Episode 167: Luck of the Draw
2/3/21-- Steve, Jennifer, and Stephanie are back in the virtual bunker, each with a different opinion on this week's snowfall.
Vaccine rollout rolls on throughout the country, but unfortunately, Massachusetts doesn’t rank too highly in terms of distribution. Steve points to a comparison conducted by NPR which finds the Bay State ranking 37th for efficiency (proportion of doses administered to doses received) and 39th for percent of overall population that’s gotten at least one dose. There are also big disparities in terms of who’s getting the vaccine.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley called the distribution so far “vaccine redlining,” according to the Boston Herald, which pulled a statistic from the state Department of Public Health last week that found "Black people account for less than 3% of those who have received at least one vaccine dose in Massachusetts, while Hispanics were at 3.3%”
Steve also relays reporting from the Boston Globe that found many of the people who showed up and were first in line at a vaccination site in a Roxbury were white. Roxbury is a predominantly Black neighborhood. This is happening across the country, Steve points out. “The share of people who are getting vaccinations does not correspond with the racial makeup of that area’s population.”
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Later, state Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz and Beth Huang of the Massachusetts Voter Table stop by to discuss this year's redistricting effort. Beth is a member of the Drawing Democracy Coalition which has asked the Massachusetts Senate President and House Speaker to appoint a Joint Committee on Redistricting that is racially and geographically representative.
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A new poll out from Gallup asked Massachusetts high schoolers about their experience learning during the pandemic. Unsurprisingly to Steve, who has conducted surveys on Massachusetts parents of K-12 students, remote and hybrid learning has had the worst impacts on students. Kids partaking in these models of learning are far less likely to say they learn a lot every day, as compared to kids learning in person full time. Social and emotional health has also declined among students learning at least part-time remote.
Full transcript below:
Steve: [00:00:03] Welcome back to the Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Steve Koczela. I'm here with Jennifer Smith and Stephanie Murray, as we are every week. And this week, I'm actually feeling kind of good because we dodged most of the worst of the snowstorm. So there's some slush out there, but it's really not as bad as it could be. And how many things can you say that about these days? [00:00:21][18.1]
Jennifer: [00:00:22] Not as bad as it could be. Yes. No, that's true. I did enjoy kind of the the pre storm panic in the Boston area. And then what it was like an inch and a half or something totally doable. We didn't need to bring out Snowzilla for anything. [00:00:39][16.4]
Jennifer: [00:00:39] It's very exciting. [00:00:40][0.5]
Stephanie: [00:00:41] I was a little disappointed, you know, looking out the window every day at the same thing. I was hoping for a little spice in my life, but it was like barely even enough snow to shovel where I live. But my parents got 15 inches. So some people enjoy the snowstorm. [00:00:56][15.6]
Steve: [00:00:57] I have to assume Boston still covered in space savers, though, right? [00:01:00][2.9]
Stephanie: [00:01:01] In my neighborhood at least. It's a grand tradition. [00:01:03][2.5]
Jennifer: [00:01:04] It's you got half an inch of snow in Atlanta and everyone ditches their cars on the freeway. But you get half an inch of snow in Boston and everyone goes and gets your oldest chair and throws it out there outside by the curb just as a challenge. [00:01:15][10.9]
Stephanie: [00:01:15] I live right outside of Boston, but people still do stay here. And I live like my street is a two way street, but it's really only wide enough for one car. So all the space savers are in all of the open spots. It's like literally impossible to get anywhere. It's very frustrating. [00:01:31][15.1]
Jennifer: [00:01:32] And South Boston's like, hold my beer, anyway, so it might not have caused actual legitimate chaos for moving around in Boston. But I mean, we're in the middle of a vaccine push right now because snow or no snow, there's still a pandemic happening. And Massachusetts has vaccination sites at Fenway Park and Gillette Stadium that opened and closed early on Monday for the snow. But plenty of people were still able to receive the vaccine. Stephanie, we talked a little bit last week around the issues around the vaccine rollout. How was it looking this week in general, snow notwithstanding? [00:02:08][36.3]
Stephanie: [00:02:09] I mean, it seems like every obstacle to the vaccine rollout in Massachusetts has happened. You know, the first day of phase to a big snowstorm hits part of the state. As you said, they were the mass vaccination sites at Fenway in July. We're still able to vaccinate people. They opened on their normal hours on Tuesday. But the state has come under some pretty serious criticism as we go ahead in this phase. You know, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley called the rollout and the distribution of the vaccine a form of redlining. There have been other lawmakers, Congresswoman Catherine Katherine Clark, the assistant speaker, was pretty critical during an interview over the weekend about the website that the state put out to help you book a vaccine. Another problem that Governor Baker's pointed out is that it's hard to predict how much shipment of vaccine is coming to the state on any given week because things are just kind of so fluid. But looking at these numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even what the share of vaccine that Massachusetts does have were among kind of the bottom half of states that have been able to get it into people's arms. [00:03:17][68.1]
Steve: [00:03:18] That's right. NPR has actually been doing an interesting comparative effort where they've been tracking basically two statistics, Stephanie, one of which you mentioned, which is sort of efficiency, you know, of the doses that you've gotten, how many of you actually managed to put into someone's arm on that? We ranked 37 and then the other one is just the percent of your overall population that's gotten at least one dose and there were 39. So, you know, lots of states have these problems. And it is worth noting that we're somewhere near the bottom as far as overcoming them. The other thing, of course, that's appearing is as big disparities and differences in terms of who is actually getting the vaccine. There was a very interesting and I think illustrative story from The Boston Globe about a site that opened up in Roxbury, but that many of the people who showed up and were sort of first at first in line to this site, which is in a predominantly black neighborhood, were white. And that's illustrative of a lot of what's going on across the country where the share of people who are getting vaccinations does not correspond with the racial makeup of that area's population. And that's also true here in Massachusetts. [00:04:21][63.2]
Jennifer: [00:04:23] Yeah, Steve, that's a good point. That's been a really kind of odd trend to be watching in some places where where white individuals have even at some points impersonated people of color to try and get vaccines and some of the Boissiere news stories. [00:04:38][14.8]
Jennifer: [00:04:39] But I mean, this is very important, very serious, almost as serious--I'm kidding. I'm sort of kidding. Is the Boston City Council election, which you're all very tired of hearing about. We're so sorry. We before we pivot into most of our show this week, we just kind of wanted to quickly note that next week we're going to have a different sort of podcast. Stephanie and I are going to be part of our roundtable talking about. The city council election, the impact of the charter and kind of what that means for Boston elections going forward, the short and quick version of where we're at today, which is Wednesday in the morning, is that later this afternoon, the city Council of Boston is expected to approve the home rule petition that would cancel the spring special election. Just have a normal mayoral election in November. And then whoever wins that November election would just as soon as the votes are certified, be sworn in as the new mayor. So unless someone decides to start throwing chairs in the council chamber, virtually, I think that is about where we're going to be at the end of today. Cross your fingers. [00:05:43][64.8]
Stephanie: [00:05:45] So we will have lots to talk about next week. If you are as obsessed with the mayor's race in Boston as we are, you should be looking forward to it. But as for today, John and Steve, what are we doing here, Steve? [00:05:57][11.6]
Jennifer: [00:05:57] What are we doing here? [00:05:58][0.7]
Steve: [00:05:59] I never know for sure. But fortunately, Libby believes these helpful notes in the script that I can just read to answer that question. So specifically, what we're doing here today is we're talking about redistricting, which is, of course, the process where boundaries are redrawn for Congress and for the state legislature. And that's just kicking off now. And we'll be running sort of over the next year or so. And then we're going to be talking about the new findings of a very interesting poll from Gallup and the Barr Foundation on high school students experiences with learning during the pandemic. So let's get to it. Let's go back to. [00:06:30][31.0]
Steve: [00:06:35] It's twenty, twenty one and time for redistricting, the Massachusetts state legislature draws up district lines every 10 years for elections for Congress and the state legislature. An organization known as the Drawing Democracy Coalition is calling on the legislature to appoint a joint committee on redistricting that is racially and geographically representative. Joining us today on the horse race to talk about this issue is one of the members of the coalition, Beth Huang of the Massachusetts voter table, as well as State Senator Sonia Chang Diaz, who was Senate vice chair of the committee for the 2011 redistricting process. Welcome back to both of you and thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. [00:07:11][35.4]
Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz: [00:07:12] Thanks for having us, Steve. [00:07:12][0.7]
Beth Huang: [00:07:13] Thanks. [00:07:13][0.0]
Steve: [00:07:14] So, Senator Chang-Diaz, why don't we start the start with you. Tell us about this effort. What what's the committee about and what's the issue that you're bringing to the fore? [00:07:22][7.8]
Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz: [00:07:23] Well, so I should first start with the caveat that the that the committee for this year has not been named. So while I was the vice chair of the committee 10 years ago, you know, I don't know what, if any, my role will be on the committee this year. But regardless of who's on it, there will be a joint committee on redistricting in the legislature, you know, sort of similar to the budget. Right. This is one of the things that we have to do this year. And every 10 years, once the states get the results of the federal census back from the federal government, we're charged with the responsibility of sort of refreshing the district lines for all of the state rep districts, all of the state Senate districts, the congressional districts, as well as the governor's council to make sure that they are equally sized. Right. So that we don't have one state senator representing two hundred thousand people in another state senator representing one hundred twenty thousand people. Right. And thus the the the individuals in the first district sort of had and diluted power of representation. [00:08:25][61.7]
Jennifer: [00:08:26] And so a few states, as we've talked about redistricting, have appointed independent commissions to handle the redistricting process. But here we have a committee which, of course, has legislators on it, and many are presumably planning to run for reelection in these very seats that they'll now be redrawing that you spent a lot of last year discussing the impact of the census count and also advocating for equitable redistricting. So is this committee the right approach and what are you pushing for to make sure that it is, in fact, reflective? [00:08:53][27.6]
Beth Huang: [00:08:56] We worked with over a hundred community based organizations and grassroots organizations last year to get out the count in a historic 2020 census during the pandemic. And we did that because we believe that representation matters. And so with that goal in mind, we are asking the Senate president and the speaker of the House to appoint a joint committee on redistricting that reflects the rich racial and geographic diversity of our commonwealth. There are a lot of important issues relating to equity that are at play with the redistricting process. And we believe that a diverse committee that that spans the entire state and has the racial and ethnic representation from our state legislature will lead to the best process and outcome for every type of stakeholder in the redistricting process. [00:09:45][49.3]
Stephanie: [00:09:46] While we're still on the on the census topic. Before we move on, my colleagues at Politico had a great story a few days ago about how the problems with the U.S. Census collection are kind of freezing House races for 2022 all over the country. You know, we saw the census being extended and then ended early. And there were even whistleblowers in Massachusetts who said that they were being asked to collect the data in a way that they felt wasn't ethical. So either of you expect that the census issues would delay redistricting in Massachusetts? [00:10:18][31.9]
Beth Huang: [00:10:20] Yes, the politicization of the 2020 census was a huge problem. Fortunately, we were able to work with trusted messengers and leaders in communities across the Commonwealth to actually meet or exceed the 2010 census self response. We know that when people respond to the census with their own information, that is the most accurate way that we're going to get the data. And the delay in the 2020 census processing is causing a delay in redistricting. The Census Bureau announced pretty recently that instead of releasing the data from the 2020 census for redistricting on April 1st, it likely will come out in late July, which puts a real time crunch on redistricting, which has to wrap up by November 8th of this year, exactly one year before the twenty twenty two election. [00:11:11][51.0]
Steve: [00:11:12] So just to be clear about what you're calling for, you are asking for the committee within the legislature to be to reflect the diversity of Massachusetts, in your words, a joint committee on redistricting that reflects the rich racial and geographic diversity of our commonwealth. But we're still talking about a committee within the legislature. This is not asking to appoint anybody that's outside of the legislature or any time. Independent commission or anything like that? [00:11:36][24.4]
Beth Huang: [00:11:37] That's right, Steve, we're asking the Senate president and the speaker of the House to appoint members of the Black and Latinx Caucus, the caucus, the women's caucus and more. And we want them to appoint members of the legislature from across the state. We believe that members of this committee have a lot of knowledge about their communities and also and also these areas. And so we think that they will have an important role in hosting hearings, whether those are virtual or in-person. We think that they have a lot of expertize to bring about what are communities of interest. And that's why we're asking the leadership of the state House to appoint a committee that is reflective of the Commonwealth and a lot of different dimensions. [00:12:26][49.5]
Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz: [00:12:27] You know, the makeup of the committee, of course, is is hugely important. Right. And we should shouldn't sugarcoat that. The committee members have real power. And, you know, let's be upfront about that. But the committee is also not the end all be all right. That 10 years ago when we undertook this process, the then chairman of the Joint Committee on redistricting, with urging of members like me, also really committed up front to a very, very robust and transparent, participatory process of those hearings across the state and also the mapping software that was public facing and available. So anybody and the Drawing Democracy Coalition really used it to submit a lot of map proposals that really helped inform the process and made sure that we got a good outcome at the end of of this redistricting process 10 years ago by which the majority minority districts in the House were increased by one hundred percent, literally doubled, and the majority minority districts in the Senate were increased by 50 percent from two districts to three districts. And so it has to be both. And right. If we get a good diverse membership of the committee, but we don't have a robust public process, that's not going to be sufficient. And if we have the robust public process, but not a diverse committee membership, that's also not going to be sufficient. [00:13:48][80.1]
Jennifer: [00:13:49] And exactly to that point, Senator, I think people often have a level of kind of well-founded skepticism in general that any particular party is serious about eliminating gerrymandering because of the advantages that come with ensuring party control. The attitude from both, though, obviously Republicans have a more infamous history of of gerrymandering in pretty some entertaining shapes, but to detrimental impact has kind of been, when you're in power, get yours. And even the courts have been a little bit more lenient when it comes to partizan gerrymandering rather than racial gerrymandering, for instance. So in the decade that you've been spending, looking specifically at the issue of gerrymandering in Massachusetts and party control, I really would love your insight on kind of what impact that skepticism and that history has and how the committee hopes to helps to address that, whether it be through more transparency or other mitigating measures. [00:14:45][56.3]
Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz: [00:14:46] Yeah, I really do think that the transparency and the public process where individuals and grassroots groups from the public had the opportunity to run the numbers, get access to the raw data, submit maps, is the linchpin to overcoming that that cynicism and cynicism, as you said, you know, that has been earned in most cases. I will I do want to sort of put up a for for folks inspection, though the results 10 years ago, I think, were a very bright spot in the face of sort of running against a long history of cynicism, engendering behavior when it comes to redistricting and that, you know, the good government groups, the bipartisan, nonpartisan, really heralded the outcome of the process 10 years ago as one that was driven by the right purposes and not by party dominance or incumbent protection. You know, is there was that one hundred percent, three of those things? Of course not. But were they the dominant Moedas in the map drawing? I don't think that they were. And you don't have to ask me. Or you could look at the. There was an article that the Globe magazine did after the process was finished that really gave a basically an A plus to the process. And so the trick is can we can we do that again? Right. I think if we can do that two rounds in a row, it goes a long way to cementing the cultural expectation that this is what redistricting is going to look like in our state. [00:16:11][85.4]
Steve: [00:16:12] But why not go the other direction? I mean, why not go to a fully independent redistricting commission? I mean, just to remind listeners who whom the history may not be familiar with. The redistricting process has in the past resulted in one of the past speaker of the House in Massachusetts being sent to prison. You know, and judges take through a whole bunch of other kind of impacts of partizan redistricting across the country. So why why not? Just go to a nonpartizan and independent redistricting commission here in Massachusetts as well. [00:16:39][26.8]
Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz: [00:16:41] I don't have a strong feeling, honestly. I think we could do it either way in Massachusetts. I think, though, that we should go in with eyes open that that the moniker independent is kind of a myth, right. That no matter how you set it up, the members of the of the committee or the commission, whatever we call it, that are in charge of redistricting, they're appointed by somebody. Right. And they have interests of some kind. And nobody comes to that table without an agenda. And I think that going in with eyes open about that is is the shining sunlight is the best disinfectant. Right. So we should just whichever way we choose, we have to be aware that it's not going to be foolproof. [00:17:25][43.7]
Beth Huang: [00:17:26] I really agree with the senator's point about someone appoints the commission. That being said, I, I also agree that the public participation is the important piece of a fair and transparent redistricting process. In addition to who makes the decision, who is able to give meaningful input really matters in creating an outcome that is equitable and fair and is durable. And the commission could achieve that. But there also are these longer standing questions, such as how the state considers populations of incarcerated people. Whether we build districts from precincts or census blocks is another big question that probably won't be addressed in this redistricting round. So there are these kind of bigger questions, like a commission present, gerrymandering and representing that are part of the longer term conversation about what redistricting looks like in Massachusetts. [00:18:26][59.3]
Stephanie: [00:18:27] Is there a way to draw these districts that would make elections more competitive? I mean, we look back at twenty eighteen, two thirds of the legislature ran unopposed. Twenty, twenty. It was pretty similar either in the primary or in the general. You know, we're among kind of one of the least competitive legislatures in the country. And, you know, folks, we want to see change on Beacon Hill, on all parts of the political spectrum, often point to how powerful incumbency is here. And that's true in a lot of places, but especially in Massachusetts. [00:18:57][29.7]
Beth Huang: [00:18:58] I really loved the MassINC MassForward report from a year and a half ago that that where I think some researchers from Tufts took a look at how to draw districts more competitively, I think. So I think there are I think their upshot was that it is reasonably difficult to draw a lot more competitive districts. However, we know that there isn't a ton of competition at the primary level in Massachusetts that could do with some cracking and packing of some districts. And I'd be really curious how the polarization of white voters in particular has changed in the past 10 years, especially with a lot of gentrification, development and displacement in in greater Boston. [00:19:45][46.6]
Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz: [00:19:47] Cosign on everything Beth said, and I'd also just say that there are other ways, other things that levers that we could pull, I think, to increase the competitiveness of of of elections in Massachusetts. Just a couple of off the top of my head publicly funded elections will go a long way there. And also, you know, a small thing. But to make a meaningful difference for some candidates is allowing child care expenses to be paid for through campaign accounts and then finally, rank choice voting. [00:20:18][30.9]
Jennifer: [00:20:19] I would like to go back to something that you both mentioned, which was the changes in majority minority districts and how we saw that evolve in the past decade because of the last redistricting effort. And looking ahead at this one, where are you seeing potential for sort of similar changes? The question drawing more majority minority districts. Are there any particular regions in Massachusetts where you say, OK, this has really just kind of looked the same for a really long time, and that's led to this kind of entrenched power structure. So whether or not you have any involvement with the committee itself, Senator, I'd love to hear what you'd like to see them kind of take aim at. [00:21:03][44.0]
Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz: [00:21:05] Well, ultimately, I'm going to defer to Beth on this one, because I suspect she has probably been preliminarily mucking around in some data more than I might have been over the last few months. But just on a very sort of view from 30000 feet level, look, you know, the population of people of color in Massachusetts is increasing. And so it stands to reason that we would have more seats in the legislature that would either be so-called majority minority districts or close to it. So I would hope that, yes, that we would be able to increase those numbers. That just numerically is harder to do in the Senate than the House because the districts are much larger. I don't know what the district what the what the data is going to serve up for us, but I certainly would hope that there will be opportunities for that just given the overall trend lines across the state. [00:21:58][53.5]
Beth Huang: [00:22:01] Definitely cosign that. In the last round, the legislature drew 20 majority minority districts in the House, which doubled the number of majority minority districts. That, of course, didn't lead to doubling the number of legislators of color in the House. Right. And as Boston City Council discusses a special mayoral election, a lot of us have looked at the outcomes of mayoral, of special elections in the past couple of years. And we know that special elections are absolutely a way that many incumbents have left office and then been able to hand their seats to a former legislative aide and sometimes a family member or someone in their extended family. And so that's one piece of it. Another piece is that there's been so much development and displacement in greater Boston and in Gateway cities. I suspect that the biggest opportunities for drawing majority minority districts will have been in greater Boston and also in the gateway cities. [00:23:02][61.5]
Steve: [00:23:04] All right. Well, unfortunately, we have to leave it there. But State Senator Sonia changes. And from the Massachusetts Voter Table, Beth Huang, thank you so much for joining us today to talk us through this. Thank you. Thank you very much. [00:23:14][10.3]
Jennifer: [00:23:17] One of the most damaging and long lasting impacts of the coronavirus may well be the year of learning lost among K-12 students. That, at least, is one of the main findings from a new survey out this week because a Gallup poll surveyed a thousand students aged 14 to 18 in Massachusetts high schools from November 18th to December 9th this last year. Our in-house pollster and data analyst Steve Koczela is familiar with this poll and continues to join us now on the horse race to answer our burning questions about polls and and deviation or something. Steve, thank you for taking the time out of the time that was already carved out of your schedule for this podcast to continue to be on this podcast. [00:23:55][37.7]
Steve: [00:23:55] I need a chart of that whole sentence. I don't think I followed that. But anyway, glad to be here. Taking time out of my time. [00:24:03][7.1]
Jennifer: [00:24:04] So we know the size and timeline of this poll. But what was the breakdown in terms of learning experience? You know, what surprised you when you were looking at students who are learning remotely in person or hybrid? [00:24:15][10.8]
Steve: [00:24:16] Yeah, this poll was done in November and December of last year, and it was of high school students, which is quite interesting on basically what you do there is you ask parents if you can conduct a survey with their children and then you can ask to ask the children questions so it's more time consuming and more difficult to do. So seeing a poll like this is quite interesting and useful just given the level of effort that it takes. But basically what we see when we look at high school kids is similar to what we see looking at parents, which is looking at remote students. So students who don't go into school at all and hybrid students, meaning they're doing some combination of online and in person. There's really not that much difference in terms of how parents view those two. So if you have the chance to go full time in person, that's great. You have much better ratings, both the students and the parents. But if you're not full time in person, if you're at home part of the time or home all the time, your ratings across a whole range of different questions are much, much worse. [00:25:14][58.0]
Stephanie: [00:25:15] Did this surprise you, this poll surprise you at all that hybrid learning and remote learning kind of get similar low marks from students? I think at the beginning of all of this, we've sort of talked about hybrid being, you know, a compromise and going in person sometimes was good. But it seems like, according to this poll, they're both much less preferred by students than just going in person all the time. [00:25:38][22.8]
Steve: [00:25:39] Yeah, and much less preferred by parents too, interestingly. It didn't surprise me now only because we already asked parents these same same questions and found a similar kind of thing. But looking back to the beginning of the year, Stefanie's you, as you say, you know where hybrid was seen as a compromise. I think people did sort of expect that you'd see this natural stairstep on on a bunch of different questions where if you're remote, you say the lowest or the worst thing. If you are hybrid, you're somewhere in the middle. And if you're full time in person, then you rate whatever the question is the best. But just to give one quick example, they asked students whether you would agree or disagree with the statement. Quote, I learn a lot every day and twice as many people, twice as many students who were full time and persons strongly agreed with that as either students who were either full time, remote or hybrid. There was really no difference between students who are full time, remote or hybrid in terms of how likely they were to agree with that statement. And then there were a whole range of other statements that showed similar patterns where full time in person, pretty good ratings, much, much higher than students who were in either of the other two arrangements. [00:26:49][69.9]
Jennifer: [00:26:50] And a quick little jump back that's occurring to me, Steve, is what is the actual breakdown of the students that we're looking at like? Are most of them in person full time or most of them remote? [00:27:00][10.2]
Steve: [00:27:01] So overall, the numbers were 39 percent said that they were remote full time, that they were basically learning from home or from somewhere else. And fifty five percent say that they were hybrid, meaning that they were doing some mix. And then just a few, six percent said they were in person full time, though, that when you look inside those numbers, the interesting thing about them is that there are big socioeconomic differences between those who say they're either home full time or that they're in hybrid. White students are much more likely to say that they're that they do get to go to school for some portion of the time in hybrid. And black and Latino students are much more likely to say that their remote full time. And that corresponds with the exact same pattern that we saw when we were talking to parents. [00:27:44][42.8]
Stephanie: [00:27:45] Another thing I found pretty interesting about this poll beyond, you know, the learning and the learning loss is just the quality of life for these students. If you're a full time remote learner or you're a hybrid learner, you're far more likely to say that you're worried and stressed and sad, according to this poll. Isn't that right, Steve? [00:28:04][18.7]
Steve: [00:28:05] Yeah, particularly stressed and worried. Those were the two where there were big differences in terms of those who were going in person and those who were not going in person full time. There were there were smaller differences or not. Existent differences on sad and lonely, but in terms of worry and stress, those things were much higher for students that were spending some portion of their time at home. [00:28:24][19.9]
Jennifer: [00:28:25] And we, I think, have to couch this in the fact that, as mentioned up top, we are in the middle of a vaccine rollout. And that raises these questions for what does that look like for students who generally aren't, for instance, at-risk groups that would get kind of priority in vaccines. So, Steve, looking forward through the vaccine rollout, through possible reopening changes, what are you keeping an eye on for the K-12 students? [00:28:50][25.3]
Steve: [00:28:51] Yeah, we're going to go back out and talk to parents again, do another survey among parents. And some of the issues that we're going to start to have to confront are what next year looks like. Some of the questions are what the vaccination rollout, what stage of the vaccination rollout will be in by then? Will students all be vaccinated? Will they be mostly vaccinated? Will teachers have been required to be vaccinated? These are all questions that that, you know, we don't really know the answers to yet, but that will certainly play a big role in determining what next year looks like. The other thing that we're going to have to contend with is we don't know a whole ton about what actual amount of learning loss. There's been we know how parents feel. We know how students feel, but we don't have great data just in terms of what the differential impact has been on, you know, students who are home all the time, students who are hybrid, students who are in person the whole time, what it's been like, you know, district to district or class to class. And these things also, it's not even just like what school looks like next year. It's how do we deal with these things? How do we get students back to some semblance of normalcy or even to the baseline that they were at before the pandemic hit? [00:29:57][66.0]
Jennifer: [00:29:59] Yep. Well, we will continue to tune back in with you on that one as our resident person who knows how people are feeling about things. So thank you, Steve Koczela, for taking the time out of your time to talk with us about this poll. [00:30:11][12.2]
Steve: [00:30:12] I still don't know what that means, but you're welcome. [00:30:13][1.6]
Stephanie: [00:30:18] And that, of course, brings us to our favorite segment of the podcast, trivia. So last week, we asked you several of President Joe Biden's cabinet nominees have Massachusetts ties, but only one was a fundraiser for Michael Dukakis in the 1980s. Who is it? [00:30:34][16.4]
Jennifer: [00:30:35] It was Anthony Blinken, which nobody got. So congratulations to nobody. But this week, we have very exciting and very topical news for our trivia, which is, of course, groundhog related because we are, like everyone else, slaves to that particularly silly news cycle. Let's go. Punxsutawney Phil declared six more weeks of winter still to come. And the holiday brought up a little known fact that there is a Massachusetts connection in the movie Groundhog Day. So which member of the Massachusetts media makes an appearance in the film? [00:31:10][34.8]
Stephanie: [00:31:12] My guess is Steve Koczela. [00:31:13][0.9]
Jennifer: [00:31:13] Just in the background, shivering, cuddling, a groundhog trying to run off with it. This is for my children. [00:31:21][7.9]
Steve: [00:31:22] Hey, I'm from Wisconsin. I wouldn't have been shivering. I take personal offense to that, Jenn. [00:31:27][4.8]
Jennifer: [00:31:27] No comment on the groundhog theft, but definitely not the shivering. [00:31:30][2.9]
Steve: [00:31:31] Right, exactly. We have certain standards that we adhere to in the states with cold weather patterns. But anyway, that's all the time we have for this week. I am Steve Cazorla here with Jennifer Smith and Stephanie Murray, our producer, as always, is Libby Gormley. Please make sure to leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts to boost our fragile egos. Plus, please sign up for the Politico Massachusetts Playbook if you're somehow not already subscribed and give us a ring at The MassINC Polling Group if you need polls done. We would also urge you to please make a better effort at the horse race trivia for this week, and we will hopefully have the chance to read your name on the air next week. So thank you all for joining us. [00:31:31][0.0]
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