The $190 billion question

Hello from Erica Meltzer on Chalkbeat’s national desk. There’s a big question swirling around education these days. What kind of return did we get for the federal government’s $190 billion investment in pandemic relief for schools? Keep reading to learn how two new studies answer that question.

The big story

New research out this week attempts to pin down how much academic recovery can be attributed to pandemic relief spending. Two teams of researchers working independently found that, yes, the money improved test scores in reading and math, and the improvements are in line with previous research into whether money makes a difference to student outcomes.?

One of the studies comes from Thomas Kane at Harvard University and Sean Reardon at Stanford University. The other comes from Dan Goldhaber, who heads up the research group Calder. Both took advantage of quirks in how the pandemic relief money known as ESSER was distributed to identify districts that received thousands of dollars more per student than other districts with similar poverty levels and academic trajectories. That helped them isolate the effects of ESSER.?

Kane and Reardon found that ESSER money made the most difference in high-poverty districts, where the impacts of COVID were greater and where student needs historically have gone unmet. Goldhaber found that the dollars seemed to make a bigger difference in districts that spent less per student before the pandemic.?

Neither study could say, though, what types of spending decisions made a difference. While districts generally know how they used their money, states and the federal government haven’t collected detailed information in a consistent fashion that would allow for comprehensive analysis.?

Kane described that as a lost opportunity to better understand how to boost student achievement. “Your readers are probably frustrated,” he told Chalkbeat. “‘Wait, all these guys are saying is that the dollars had an effect?’ They might be saying, ‘But wait a minute, like why aren’t they saying which dollars had the most effect?’ And the answer is, we agree! We wish we could say more about it, but we can't say anything about it because in most states the data weren't collected.”

Read the full story here.

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Local stories to watch

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