Three years ago, the federal government gave US public schools $190 billion over five years to safeguard against COVID and reverse the academic fallout that followed.
Was the money spent wisely? Were students better off because of the money? Were the goals of the programs accomplished? Those are questions investigators from the education web site The 74 Million asked when they undertook a ten month examination of how school districts and charter school networks spent federal covid funding.
What did they find?
While covid relief funds fueled major upgrades in reading instruction and other efforts to improve learning, they also produced a lot of questionable spending. A lack of reporting requirements made it difficult to get answers about the efficacy of spending. In addition, while districts were required to get public input on spending plans, few districts followed up with the public on their progress. All in all, it’s been difficult to get answers, and even more so, to get the answers people want.
The 74 Continues:
Worse yet, investigators found the lack of reporting requirements also hindered answering important questions about how funds were used.
A recent government report said gaps in spending data “make it difficult for the oversight community, decision-makers, and American taxpayers to fully understand where the money went and how it was used.”
When districts do report on their spending, the documents are often “full of jargon and gobbledygook,” complained Eileen Chollet, a parent in Virginia’s Fairfax County schools.
And the federal government hasn’t necessarily been a model of openness. A U.S. Department of Education “transparency portal” tells users how much money districts received. But its most recent spending report is two years old and the funds are grouped into vague categories like “supplies” and “other services.”
Read more about the report here.
Read more about federal covid spending in North Carolina schools here, here and here.
