0:00

A funding cliff. That's what many public

0:02

schools could face when they returned to classes in the

0:05

fall. During the pandemic, the

0:07

federal government rolled out elementary and

0:09

secondary school emergency relief, or ESSER

0:11

funds, hundreds of billions of

0:13

dollars, money that made a big difference

0:15

for a lot of public schools. With

0:18

the abrupt switch to remote learning,

0:21

social isolation, a global pandemic, kids

0:23

were really struggling. The needs were greater.

0:25

You can't learn if you're

0:28

not regulated and feeling safe

0:30

and making healthy decisions. That's

0:33

Peyton Chapman, principal of Lincoln High

0:35

School in Portland, Oregon. We ended

0:37

up as schools having to meet

0:40

all the social services needs, increased

0:42

homelessness, increased drug

0:44

and mental health issues. To help provide

0:46

for those needs, her school received some of the

0:48

roughly $190 billion handed out

0:51

by the federal government over the last

0:53

few years to support K through 12

0:55

education. With few restrictions, districts

0:57

could use the funds wherever they were

0:59

needed most. At my school

1:01

and in our district, we chose

1:03

to use ESSER funds for targeted

1:05

tutoring, extra time for teachers

1:07

to meet one on one with students outside

1:10

of class time, credit retrieval

1:12

work to make sure that they could

1:14

stay on track for graduation. Some

1:16

districts hired additional staff to provide for

1:19

the emotional needs of students. We were

1:21

able to stabilize mental health

1:23

conditions in the lives of students through

1:25

the hiring of psychiatric social

1:27

workers, of counselors partnering

1:30

up with community based organizations

1:32

to provide these services to

1:34

students, but also their families. That's

1:36

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho of the Los

1:38

Angeles Unified School District, the second

1:41

largest in the country. Educators

1:43

across the country say the additional funds help

1:45

students catch up and Chapman says plenty of

1:47

her students still need that support. Some

1:50

90% even of the students in my school

1:52

as sophomores now seem to be bouncing back,

1:55

but the 10% that really

1:57

are struggling are struggling harder now.

2:00

harder. With

2:02

the funding ending, schools will need to

2:04

reassess. That might mean ending some

2:06

of that programming. It might mean layoffs. It

2:09

will almost certainly mean more work for the

2:11

teachers who are in many cases pretty burned

2:13

out. Teachers have hit a wall. They just don't

2:15

have the time. Consider

2:18

this. Schools that received pandemic era funding say

2:20

it made a big difference. So

2:22

what does the end of the funding mean for American

2:24

schools and the students they serve? From

2:30

NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. This

3:00

episode is brought to you by Synchrony Bank. There's

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3:54

Consider This from NPR. More

3:57

teachers, more aftercare programs, better

3:59

technology. All of those and

4:01

more have been funded by hundreds of billions

4:03

of dollars in emergency education spending approved by

4:05

Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic. But

4:08

that money will be mostly gone next

4:10

school year, leaving educators and policymakers scrambling

4:13

to close the gaps. This

4:15

will be happening at a time when students

4:17

continue to struggle to regain the ground loss

4:19

during pandemic years. What does

4:21

it mean for schools? We're going to walk through it

4:23

with Matt Barnum, an education reporter at the Wall Street

4:26

Journal. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having

4:28

me. You know, before we start

4:30

talking about the funding, it has been such a

4:32

challenging stretch for education. As best as you can

4:34

sum something up nationally, how do you sum up

4:36

the state of things in K-12 education

4:38

world right now? So on the

4:41

one hand, if you talk to

4:43

teachers or walk into schools these

4:45

days, many of them say that

4:47

schools feel normal again after these

4:49

unprecedented disruptions during the pandemic. But

4:51

and there's a big but the after

4:53

effects of the pandemic, of school closures,

4:55

of the various things that happened after

4:57

2020 linger in schools. And

5:00

we see that in the data. We see

5:02

that students are still behind where they might

5:05

have been academically. Test scores are still lower,

5:07

and they're still not showing up to school

5:09

as often. We don't have great data on

5:11

this school year, but last school year, there

5:13

were much higher absence rates than in a

5:15

typical year before the pandemic. And I know

5:17

that we've we've heard from a lot of

5:20

educators who are worried that this money going

5:22

away is going to hurt those causes because

5:24

they've used it to fill the gaps or

5:26

an enriched programming to help students make up

5:28

those goals. But let's start at the

5:31

beginning of this. What was the initial

5:33

goal of this funding? So

5:35

there have been three separate tranches

5:37

of money starting in 2020, soon

5:39

after the pandemic

5:42

and then culminating in the American

5:44

Rescue Plan, which included money for

5:46

K-12 education

5:48

and that passed in 2021. And

5:51

all in those three separate tranches were close

5:53

to $200 billion for public and private

5:58

K-12 schools. The

6:00

money was described as emergency COVID

6:03

relief, and schools were

6:05

generally given discretion to spend it

6:07

as they chose, as

6:09

long as there was some connection

6:11

to preparing, responding, addressing COVID needs.

6:14

There was some stipulation in the

6:16

very last tranche from the American

6:18

Rescue Plan that at least 20%

6:21

had to go towards learning loss recovery.

6:23

But other than that, schools had the

6:25

discretion to use the funds as they

6:28

saw fit. It seems like it's a real

6:30

stretch to try and suddenly make up that money

6:32

when it's going away. There are real implications for

6:34

students here. How are educators that

6:36

you're talking to thinking about making their way

6:38

through this next fall? Well, I

6:40

think one thing that we don't

6:42

know is just how steep

6:45

what is being called the fiscal cliff or

6:47

funding cliff. We don't quite know how steep

6:49

it's going to be. And that is, you

6:51

know, $200 billion. So

6:53

that's a lot of money. And before the pandemic,

6:55

the typical total spending on education was about $800

6:57

billion or so. The

6:59

$200 billion, though, was spread over multiple

7:01

years. And we don't know to

7:03

what extent states or local governments are going to

7:06

be able to pick up the slack. So that

7:08

is just the sort of uncertainty that we don't

7:10

have a good answer to at this point. And

7:12

I think it's going to vary from place to

7:14

place. That said, school leaders, school officials,

7:16

teachers are certainly concerned. They're worried that

7:18

a kid who might have benefited from

7:20

an after-school program that focused on catching

7:22

them up on math, that that's going

7:25

away when they're still behind. Or

7:27

a kid who maybe benefited from small class

7:29

sizes, they're going to have a bigger class

7:32

size, and that's going to drag down their

7:34

learning gains. Or they're worried that they're going

7:36

to have to just do a lot of

7:38

layoffs, and the disruption of that is going

7:41

to hurt students. I've also reported on the

7:43

possibility of school closures because budgets are

7:45

tight, and also large school districts have lost

7:47

a lot of enrollment. And we know that

7:49

school closures can have a destabilizing effect on

7:51

kids. So we don't know how big the

7:53

problem is going to be, but there's certainly

7:55

reason for some concern. Were there any, in

7:57

all the different ways that we measure? things

8:00

in K-12 education. Were there any

8:02

efforts to see how this particular

8:06

federal money was affecting school

8:08

performance? So the short

8:10

answer is at this point we

8:13

don't have a lot of definitive evidence and

8:15

that's a that's a big question that is

8:17

the $200 billion question what did we get

8:19

for this money? Yeah. If you talk to

8:21

folks in schools I think many of them

8:23

are gonna say you know this was very

8:26

impactful this made a big difference but some

8:28

policymakers are like look students are still behind

8:30

academically you know did we really get

8:32

a great return on this investment could this money

8:34

have been spent more effectively? We

8:36

do know from data from about a

8:38

year ago that students are still behind

8:41

academically but we have seen them start

8:43

to make some gains. To what extent

8:45

that has to do with the COVID

8:47

relief money or what that would look

8:49

like without that money that's not clear.

8:51

Can you talk broadly about the particular

8:54

challenge that lower-income schools and school districts

8:56

are facing here based on how the

8:58

money was initially doled out? So the

9:00

money was distributed in a way

9:02

that the highest poverty school districts

9:04

tended to get more of it

9:07

and the logic behind that was

9:09

that they faced greater challenges their

9:11

students were more affected by the

9:13

pandemic both academically and otherwise and

9:15

there's some evidence to support that

9:17

but then that means they're also

9:19

facing the biggest funding cliff and

9:21

they could face the most disruptions

9:23

because of the loss of that

9:25

money especially if there isn't other

9:27

money to to fill that gap

9:29

I would worry that those students are

9:32

still behind more behind academically and

9:34

we know of course there's long-standing test

9:36

score gaps so those students although they

9:38

maybe have benefited from that money they

9:41

also may be facing the most disruption

9:43

as the money goes away. That's

9:46

Matt Barnum he covers K-12 education for the

9:48

Wall Street Journal. Thank you so much. Thanks

9:50

enjoyed the conversation. Our

10:00

executive producer is Sami Yennigat. And

10:02

as a reminder, you can now enjoy Consider This in

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