{"id":5508,"date":"2024-04-01T19:55:15","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T11:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=5508"},"modified":"2024-04-01T19:55:19","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T11:55:19","slug":"public-schools-wasted-covid-funds-bidens-education-budget-tacitly-admits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=5508","title":{"rendered":"Public schools wasted COVID funds, Biden\u2019s education budget tacitly admits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

President Biden\u2019s signature education initiative has proven to be a costly failure for students. And now the administration is asking for even more money to make up for the blunder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden administration\u2019s federal K-12 budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year calls for an $8 billion grant program to further support public schools\u2019 COVID-19 recovery efforts. The temporary Academic Acceleration and Achievement Grants would be aimed at increasing student attendance, expanding tutoring and adding learning time in public schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with these goals, but the proposal comes as it is becoming clearer that federal relief funding for schools has not been put to good use for the nation\u2019s 50 million students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress doled out $190 billion to states for K-12 education during the pandemic, $122 billion of which was part of Biden\u2019s American Rescue Plan (ARP) in March 2021. For context, that\u2019s more than three times the total federal K-12 funding for the 2020 school year and more than $3,800 per student in extra funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These federal dollars are set to expire in September, when school districts must spend or obligate the bulk of relief aid. But nearly three years after Biden signed ARP, students still aren\u2019t caught up, despite the federal windfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most public schools were slow to reopen during the pandemic, and many students fell behind as a result. Researchers from Harvard University and Stanford\u2019s Education Recovery Scorecard collaboration have found that students in grades three through eight lost half a year in math and one-third of a year in reading on average during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, the researchers reported signs of progress in addressing some of these learning losses between the 2022 and 2023 school years but concluded, \u201cIn most states, achievement gaps between rich and poor districts are even wider now than they were before the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, students have recovered only about one-third of their learning-loss in math and one-quarter of their learning-loss in reading. This isn\u2019t entirely surprising, because academic recovery hasn\u2019t been a priority for many public schools across the country. For proof, look no further than how many school districts spent pandemic funding from federal taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putting aside blatant examples of wasteful spending of pandemic funding \u2014 football stadium renovations, electrifying bus fleets and adding central office staff, to name a few \u2014 available data suggest that much of the federal money was spent on things that have little connection to student learning. Researchers at Georgetown University\u2019s Edunomics Lab estimate that 20 percent of ARP K-12 dollars have gone to facilities \u2014 HVAC upgrades and building repairs, for example \u2014 with many districts also using the cash on teacher bonuses and backfilling budgets rather than investing in services that could address learning loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had school districts prioritized academic recovery, more of the massive pandemic funding would have been spent on the things Biden now wants money for. For instance, the federal School Pulse Panel, which is collecting information from public schools on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, estimates that only 37 percent of public schools used relief funding for high-dosage tutoring (an intervention that would be funded under the president\u2019s proposal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But public schools shouldn\u2019t shoulder all of the blame. By the time ARP was passed, schools had received $67.5 billion under former President Donald Trump. Research indicates that that amount was already more than enough to cover the costs of reopening. Schools were slow to spend the first two rounds of federal relief funding; the third round was simply overkill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only that, but Congress required only 20 percent of ARP dollars to be spent on learning loss, which should have been the top priority for public schools at that point. All told, federal policymakers in both major political parties gave public schools a massive slush fund that lacked a coherent purpose. The dollars were spent accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s latest proposed grants are an admission of failure. Reasonable people can disagree about whether public schools needed the extra $122 billion in ARP, but it\u2019s clear this historic investment had poor returns where it mattered most \u2014 inside the nation\u2019s classrooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the K-12 funds in the latest budget proposal have a clearer purpose and are far less than K-12 ARP funding, they underscore the missed opportunity to prioritize learning loss when fiscal coffers were overflowing. The reality is that students still aren\u2019t caught up. Policymakers should be skeptical that another round of COVID-19 relief funding will do the trick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Biden\u2019s signature education initiative has proven to be a costly failure for students. And now the administration is asking for even more money to make up for the blunder. The Biden administration\u2019s federal K-12 budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year calls for an $8 billion grant program to further support public schools\u2019 COVID-19 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[61],"class_list":["post-5508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","tag-usa"],"yoast_head":"\nPublic schools wasted COVID funds, Biden\u2019s education budget tacitly admits - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=5508\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Public schools wasted COVID funds, Biden\u2019s education budget tacitly admits - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Biden\u2019s signature education initiative has proven to be a costly failure for students. 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