Beyond ESSER: How the Federal Government Must Continue to Support Equitable K-12 Education

"We’re on the verge of a fiscal cliff,” said Maribeth Calabro, the president of the Providence Teachers Union. “The result of that will be catastrophic.” Over the past year, school officials across the country have echoed this sentiment, reflecting just how critical a role Covid-19 relief funding played in supporting students both during and after the pandemic. Starting in 2020, the federal government provided K-12 schools with three major stimulus packages, totaling almost $200 billion. This funding was known as the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) and broken into three rounds: ESSER I, II, and III. The government allocated the funding according to the proportion of money schools received from Title I, meaning higher-poverty districts—where students were most affected by the pandemic, academically and otherwise—received the most money. Districts had until the end of September to decide how to use the money allocated in the most recent round, ESSER III, and then four more months to spend it. Without additional federal support, the expiration of Covid-19 relief funding for schools will not only reverse the last four years of progress but also deepen the educational inequities the pandemic laid bare.

The federal government recognized that schools’ needs would vary greatly, so it gave districts ample freedom to spend pandemic relief money as they saw fit. Data from the Council of Economic Advisors show that the largest spending category was traditional instructional spending, taking 59 percent of the funding—with most of this money going toward new staff and curricula. Only about 7 percent of the total funding went to Covid health and safety measures. Schools instead prioritized programs that addressed learning loss, chronic absenteeism, extra support for students with learning disabilities, mental health, and socio-emotional learning. Many schools used the funding for new hires, including nurses, mental health professionals, and additional teachers. Almost 40 schools in Providence, including Hope High School (the closest to Brown University), are Title I schools that stand to lose the most without this funding. The Providence Public School District, which serves 20,000 students, used its funding to extend the school day, allocate bonuses to existing staff, and hire over 60 social workers and behavioral interventionists. Administrators across the country got creative with their funding. A school in Georgia found that a portion of its middle school students were multiple grade levels behind in reading following early pandemic school closures. While their English teachers were previously unequipped to support them, the district used increased funding to hire a first-grade-level teacher to aid the struggling students. In just half a school year, these students made about a year and a half worth of reading gains. 

"The positive impact of Covid-19 relief funding demonstrates that federal investment in education yields significant results, in terms of both academic achievement and equity."

Programs funded by ESSER had a significant positive impact on learning. Two recent studies found that each $1,000 increase in per pupil funding led to about 3 percent grade level gains in math and similar gains for reading. These results are comparable to pre-pandemic studies on funding and academic achievement. Sean Reardon, professor of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford, said, “The federal investment in helping public school students recover from the pandemic’s academic fallout has paid off. Not only did it lead to increased test score gains, but the investment also significantly reduced the educational inequality generated by the pandemic.” Moreover, because improved early academic achievement translates to higher incomes in adulthood, the Education Recovery Scorecard project claims that the testing gains from ESSER funding have been big enough to pay for themselves in future tax dollars. 

Despite impressive gains relative to historical trends, average academic achievement in most states still lags behind pre-pandemic levels. We also cannot ignore the unevenness of the recovery. Achievement gaps between wealthier and low-income districts, which widened during the pandemic, remain unresolved even with the help of federal aid. In many states, wealthier districts have led recovery efforts, further increasing these disparities. Even in states where overall achievement has bounced back to pre-pandemic levels, students in lower-income districts are still trailing their 2019 achievement levels. The United States spends significantly more on K-12 education than many countries, yet American test scores remain troublingly low. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that the average US student lags nearly a year behind their OECD peers and almost three and a half years behind Singaporean students in math. This disparity underscores a critical issue: Income inequality is dragging down US achievement. The American education system regularly fails to support its low-income students. 

To fully understand the progress and setbacks in educational equity, we must examine the US school funding system. In the United States, the federal government plays little role in funding public schools. It’s up to state and local governments to fund schools, mainly through property and other local taxes. Thus, schools (and students) in high-poverty districts generally fare worse than those in wealthier areas. Under the current system, recessions exacerbate funding inadequacies and inequalities. If the federal government played a larger role in financing schools, funding could be standardized across districts. For instance, Finland spends 30 percent less than the United States on education but has higher rates of high school graduation (93 percent versus 87 percent) and college attendance (66 percent versus 61 percent). In large part, this is because the Finnish education system is funded entirely by the federal government. This ensures that every student, regardless of which city or neighborhood they live in, receives a similar quality of education; the differences between the weakest and strongest Finnish students are the smallest in the world. Finland’s standardized, well-resourced school system also had a strong response to the pandemic, successfully transitioning to remote learning and then back to in-person following lockdown. 

All this being said, even if it wanted to, the United States could not replicate Finland’s education policies without more fundamental cultural shifts occurring in tandem. Finland and the United States differ in many respects, but there is an especially critical gap in how each country values education. Finland stands out as a country with a strong, unifying social contract that recognizes education as a fundamental right. In turn, the country’s schooling system, with its equitable funding and academic programs, sustains this right. In the United States, however, the right to education is not protected under the Constitution. To restore American education, we need to dig deeper and overhaul more than just the school funding system. As Dr. Thomas Kane of Harvard University, co-author of the Education Recovery Scorecard project, explains, “The federal aid was like the first stage of a rocket, it got us going, but had a broad focus and was ultimately insufficient to get us all the way. To complete the recovery, states will need to step up, focusing on academic catch-up efforts, such as tutoring and summer learning, and lowering absenteeism.” 

With the impending fiscal cliff, the stakes have never been higher for schools, particularly those serving low-income communities. The gains made during the pandemic are at risk of being lost without continued federal support. However, the positive impact of Covid-19 relief funding demonstrates that federal investment in education yields significant results, in terms of both academic achievement and equity. School leaders’ biggest message to politicians is that federal funding works—and they need more of it. We must prioritize equitable federal funding to close achievement gaps, not just to recover from the pandemic but also to create a fairer education system that can better withstand future challenges. Only then can we begin to more fundamentally improve American education.