Where Did $190 Billion in COVID School Recovery Funds Go?
I'm still mad about this
Earlier this week, I wrote about government waste and pointed to the misuse of COVID relief funds as an example. I’m pulling that section out of a longer essay and making it a standalone newsletter.
Between 2020 and 2024, the federal government gave states about $190 billion to distribute to local schools, which would then create new programs to support students who were adversely impacted by school shutdowns during COVID. An admirable goal, right?
However, nobody knows where all that money went. Poof. Gone. There was no oversight, no audits. Anecdotal reports say that schools spent some of those funds on summer school, tutors, and substitute teachers — expenditures that might have directly helped students.
Schools might have also spent that $190 billion on items that had no impact on academics and didn’t help students who needed the most help, like roofs, marching band uniforms, and turf for the football team. In my school district, they spent a chunk of their ESSR money on air filtration machines.
Funds may have also gone to consultants who provided professional development of unknown quality. Incidentally, teachers earn credits for attending these classes, which then raise their union pay scales.
Truth is, we don’t know how all those billions were spent. We do know that $190 billion did not turn around COVID learning loss. Recent tests show that 70 percent of American students are not proficient in math or reading and haven’t returned to pre-COVID testing levels.
