COVID Funding Is Ending For Schools. What Will it Mean for Students?

This episode examines the impact of the ending federal COVID-19 emergency funds on K-12 education in the U.S.

1. COVID-19 funds were crucial in addressing immediate educational disruptions and mental health needs.
2. Schools are facing a "funding cliff" that may result in cuts to crucial programs and staff.
3. The potential end of funding is particularly alarming for high-poverty districts that received more support.
4. There is no clear data yet on how effectively the funds have improved school performance long-term.
5. The end of this funding may exacerbate existing educational inequities and slow recovery efforts.

1: Introduction

Overview of the episode's focus on the impact of the ending COVID-19 funding for schools. Scott Detrow: "Schools that received pandemic era funding say it made a big difference."

2: The Funding Impact

Discussion on how schools utilized the emergency funds to meet diverse needs. Alberto Carvalho: "We were able to stabilize mental health conditions in the lives of students."

3: Facing the Cliff

Insights on the challenges as funding ends, including potential cuts and increased teacher workload. Peyton Chapman: "The needs were greater... you can't learn if you're not regulated and feeling safe."

4: Policy and Future Outlook

Matt Barnum discusses the broader implications of funding cuts and the ongoing needs of students. Matt Barnum: "The money was described as emergency Covid relief, and schools had discretion to spend it as they saw fit."

• Advocate for sustained educational funding at local school board meetings.
• Support local nonprofits that partner with schools to provide essential services.
• Volunteer in tutoring and mental health initiatives in schools.
• Engage in community discussions about educational funding and policy.
• Monitor and participate in state and local government decisions affecting education.

Billions of dollars in federal COVID funding is set to expire for K-12 schools.

Educators across the country say the extra money helped students catch up, and plenty of students still need that support.

Some schools say losing the the money, received over the last few years, will lead to cancelation of crucial programs, budget cutbacks and possible layoffs.

NPR's Scott Detrow speaks with Wall Street Journal education reporter Matt Barnum about the impact of expiring federal funds on schools across the country.

People

Peyton Chapman, Alberto Carvalho, Scott Detrow, Matt Barnum

Companies

None

Books

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Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Unknown
A funding cliff. That's what many public schools could face when they returned to classes in the fall. During the pandemic, the federal government rolled out elementary and secondary school emergency relief, or EssEr funds. Hundreds of billions of dollars, money that made a big difference for a lot of public schools. With the abrupt switch to remote learning, social isolation, a global pandemic, kids were really struggling.

Peyton Chapman
The needs were greater. You know, you can't learn if you're not regulated and feeling safe and making healthy decisions. That's Peyton Chapman, principal of Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon. We ended up as schools having to meet all the social services needs, increased homelessness, increased drug and mental health issues. To help provide for those needs, her school received some of the roughly $190 billion handed out by the federal government over the last few years to support k through twelve education.

Scott Detrow
With few restrictions, districts could use the funds wherever they were needed most. At my school and in our district, we chose to use Esther funds for targeted tutoring, extra time for teachers to meet one on one with students outside of class time, credit retrieval work to make sure that they could stay on track for graduation. Some districts hired additional staff to provide for the emotional needs of students. We were able to stabilize mental health conditions in the lives of students through the hiring of psychiatric social workers, of counselors, partnering up with community based organizations to provide these services to students, but also their families. That's Superintendent Alberto Carvalho of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the country.

Educators across the country say the additional funds help students catch up. And Chapman says plenty of her students still need that support. Some 90% even of the students in my school as sophomores now seem to be bouncing back. But the 10% that really are struggling are struggling harder and harder. With the funding ending, schools will need to reassess.

That might mean ending some of that programming. It might mean layoffs. It will almost certainly mean more work for the teachers who are in many cases, pretty burned out. Teachers have hit a wall. They just don't have the time.

Consider this. Schools that received pandemic era funding say it made a big difference. So what does the end of the funding mean for american schools and the students they serve?

From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow.

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Matt Barnum
It. Quote s consider this from NPR more teachers, more aftercare programs, better technology. All of those and more have been funded by hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency education spending approved by Congress during the Covid-19 pandemic. But that money will be mostly gone next school year, leaving educators and policymakers scrambling to close the gaps. This will be happening at a time when students continue to struggle to regain the ground loss during pandemic years.

Scott Detrow
What does it mean for schools? We're going to walk through it with Matt Barnum, an education reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. You know, before we start talking about the funding, it has been such a challenging stretch for education.

Unknown
As best as you can sum something up nationally, how do you sum up the state of things in k twelve education world right now? On the one hand, if you talk to teachers or walk into schools these days, many of them say that schools feel normal again after these unprecedented disruptions during the pandemic. But, and there's a big but, the after effects of the pandemic of school closures, of the various things that happened after 2020 linger in schools. And we see that in the data. We see that students are still behind where they might have been academically.

Matt Barnum
Test scores are still lower, and they're still not showing up to school as often. We don't have great data on this school, but last school year, there were much higher absence rates than in a typical year before the pandemic. And I know that we've heard from a lot of educators who are worried that this money going away is going to hurt those causes because they've used it to fill the gaps or enrich programming to help students make up those goals. But let's start at the beginning of this. What was the initial goal of this funding?

So there have been three separate tranches of money starting in 2020, soon after the pandemic, and then culminating in the American Rescue Plan, which included money for K twelve education, and that passed in 2021. In all, in those three separate tranches were close to $200 billion for public and private K twelve schools. The money was described as emergency Covid relief, and schools were generally given discretion to spend it as they chose, as long as there was some connection to preparing, responding, addressing Covid needs. There was some stipulation in the very last tranche from the american rescue plan that at least 20% had to go towards learning loss recovery. But other than that, schools had the discretion to use the funds as they saw fit.

Unknown
It seems like it's a real stretch to try and suddenly make up that money when it's going away. There are real implications for students here. How are educators that you're talking to. Thinking about making their way through this next fall? Well, I think one thing that we don't know is just how steep, what is being called the fiscal cliff or funding cliff.

Matt Barnum
We don't quite know how steep it's going to be, and that is, you know, $200 billion. So that's a lot of money. And before the pandemic, the typical total spending on education was about 800 billion or so. The $200 billion, though, was spread over multiple years. And we don't know to what extent states or local governments are gonna be able to pick up the slack.

So that is just this sort of uncertainty that we don't have a good answer to at this point. And I think it's going to vary from place to place. That said, school leaders, school officials, teachers are certainly concerned. They're worried that a kid who might have benefited from an after school program that focused on catching them up on math, that that's going away when they're still behind, or a kid who maybe benefited from small class sizes, they're gonna have a bigger class size, and that's gonna drag down their learning gains, or they're worried that they're going to have to just do a lot of layoffs, and the disruption of that is going to hurt students. I've also reported on the possibility of school closures because budgets are tight and also large school districts have lost a lot of enrollment.

And we know that school closures can have a destabilizing effect on kids. So we don't know how big the problem is. Going to be. But there's certainly reason for some concern. Were there any in all the different ways that we measure things in k twelve education, were there any efforts to see how this particular federal money was affecting school performance?

So the short answer is, at this point, we don't have a lot of definitive evidence. And that's a big question. That is the $200 billion question. What did we get for this money? If you talk to folks in schools, I think many of them are going to say this was very impactful.

This made a big difference. But some policymakers are like, look, students are still behind academically. You know, did we really get a great return on this investment? Could this money have been spent more effectively? We do know from data from about a year ago that students are still behind academically, but we have seen them start to make some gains.

To what extent that has to do with the COVID relief money or what that would look like without that money? That's not clear. Can you talk broadly about the particular challenge that lower income schools and school districts are facing here based on how the money was initially doled out? So the money was distributed in a way that the highest poverty school districts tended to get more of it. And the logic behind that was that they faced greater challenges.

Their students were more affected by the pandemic, both academically and otherwise. And there's some evidence to support that. But then that means they're also facing the biggest funding cliff and they could face the most disruptions because of the loss of that money, especially if there isn't a other money to fill that gap. I would worry that those students are still behind, more behind academically. And we know, of course, there's longstanding test score gaps.

So those students, although they maybe have benefited from that money, they also may be facing the most disruption as the money goes away. That's Matt Barnum. He covers k twelve education for the Wall Street Journal. Thank you so much. Thanks.

Enjoyed the conversation. This episode was produced by Erica Ryan and Connor Donovan, with audio engineering by Kwesi. It was edited by Courtney Dorning and Jeanette woods. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigun. And as a reminder, you can now enjoy consider this in newsletter forum.

Scott Detrow
Just like on the podcast, we help you break down a major story of the day. Youll also get to know our producers and hosts and well share some moments of joy from the ALL THInGs considered team. You can sign up@npr.org. considerthisnewsletter its consider this from NPR. Im Scott Detrow.

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