Episode 173: Orange You Glad We Didn't Say Red Line?

3/17/21-- Happy St. Paddy's Day, listeners! All three co-hosts are back in the virtual bunker, and there's a whole lot to discuss. The Baker administration announced Wednesday the timeline for all remaining groups to receive the vaccine. In not so pleasant news, the Orange Line derailed. Steve brings up the grim award the MBTA carries for ranking high on a list of transit systems with the most derailments.

We're joined this week by Danielle Allen, a Harvard professor who has announced she is exploring a run for Governor. She explains what she sees as the divided nature of the commonwealth and discusses her views on transit, the economy, and education.

Later, MassINC Polling Group Research Director Maeve Duggan stops by to break down the results of the latest MPG poll of parents of K-12 students in Massachusetts. According to the data, parents are split over whether the state should focus on getting all kids back into school full-time or work on improving remote school.

Full transcript below:

Steve Koczela: [00:00:03] Welcome back to The Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Steve Koczela here with Jennifer Smith and Stephanie Murray. And it is St. Patrick's Day. So we would like to say two things. The first is St. Patrick's Day. And the second is our deepest condolences for Orange Line riders today. It is a bad day for the MBTA. [00:00:21][17.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:00:22] That's right. I mean, I also would like to extend my commiseration to Red Line riders who all had terrible flashbacks when they saw that a new orange line train derailed, which is going to be leading to weeks of shuttle service. And I assume everyone just flashbacks to the to the JFK red line derailment and our shuttle travails over over that summer. So sorry, we're back here again, aren't we? [00:00:51][29.2]

Stephanie Murray: [00:00:52] Is it just me or does it feel like when things are like, you know, a little bit chaotic and going kind of badly, that an embittered train just always flies off the rails? At the same time? I feel like every, you know, tense moment is marked by one of these derailments. And Steve, you actually I think you said it on Twitter that we actually you know, we have an unusually high number of derailments in Massachusetts. [00:01:14][21.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:01:14] Yeah, that's right. There's official stats, actually. I don't know how they are like the last year or so, but for a few years, we either led the nation or in like the top five transit systems in terms of derailments. So it's not just you. There are often a lot of derailments when big stuff is going on and there's often derailments when big stuff is not going on. We just have a lot of derailments here in Massachusetts. And of course, you battled the red line derailment, you know, and all the aftermath of that, trying to get up here from Dorchester, I'm sort of going to be spared it because I'm not actually trying to get to work on the Orange Line. But I cannot imagine, a for the riders that still are trying to commute and be if we actually were still trying to commute. My goodness, what a mess. [00:01:57][43.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:01:58] Yeah. And it is coming at the same time as as possibly the worst general news cycle for the way that the state is handling the T right now that we might want in the background, because all those MTA cuts that we've been talking about for the past few months, while those are happening right now and Congressman Stephen Lynch, for one, is not happy about it. [00:02:21][23.2]

Stephanie Murray: [00:02:22] That's right. And this follows a trend of the delegation kind of criticizing the Baker administration more broadly during covid. But Steve Lynch had a press conference the other day where he said he was going to have a come to Jesus talk with the MTA and some hard conversations with Governor Baker about these MBTA cuts, because the system is getting some funding from the American rescue plan that just passed and was signed into law by President Joe Biden. [00:02:48][25.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:02:49] And, of course, he's not the only member of the delegation to voice his discontent. So we'll have to see how the funding conversations go. Hopefully, the issues with the derailment will be wrapped up quickly, especially as people start to get back to work. Because one of the other things that's going on right now, of course, is vaccines are rolling out at a very rapid pace. And people, I think, will be starting to look forward to what the what's next, you know, what's kind of next in their own life coming out of the pandemic. Because another thing we just learned this morning is what the timeline is for every single adult, at least in Massachusetts, to be eligible for a vaccine. [00:03:22][32.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:03:23] We got dates. We have we have earlier dates than we expected, I think. So what we're working with right now is for eligibility on March 22nd, people who are aged 60 plus and certain workers are supposed to be eligible on April 5th, people aged 55 plus and also folks with one certain medical condition, whereas before, obviously we're talking about multiple comorbidities. And then two weeks later, April 19th, the rest of us peasants, as long as we're over 16 years old, we should all be able to register for and get vaccine appointments. So that's exciting. That's good. I'm happy about that, aren't you? [00:04:00][37.7]

Stephanie Murray: [00:04:01] It does feel like there's kind of a light coming at the end of the tunnel. This will also be an interesting test of the state's new preregistration system that they rolled out last week to, you know, get booked for a vaccine. And this is actually coming more quickly than President Biden's deadline for states to offer everyone or adults the vaccine he called for by May 1st. So will be a couple of weeks ahead of that. [00:04:24][22.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:04:25] So we'll have to keep track of that and keep track of how the Baker administration handles all of that. Of course, they've had a pretty rocky start to the vaccine, just the whole process of getting everybody a vaccine. There have been a lot of website crashes and so forth. We've actually seen Charlie Baker's approval rating, according to some numbers, be very unfamiliar, unfamiliar, if that's a word, low, uncharacteristically low, perhaps a better way of saying it, 52 percent in a new poll out, which is down from his often 70 and 80 percent approval rating. So certainly something to keep an eye on there. But that brings us to the question which we like to ask here, which is, why are we here? What are we doing here today? [00:05:03][38.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:05:04] Where even is 'here,' when is 'here', what is' here,' why is 'here'? Well, today we are talking to the Harvard professor who is exploring a run for governor, Danielle Allen, and later may have dug in of the macing polling group is going to talk to us about the newest wave of survey data on parents of K-12 students. Were we talking vaccine's reopening of disagreements between hybrid and remote schooling parents? So you all ready to get into it? [00:05:28][23.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:05:39] While we don't know whether or not Governor Baker will run for reelection in twenty, twenty two. We do know that a few Democrats and Republicans are eyeing the position to varying degrees. Our next guest is a political theorist and professor at Harvard University who has announced she is exploring a run for governor. Danielle Allen, thank you so much for joining us on the horserace. [00:05:57][18.0]

Danielle Allen: [00:05:58] Thank you so much for having me. It's a treat to be here. [00:06:00][2.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:06:01] So first things first. You are exploring a run for governor. So what does that mean and why are you considering running at all? [00:06:08][6.6]

Danielle Allen: [00:06:09] Well, let me start with why I'm considering it, and then we can talk about what it means to be exploring. I have a profound sense of urgency about the moment we find ourselves in in the Commonwealth. There are so many reasons, but that really in a lot of ways comes back to the pandemic, the start of the pandemic. And I honestly was just shocked by how easy it was in the beginning all over the country, actually, for poor people to imagine abandoning one another in various ways. There was that sort of loose talk about older people. You know, maybe we don't need to protect older people because it's just their time anyway. And let's just keep our economy open. I just couldn't believe we become a place where people could imagine things like that. And then there are the ways we pushed essential workers back so aggressively without access to PPE, without access to testing. And so I just jumped in. I worked really hard last spring to try to accelerate public investment in testing and contact tracing and great frustration, as you might imagine, working with or trying to work with the Trump administration, but did get policy into the Heroes Act that was passed in May and also to the Biden Harris covid response that's just gone through. [00:07:18][68.8]

Danielle Allen: [00:07:18] And in doing that work, it also became clear to me how much better we could do, including in this Commonwealth, for really building a foundation of flourishing for all. There is just this powerful way in which health and education and jobs are connected to each other. We have left a lot of people behind for a long time. We have this illusion that we're a super prosperous, we are prosperous, but we have not in this commonwealth, been prosperous in ways that have brought everybody along. And I think this is a pivotal moment. We have to lift our aspirations. We have to bring the transformations as we rebuild prosperity to address long standing inequities in this commonwealth. So that's what's motivating me. That's that's how I've got into it. I'm happy to talk about what it means to explore or say more about why you tell me what would be helpful to hear. [00:08:04][45.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:08:05] Let's dig in on some of the things that you brought up. Specifically, I'm wondering about the early days of the covid response just because that's something that you identified as a dynamic which pulled you into the race specific to Massachusetts. What were some of the things that Massachusetts could have done better in those early days that that you addressed more on a national basis? [00:08:23][18.5]

Danielle Allen: [00:08:25] Let's just go back to March, those two weeks in March when we went from being the state with the least unemployment in the country to being the state with the most unemployment in the country, the bottom just fell out from people. So it really show the way in which in this commonwealth were split between a knowledge economy and the service economy. Everybody, the knowledge economy, myself included. Right. We could just pull up the drawbridge, start telecommuting and prepare to ride it out. But then there are all those jobs that depended on the knowledge economy where the bottom just fell out from under people because of hotels, because of restaurants and the like. And we weren't prepared to help people right in that getgo moment. We remember what the food lines were like. But it's not just that we weren't ready in that moment. [00:09:09][44.0]

Danielle Allen: [00:09:09] The fact that our Commonwealth is really split between a knowledge economy and a services economy that's sort of deep and long, longstanding, and it means we're not really knit together. We're not delivering opportunity and stability to people in the service economy in the same way as we are in the knowledge economy. And a way that this comes out, you know, that I actually sort of I just find painful is even in the contrast between what's happened with the vaccine rollout and what's happened with unemployment insurance. So we're all super aware of how much the vaccine rollout has not gone so well, shall we say? And we know the website problems, et cetera, et cetera. [00:09:46][37.2]

Danielle Allen: [00:09:47] The website for dealing with unemployment insurance is just as problematic. People have problems accessing the website, need in-person services in the same way for the website, for an insurance. As for the vaccine, we've seen some responsiveness on the vaccine piece, partly because that is hitting people who are better off. But the unemployment insurance problem, it's still there. That website has been problematic since last spring and we haven't actually rectified that. So, you know, I think the sort of veneer of our exceptionalism has been ripped off by the pandemic. We have for too long accepted people being left behind. We think that we're number one in education in Massachusetts. Yet with our inequities, I don't believe we should call ourselves a leader. I don't think you can lead until you've also addressed. Those inequities, so, for example, in Springfield, you know, you've got 50 percent of the kids who don't go on beyond high school, yet 70 percent of the jobs in the commonwealth require certification beyond high school. So that's a gap in opportunity. It's a gap in stability. It's a gap in security. And those things exist all over the Commonwealth. I believe it's really time to bring them to the surface and to address them together, to knit ourselves into one commonwealth. [00:11:01][73.6]

Stephanie Murray: [00:11:02] So you've identified these problems and you've been pretty close to them, you know, working with the different administrations and doing your listening tour. So what is your timeline for deciding whether to run for governor or not? And just for our listeners who might not understand the difference between the exploratory process and actually launching a campaign? How does that work? [00:11:20][18.4]

Danielle Allen: [00:11:21] Sure. No, I appreciate the question. So the exploratory process involves a bunch of things. For one, we're running a listening tour. It's called Commonwealth Conversations. We are really trying to engage people in the question of what are our hopes for this commonwealth? How can we lead? What would it mean for Massachusetts to set a standard for delivering for everybody for, again, building that foundation of flourishing for all, so asking people to share their concerns, the challenges they see and hopes? Right. Again, we want to develop a vision shaped together. So that's a really key part of a learning process, a listening process, a storytelling process. And then there's always the sort of work of figuring out what does it can we build an operation? Can we put together the team that we need to mount a serious bid? So we're working on all of those pieces. You mentioned the beginning. I'm a professor. This is true. I've always worn a professor hat in a citizen hat, and I'm working towards putting on the citizen hat 100 percent of the time. But the truth is, I'm teaching right now, OK, so I'm still in a semester. I'm doing this exploratory work part time. And the question is, can we answer the key exploratory questions come June and then come June? Presuming we see green lights, we'll say go and look forward to a full time launch and full time process of campaigning. [00:12:42][80.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:12:44] Can you give us a little bit of a sneak peek, so to speak, on some of the areas where these listening sessions have heightened certain priorities? I'm sure we'll talk a bit more about the vaccine, but hopefully we're not in a pandemic for the rest of the twenty two to whatever term. So are there things that have come up during these circles saying we really, really do think there needs to be a long term fix here for sure? [00:13:10][26.3]

Danielle Allen: [00:13:10] I mean, I think, you know, there are the really intense problems of transportation and housing coming up everywhere. For me, those two problems are very closely linked to jobs. And so jobs, the economy is a huge focus for me with transportation and housing linking into those things both in Western Mass and on the Cape. It's been really striking that people have reported a sort of experience of brain drain, younger people moving away because either the opportunities are not there or the transportation and housing situation means you can't live in those locations and also make it economically. And that brain drain is a sort of sense also of erosion of community than older people report things like, you know, I can't even get anybody to shovel my snow anymore because there just aren't young people around. And I think registering that way in which we're not actually permitting communities to stay strong and healthy, because the sort of this triad of housing and transportation and jobs is sort of falling way for people is a really key point that we're hearing. [00:14:12][61.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:14:14] So Democrats have had a really tough time recently, and it just in this one respect in terms of winning the governor's office in Massachusetts, you know, they win supermajorities in the legislature every seat in Congress, both Senate seats, et cetera. But then when it comes to the governor's office, only Deval Patrick and the last several decades has been successful. So what's going on there and how do you see this year potentially being different? [00:14:36][21.6]

Danielle Allen: [00:14:37] Sure. No, thank you. It's true that the state has had a habit of electing a governor in some sense who doesn't come from the state house. Right. So that's how I think about it. It's not exactly Republicans versus Democrats. It's really doesn't come from the center of gravity inside the statehouse. Deval Patrick as an outsider, I think, registered in a similar way to a Republican in office. I think that's the general frame for thinking about this question. I think it's really important that the governor be somebody who can both partner with the legislature and push the legislature is a combination of partnering and pushing that we need in the role. And so I do honestly think that that's a place where being an outsider is a bit of an advantage. I am a big believer in partnerships. I worked as a regional field organizer in the 07 08 Obama campaign and really believe in building coalitions, working through committees, connecting people around shared purpose and driving processes forward. And also I do bring some perspectives that may come from outside the state house, and that gives me the opportunity to be a pusher as well as a partner. In doing this work. [00:15:45][67.6]

Stephanie Murray: [00:15:46] I want to make sure we get to the topic of schools and going back to school. I know you've done some work on this in Cambridge and more broadly. So what is the solution in the short term for getting kids back in school safely? And then, you know, if elected in 2022, what is the long term to kind of correct for or, you know, fix all of the learning loss and the damage that's been done by the pandemic to students? [00:16:12][25.3]

Danielle Allen: [00:16:13] So getting kids back safely is about ensuring that educators, staff, children, students, families are all safe in a healthy and safe learning environment and have confidence in that safety. And that really is about both infection control and vaccination. We need both of those pieces and we need them ASAP. Infection control, that's not a phrase people are familiar with. It is the kind of combination of ventilation practices and social distancing and the like. It is a practice of the health care sector that needs to come over to the K through 12 sector. And the truth is, the state has not facilitated investment in that effectively. We have incredible resources now available in the federal relief bill to achieve infection control. We should be accessing those resources ASAP to deliver that and emphasizing this because people have to recognize that we do need teachers vaccinated. We need that ASAP. But at the same time, that's not enough because we can't have kobad circulating in schools so that kids might take it home to their families. So everybody actually needs to lock arms and really dig in on getting infection control operating at high level, including investing in ventilation and all of our school buildings. The federal relief funds make that possible. The governor's office should be activating access to those funds ASAP to make that happen alongside accelerating vaccination for teachers. [00:17:37][84.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:17:38] And getting to another question of what should federal funding be used for at the exact moment we're in the middle of a chaotic MBTA week, which we have a decent amount of, but a lot of the debate has been focused on whether or not it's responsible to be making cuts to public transportation at a time when Congress has specifically allocated a decent amount of stimulus money that should be going toward at least the Congress, people say, should be going toward improving the public transit that we have. So I'm interested in hearing your responses to the way that we're making the cuts right now and whether or not you feel that more of the stimulus money should be directed toward the T. [00:18:17][39.3]

Danielle Allen: [00:18:19] It's not responsible to be cutting public transit right now, and rather we should be taking the fiscal flexibility that we have in this moment of crisis and making smart investments both in transportation needs that are responsive to the current crisis, but are also laying the foundation for an improved transportation footprint. So without any question, we need public transportation that facilitates access to jobs at the same time that we are also trying to drive practice towards electric vehicles and focusing on bike safety. So we need that sort of try out of work. And this is a moment for taking this forward. [00:18:57][37.8]

Danielle Allen: [00:18:57] I think Worcester is a great example where they have taken this moment of crisis and difficulty to move forward, move forward with a pilot of free fares for public transportation, linking that to the development of revenues to support those free fares for public transport. It's that spirit of let's make a difference now. Let us see where this provides an opportunity for transformation that we really need. We've sort of settled, honestly, I think, for the idea that we need a manager, we need a leader and a manager in the governor's office, and we want to be moving toward someplace that's worth it, worth our while. We need to be moving to someplace that matters and we need to be able to execute effectively and moving to a destination that matters. So that, I really think, is the conversation we all have to have over the coming 18 months. [00:19:46][48.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:19:47] While we have you here, I wanted to ask you about a very interesting column that you wrote in The Washington Post about civics education specifically. We talk constantly on this podcast about polarization and all the ways that that makes politics more difficult. You were you wrote about how civics education could potentially be part of the solution. So tell us what tell us what's going on there and what Massachusetts could be doing on that. [00:20:09][21.5]

Danielle Allen: [00:20:10] Well, you know, this is a place where Massachusetts has led and it's a good thing the Commonwealth has done this and we can do more. So the passage in twenty eighteen. Well, the approval of new standards for history and social studies on the one hand, and then the passage of the legislation that supports student civics projects were huge because that meant now for the first time, all eighth graders in Massachusetts get a yearlong civics course by the end of eighth grade, by the end of 12th grade, all students get to do their own student led civics project. This is a model for the country and we really should be building it out, investing in it, doing more to help schools develop this practice and engaging communities and supporting their schools and doing this work around civics. That's the really important part. And I think that's where there's an opportunity for us to work on reuniting our communities. A part of that work does have to be about facilitating productive forms of disagreements, relearning how to bridge across lines of difference. And I think that is work that we can do in the links between community and school. [00:21:15][64.8]

Stephanie Murray: [00:21:16] If I could just jump in before we let you go, I have one more question. It's still early, of course. And if you do decide to run for governor, the Democratic primary will come first. There's already one candidate who's already announced. So what is going to set you apart in the field in the Democratic primary field? [00:21:34][17.9]

Danielle Allen: [00:21:35] I believe that the problems we have right now require holistic thinking. It is about how health and education, jobs and justice come together. It's also about how democracy and sustainability are both a necessary bedrocks for those things. And how can we achieve the degrees of health and resilience we need on both of those fronts and that holistic thinking? That is what I have spent my life doing. I have spent my life working on democracy, understanding how democratic processes can improve and repair themselves over time, building coalitions to deliver results in all of these areas. So my goal is to drive that conversation. We have to have about becoming one commonwealth and thinking in a holistic way about how different areas of policy connect with one another. [00:22:21][45.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:22:22] Gotcha. Well, unfortunately, we have to leave it there for today. But Danielle Allen, thank you so much for joining us. And we look forward to seeing whether or not you move from exploring to candidacy. [00:22:32][9.6]

Danielle Allen: [00:22:33] Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today. [00:22:35][2.1]

Stephanie Murray: [00:22:39] Elementary and middle schoolers across the state are gearing up for the return of full time in-person learning come April 5th, but a new poll out from the Macing polling group finds parents of K through 12 students are split on whether kids should return to school or if instead remote learning should be improved. Joining us on The Horse Race to discuss the poll's findings is MassINC Polling Group research director and lieutenant commander of learning during covid Maeve Duggan. Welcome back, Maeve. [00:23:05][26.7]

Maeve Duggan: [00:23:06] Thank you. I'm I'm a little unsure of my new title as there are a lot of factions in the Massachusetts education landscape. I'm not sure I want to be in charge of them all. [00:23:17][10.2]

Stephanie Murray: [00:23:17] Well, unfortunately, [00:23:18][0.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:23:22] We gave you a title, and now uou can't take it back, so there you go. [00:23:23][1.5]

Maeve Duggan: [00:23:24] I'll assume responsibility for the welfare of the Commonwealth. [00:23:27][2.2]

Stephanie Murray: [00:23:27] So before we get started, just tell us about the poll, you know, the scope of it and what you were trying to learn from this wave of surveys. [00:23:34][6.9]

Maeve Duggan: [00:23:36] This is the third poll in a series that we've been conducting since the late spring last year among all parents in Massachusetts. This particular round, we surveyed just over fifteen hundred parents. And importantly, that includes over samples of black, Latino and Asian parents. I would also note the timing of this survey. We were in the field for most of the month of February and just the first couple of days of March, which is only important as we think about the policy changes in terms of reopening that have been announced or discussed since then, and also just the environment in which parents were living in when they took this poll, which was, you know, the dark days of covid winter. [00:24:19][43.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:24:20] Yeah. And of course, let's start off at toplines. What are the takeaways here? Are people doing OK? Are they happy about how the is handling this or are they about to burrow directly into the ground? [00:24:31][11.3]

Maeve Duggan: [00:24:32] Oh, I'm not sure the kids are all right. We saw it in a question that we've asked since the October wave about various types of impacts, that there's been an uptick in the proportion of parents who say that their child, that this year has had a negative impact on their child's mental and emotional health and their opportunities for friendship. Meanwhile, we didn't see that much of a change in terms of negative impacts on academics, but we still see that about half of parents say that this year has had a negative impact on academics. So kind of on all fronts, parents have had a negative reaction to this year. [00:25:11][39.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:25:12] So one of the things that's really changed just in the last few weeks, of course, has been the movement, the acceleration in the movement towards a return to in-person learning. And one of the biggest impacts, of course, of that is going to be that people who are in hybrid situations right now will be going back more frequently. I wonder if you just talk a little bit about how hybrid parents are reacting to squirreling this year. They've really stood out throughout this series of polls. So just maybe a little bit on how they continue to stand out. [00:25:41][29.0]

Maeve Duggan: [00:25:43] Definitely. So you mentioned the question about returning to the classroom and we posed that to parents that they think that the focus of the remainder of the year should be on getting kids back in person or improving remote learning. And we saw some pretty stark differences depending on school format. So the hybrid parent specifically, they're more likely to support getting kids back in person. And this probably aligns with a lot of what we've seen from them over the past two waves where they've expressed difficulties, in particular this wave in terms of managing their child's school schedule and balancing work and child care. They also tend to be more negative. When I talked about those impacts before, both the last wave and this wave. They've been more negative across the board. So it's been tough times for hybrid parents. And I think that's translating for them into a real desire to get their kids back in the classroom. [00:26:34][51.5]

Stephanie Murray: [00:26:35] So, you know, not on the too distant horizon anymore is vaccines. Governor Baker announced today we're reporting this on Wednesday that the general public will have access to vaccines in April. But when it comes to kids, you did pull on vaccinating kids to go to school, whether it should be required. What did you find there? [00:26:57][21.5]

Maeve Duggan: [00:26:58] Yeah, so two different things on vaccines. The first you mentioned about who in school should be required to be vaccinated. And we found majority support among parents who say that staff and administrators should be vaccinated required and also that teachers should be required. It was seventy one percent for each of those groups support vaccine requirements. We also found majority support for requiring other children at school to be vaccinated, although a little less so. So only fifty nine percent. [00:27:28][29.8]

Maeve Duggan: [00:27:30] The other part of this is when people want to get their own child vaccinated. And this follows some of the. As we've seen in terms of when adults themselves want to get vaccinated in this poll, the plurality of parents, which is forty five percent, want to get their child vaccinated as soon as possible. That grows to 80 percent when we talk about getting your child vaccinated at any point. But importantly, that leaves 20 percent of parents who say that they're either never going to get their child vaccinated or that they're unsure. And that's critical for two reasons. First is because the obvious implications for safe school reopenings and the second is in terms of reaching herd immunity in the general population, that we do need kids vaccinated. If we're all going to be safe. [00:28:20][50.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:28:21] I'd love to just kind of loop back on something you mentioned up at the top, which was that this oversampled nonwhite families. And was there any kind of difference or interesting breakdowns between demographic groups around whether or not they'd like to go back to school full time, whether there were any preferences about certain school formats or any other kind of differences that you found to be interesting? [00:28:44][22.8]

Maeve Duggan: [00:28:45] Definitely. So over the course of this work, we've kind of asked at two different times about reopening under very different circumstances. The first was back in the June wave of the series when we asked when parents would want to return, if they'd like to wait until there can be a normal school schedule, or if they'd rather return on a modified school schedule. And we saw differences by race and ethnicity and income in that instance in terms of lower income and racial and ethnic minorities wanting to wait for more of a sense of normalcy. Fast forward to this wave of the survey. And when we asked more directly about returning in person, you know, remote parents are more likely to say they'd like the focus to be on improving remote learning. And those remote parents are more likely to be lower income and parents of color. And then the last bit of all of this is the vaccine is the vaccination process itself. And we did find some differences, especially in terms of income across the racial and ethnic groups of hesitancy when it comes to getting your child vaccinated. So lower income parents across all the racial and ethnic groups are less likely to say that they want their child vaccinated as soon as possible. And I think, Steve, you also had looked at some data differences there in terms of gateway cities. [00:30:11][85.2]

Steve Koczela: [00:30:12] That's right. So one of the things that is going to kind of come into play down the road is the role that vaccinations, mandatory or optional play when it comes to long term schooling. So not necessarily immediately. You know, we've pretty well established that kids and teachers can and will be going back and person in larger numbers over the next few weeks and few months without waiting until everybody's been vaccinated. But down the road, you know, what role do vaccinations play? And in terms of, you know, being able to be in person and being able to be in person full time and without masks and so forth, and the pace that we're seeing in terms of when parents want to have their kids vaccinated is very, very different. So you could end up in a situation where, you know, certain school districts, vaccination rates are near universal and in others they're lagging way behind, you know, when you've got a relatively small percentage of the students vaccinated. So you know how that how that all happens over the next few months, you know, sort of going into next school year, I think will be quite interesting and could potentially influence what next school year looks like for some districts. [00:31:16][64.7]

Stephanie Murray: [00:31:17] So how should policymakers be thinking about this when they look at this poll? You know, Governor Baker and some of his top education officials made the decision to really push schools to reopen in April. But, you know, judging by this poll, some of the groups that have been hit hardest by the pandemic don't really want that. They want remote learning improved. And there's wiggle room there, of course, because you can opt to keep your child home and stay remote. But, you know, is that the right approach to, you know, push reopening if these groups don't really want it as much? [00:31:50][32.8]

Maeve Duggan: [00:31:52] I think it's tougher to say for the rest of the spring because, as you say, there will still be this option that parents can keep their children remote if they'd like to. I think the bigger questions and what we hope to continue to address in our last wave of this research is what what should parents want to see changed when there is a return to, quote unquote, normal school in the fall? And I think there are two clues from this round of the survey that would be important to pay attention to. The first is the data we collected on mental and emotional health. 60 percent of parents say that they're somewhat at least somewhat concerned about their child's mental and emotional health. [00:32:31][38.9]

Maeve Duggan: [00:32:32] Some portion of that may sort itself out when there's a return to normalcy. It can be socializing again, those sorts of things, but on the other hand, a lot of these children have experienced really significant losses if in terms of a personal loss of somebody has passed or a financial loss or some other type of disruption in their family. So the sort of lingering mental and emotional health resources are certainly something to keep an eye on. We also asked about mental health resources that are available at schools now, and we found that there is a potential knowledge gap between what's offered at schools and whether or not parents know that that's offered. So somewhere between about a fifth and a third of parents were unsure if the particular services we asked about were even offered at their school. [00:33:25][53.4]

[00:33:26] So mental health is kind of the one big thing. The second thing, and this one might be a little harder to parse, is that we did find evidence that while the plurality of parents across racial and ethnic groups say that there's been a negative impact on their child's academics this year, we did also find that just about a third of Black and Latino parents say that there has been a positive impact on their child's academics. So that's not really a number you can sneeze at. A third of those parents say that something good has been happening this year. So I think it would be imperative to school officials and policymakers to identify what those positives are and try to recreate that environment in the in-person learning that we return to in the fall. [00:34:12][46.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:34:14] And if you want more information on this poll, please check out the MassINC Polling Group website that's massincpolling.com and just take a look under our education work. This is posted there with toplines crosstabs, a link to the video that we of the release event that we did this morning. All kinds of more information that you can dig into there. But for now, they've dug and research director here at the polling group and the lieutenant commander of whatever it was your own commander of. We're so glad to have you here today. [00:34:39][25.4]

Maeve Duggan: [00:34:40] Well, thanks for having me on. And it's really good to see all of you again. [00:34:44][3.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:34:47] So last week, we talked about our best and worst quarantine purchases. And for me and Stephanie, that seems to mostly be clothing related. But Stephanie does love her cat. Steve, you were not here last week, so best and worst quarantine purchases. [00:35:00][13.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:35:01] Yeah, best quarantine purchase has to be dog. We were among the legions and millions of people that got pandemic puppy. We got it this summer. And it's it's been awesome, you know, just plenty of time. It forces you to spend time outside having a dog, you know, and she's just been a great dog and the kids love her and everything. So at some point we're going to have to have a pet podcast for we all bring our pets on. [00:35:24][22.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:35:24] And I can't do a pet podcast, Stephanie. Like, I can't do that. [00:35:29][5.0]

Stephanie Murray: [00:35:31] Gigi actually hopped up on my lap when we were recording one of the other segments and I had to throw her to the ground, so. [00:35:35][4.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:35:38] Wow, brutal. My worst one, I think was looking back to the very beginning when we all didn't really know how to how to zoom calls, we're going to work like what was going to be expected to be behind you. And as some call, it's like, am I supposed to appear to be somewhere scenic? So I actually like but a bit of green fabric to, like, try to make a green screen stuff. And I've never-- I used it once. I used that one time. [00:36:02][23.5]

Stephanie Murray: [00:36:02] I forgot about that. [00:36:03][1.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:36:05] But it's it's funny to think back on now that it was like, what is the etiquette about this? Am I supposed to look like I'm in the office? Am I supposed to be wearing a tie? Am I supposed to be like sitting in front of my kids messy toy room? I think a lot of that's resolved itself now. And you kind of know like what Zoom background goes with which person. But back then it was like, I have no idea what's going to kind of be expected of us. [00:36:27][21.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:36:27] Those are great answers. [00:36:27][0.3]

Stephanie Murray: [00:36:27] I think you might win. [00:36:28][0.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:36:29] I remember when you had Suffolk Downs behind you! [00:36:30][1.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:36:33] Right. And then you like move in the green screen Russel's and it looks like Suffolk Downs is moving around behind you anyway. That's that's funny memories from the last year of the pandemic. But anyway, we have a really important question that we need to resolve today, which is about how to pronounce a word that I think Stephanie has to introduce, because, frankly, I don't even understand the details of why this is a question. [00:36:56][22.8]

Stephanie Murray: [00:36:57] So last or a couple of weeks ago, we settled the hashtag Mapley debate or reminded people that we settled it. But one that we have not figured out is the hashtag for the Massachusetts legislature, hashtag M.A LEG. And I would like to argue today that it is actually pronounced my leg like the guy in SpongeBob who says my leg, like in every episode. That is how I read it in my head and I actually think I'm right. [00:37:25][28.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:37:26] Do you want to just tell her she's wrong first or do you want me to jump in on that? [00:37:29][3.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:37:30] I mean, I was I was going to say, like, I don't even have the words for how completely I. Plausibly wrong, that is, but but I'll go with just like it's clearly MAledge. [00:37:41][11.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:37:43] Interesting. MAledge. See I was actually going to say, M A ledge so, there actually are three pronunciations. There's definitely not 'leg,' though. It's definitely 'ledge' like legislature. Not leg. That's definitely true, but I think it's M A. [00:37:55][12.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:37:56] The look Stephanie is giving us [00:37:57][1.3]

Stephanie Murray: [00:37:58] it is spelled "leg." [00:37:59][0.8]

Steve Koczela: [00:38:00] Libby also voted for. That's true. Libby also voted for Ledge, I think. So that's three against one on. That's on the second part of that pronunciation. [00:38:06][6.4]

Stephanie Murray: [00:38:07] I need our Horse Race listeners to back me up on this. [00:38:09][2.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:38:10] Well, that calls for a Twitter poll for sure. So we will do a Twitter poll and we will analyze the results using our elaborate apower deep learning model computer thing on the Internet. I get back to you next week, but for now, that's all the time we have. I'm Steve Koczela. It's great to be back here with Jenn Smith and Stephanie Murray. Our producer, as always, is Libby Gormley. Please make sure to leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts and let your other social media followers know that you listen to the horserace. It helps them find us and makes us feel better about ourselves in these difficult times. Plus, please do sign up for the Politico Massachusetts Playbook if you're somehow not already subscribed and give us a ring here at the Macing polling group if you need polls done. Thank you all for listening. And we will see you next week. [00:38:53][43.0]

Stephanie Murray: [00:38:53] My leg. [00:38:53][0.0]

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