Reports that schools were squandering $190 billion in federal pandemic relief funds are alarming. Many districts spent the money on things that had nothing to do with academics, especially building renovations. Less common, but more eye-catching, were stories about new soccer fields, pool passes, rooms at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and even ice cream trucks.
So I was surprised to find that two independent academic analyses published in June 2024 found that some of the money did, in fact, flow to students and help them catch up academically. The two studies used different methodologies, but they came up with surprisingly similar figures for the average increase in math and reading scores in the 2022-23 school year that could be attributed to every dollar of federal aid.
One team of researchers, including Harvard economist Tom Cain and Stanford sociologist Sean Reardon, likened each $1,000 in federal pandemic relief to six days of math and three days of reading for each student. While that may seem small, the gains were small: High-poverty districts received an average of $7,700 per student, and those extra “days” of learning for low-income students added up. Still, these neediest kids were projected to be about a third of a grade behind their low-income peers in 2019, before the pandemic shut down their schools.
“Federal funding has helped, and it has helped the kids who need it most,” Robin Lake, executive director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, wrote in response to both studies. Lake was not involved in either report, but has closely followed the pandemic recovery. “And the spending has been worth the benefits,” Lake added. “But it won’t be enough to do everything that’s needed.”
The academic gains per dollar of aid were similar to what previous researchers have found for increased school spending. In other words, federal pandemic aid to schools was as effective (or less effective) as other infusions of school funding. The Harvard-Stanford analysis calculated that the seemingly small academic gains per $1,000 would increase a student’s lifetime earnings by $1,238. That’s not a dramatic payoff, but it’s not a breakdown in public policy, either. And that payoff doesn’t include other social benefits that come with higher academic achievement, such as lower arrest rates and fewer teen mothers.
But the most interesting finding from both reports is that academic outcomes varied widely across the country, not just because some schools used their money more effectively than others, but because some received far more support per student.
The poorest school districts in the country, where more than 80% of students live in families low enough to qualify for federally funded school lunch programs, have seen meaningful recovery because they received the most support. About 6% of the 26 million public students the researchers studied are educated in these poor districts. These children have recovered nearly half of their learning losses from the pandemic by spring 2023. The poorest districts, which account for 1% of children, tend to receive the most support per student, so they are likely to recover almost completely by 2024. However, these students were well below grade level before the pandemic, so even if they recover, they will be at a very low level.
Some high-poverty districts received far more aid per student than others. At the top of the range, Detroit students each received about $26,000. $1.3 billion was distributed to fewer than 49,000 students. One in 10 high-poverty districts received more than $10,700 per student. An equal number of high-poverty districts received less than $3,700 per student. This striking disparity in areas with similar poverty levels was due to the fact that pandemic aid was distributed under the same complex rules that govern federal Title I funding for low-income schools. That formula gives large minimum grants to small states and gives more money to states that spend more per student.
At the other end of the income spectrum are wealthy school districts where less than 30 percent of students qualify for the lunch program, or about a quarter of American children. The Harvard-Stanford researchers project that these students will recover almost completely. And it’s not because of federal recovery funds. These districts received less than $1,000 per student on average. The researchers explained that these students will likely approach 2019 achievement levels because their learning losses were not as significant. Wealthy families also had the means to hire tutors or have time to help their children at home.
Middle-income districts, where 30% to 80% of students could participate in the meal program, were in the middle. Seven out of 10 children in this study fell into this category. Their learning losses were sometimes large, but their pandemic support was not. They tended to receive between $1,000 and $5,000 per student. Many of these students are still struggling to catch up.
In a second study, researchers Dan Goldhaber of the American Institute for Research and Grace Falken of the University of Washington estimated that schools nationwide would need an average of $13,000 more per student to fully recover in reading and math—more than Congress had appropriated.
There were signs that schools were targeting interventions to the students who needed the most help. In districts that reported separately on outcomes for low-income students, those students tended to make greater gains per dollar of aid than their wealthier peers, according to a Goldhaber-Falken analysis.
The effects varied more by race, region, and school spending. School districts with larger numbers of white students tended to make greater achievement gains per dollar of federal aid than districts with larger numbers of black or Hispanic students. Small towns tended to make more academic gains per dollar of aid than big cities. And districts that spent less on education per student tended to make more academic gains per dollar of aid than districts that spent more. The latter makes sense: An extra dollar in a small budget makes a bigger difference than an extra dollar in a large budget.
The most disappointing part of both reports is that they have no idea what schools have done to help students catch up. The researchers were unable to link academic performance to tutoring, summer school, or other interventions schools have tried. Schools have until September to decide how to use their remaining pandemic recovery funds, and unfortunately, these analyses offer no guidance.
And maybe some of the nonacademic things schools spend money on aren’t so frivolous after all. A draft paper released in January 2024 by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that school spending on basic infrastructure like air conditioning and heating systems boosted test scores. Spending on athletic facilities didn’t.
Meanwhile, the final score on students’ pandemic recovery is not yet in. I’ll be watching closely.
This story about federal funding for education was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit independent news organization focused on inequity and innovation in education. Subscribe Proof points and others Hechinger Newsletter.