NYT: Schools Received Billions in Stimulus Funds. It May Not Be Doing Enough.

Pandemic aid was supposed to help students recover from learning loss, but results have been mixed.

When the pandemic shut down schools across the country, the federal government responded with billions of dollars to help districts support remote learning, serve free meals to students and safely reopen schools.

In 2021, the Biden administration gave districts another $122 billion through its $1.9 trillion stimulus package, an amount that far surpassed previous rounds. Districts were required to spend at least 20 percent of those funds on helping students recover academically, while the rest could be used on general efforts to respond to the pandemic.

Yet, while most schools have since deployed various forms of interventions and some have spent more on academic recovery than others, there are ample signs that the money has not been spent in a way that has substantially helped all of the nation’s students lagging behind.

Recent test scores underscore the staggering effect of the pandemic, which thrust much of the nation’s students into remote learning for extended periods of time. Students in most states and across almost all demographic groups experienced major setbacks in math and reading after many schools closed their doors. In 2022, math scores underwent the largest declines ever recorded on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which tests a broad sampling of fourth and eighth graders dating back to the early 1990s...

Pandemic Stimulus Aid May Not Be Doing Enough to Help Schools - The New York Times (nytimes.com)