The CDC plans to amend its guidance for schools to reopen, Vice President Mike Pence announced Wednesday. President Donald Trump called the initial recommendations "very tough and expensive" and "very impractical" and said he may look to tie funding to reopening plans.

Students who took online standardized tests performed worse than their peers who took exams using paper -- with students from low-income households, students with disabilities and English-language learners being disproportionately affected. Ben Backes, a researcher at the American Institutes for Research, found similar results in a study in Massachusetts, calling this an "online penalty."

In-person opportunities for summer professional development are unlikely because to the coronavirus pandemic, but there are other ways for teachers to engage in meaningful PD, according to high-school teacher Kaleb Schumer. In this blog post, Schumer suggests taking advantage of free courses offered by Google, accessing free resources for gamification and listening to education-focused podcasts.

As a life sciences teacher, Jenny Woolway, deputy principal at Bracken High School in Alberton, South Africa, says most of her lessons are hands on. In this blog post, she shares several ways she has transitioned to distance learning, including developing hyperdocs, using Boclips for Teachers to create explanatory videos and maximizing virtual learning groups for tips and resources.

Eighty-seven percent of K-12 schools expect to use more technology in instruction, and 61% anticipate they will at least start the school year with some form of blended learning, according to a survey by Microsoft. Anthony Salcito, vice president of Microsoft Education, says feedback indicates that "blended hybrid learning will become the new normal for schools."

California is looking to provide at least some in-person instruction in the fall, but officials also are focused on ensuring all students have access to distance learning opportunities. Many students this spring lacked resources needed to access online lessons, and the state still needs 765,000 more devices and 416,000 more Wi-Fi hot spots for students, the state reports.

Teachers who graduated this year are the first wave of educators to earn their credentials during this period of remote instruction. Cesar Palafox, who hopes to teach in Chicago Public Schools in the fall, said his remote student teaching experience taught him a lot about technology and e-learning.

International students who are pursuing degrees in the United States will have to leave the country or risk deportation if their universities switch to online-only courses, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Monday. US data show more than 1.1 million international students hold active student visas.

Some school districts are at odds with the California Teachers Association about whether districts have the authority to require teachers to conduct live, online instruction. The union is citing a law from 1976 that affords teachers' privacy protections, while some lawyers for districts point to a law signed last week by the Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Khan Academy has seen a drastic uptick in usage since the pandemic forced schools to go virtual in March. Daily use has increased from 30 million learning minutes to a maximum of 92 million, and registrations for students and teachers is about six times the normal rate.