retirements due to COVID-19 may have been overblown

Israel Budz

Jan Robertson has taught “pretty much everything” over the past 40 years: outdoor education, science, and teacher coaching.

But the coronavirus pandemic has meant Robertson, like colleagues across the country, has had to weigh whether to prioritize her health or the job of her dreams. After being told she would probably be teaching in a classroom in the fall, she made the “heart-wrenching” decision to leave her job as a science instructional coach at a Northern California school district. 

At 64, she “did not want to return to a classroom where I am old enough that I’m in that list of (high-risk factors),” she said.

Robertson isn’t alone in feeling boxed into a decision – one-third of teachers told Education Week in July they were somewhat or very likely to leave their job this year, compared with just 8% who leave the profession in a typical year. 

But while

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Science & Education
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Nobel Prizes and COVID-19: Slow, Basic Science May Pay Off | World News

Israel Budz

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

While the world wants flashy quick fixes for everything, especially massive threats like the coronavirus and global warming, next week’s Nobel Prizes remind us that in science, slow and steady pays off.

Science builds upon previous work, with thinkers “standing on the shoulders of giants,” as Isaac Newton put it, and it starts with basic research aimed at understanding a problem before fixing it. It’s that type of basic science that the Nobels usually reward, often years or decades after a discovery, because it can take that long to realize the implications.

Slow and steady success in science has made researchers hopeful in the fight against the pandemic. It even offers a glimmer of climate optimism.

Many years of advances in basic molecular science, some of them already Nobel Prize-winning, have given the world tools for fast virus identification and speeded up the development

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Science & Education
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This young, Black, female scientist from NC leads efforts to find a COVID-19 vaccine

Israel Budz

As a teenager growing up in Hillsborough, Kizzmekia Corbett had never seen a Black scientist before. Then she walked into a lab at UNC-Chapel Hill one summer, met Albert Russell, a PhD student, and for the first time believed she could be one.

Now, at 34, Corbett is the scientific lead for the government’s search for a coronavirus vaccine at the National Institutes of Health.

“It made all the difference, I’m probably here because of that,” Corbett said. “Just knowing that it was possible.”

She’s become that example that she never saw and is now an assurance to other inquisitive, smart girls with an interest in science that anything is possible.

Corbett is a young, Black woman in a sea of older, white men in suits and lab coats. She’s making appearances on national TV as a scientific expert, briefing President Donald Trump about potential COVID-19 vaccines and working on

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Science & Education
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265 Ways America Can Lead the Fight Against COVID-19 and Get Back on Track

Israel Budz

Click here to read the full article.

In a final report released Monday, The Heritage Foundation’s National Coronavirus Recovery Commission makes 265 recommendations for getting America back to work, stopping the spread of COVID-19, and being prepared for the next pandemic.

The recommendations are aimed at federal, state, and local government leaders as well as the business and nonprofit sector amid a pandemic that has killed 115,000 Americans and wiped out millions of jobs and thousands of businesses. 

With release of the final report, the commission and Heritage policy experts will continue working with policymakers in Washington and state capitals to implement the recommendations, said Heritage President Kay C. James, who chaired the commission. 

“While other public and private task forces looked at either the economic or public health aspects of the pandemic, the commission focused on finding the right balance between the two,” James said, adding:

Our task hasn’t

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