The K-12 education system in the United States continues to exemplify an element of the U.S. constitution that has been a priority since its inception: federalism. Unlike most countries, the U.S. has a federal system of government. This means that in comparison to unitary countries — those with one, centralized system of government — the United States has multiple levels of government, each with their own responsibilities.
One level of government includes the governing bodies of school districts. In an interview with the HPR Paul Peterson, the Director of Program on Education Policy at Harvard, stated that the United States is home to over 14,000 school districts. While confined to requirements and regulations imposed by the state and federal governments, school districts have leeway on how to fulfill their objectives of educating their students, making them the perfect example of the theory of cooperative federalism, which contends that different levels of government work together to implement programs. Altogether, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that despite being governed independently, school districts invested their resources around similar objectives and that the federal government became, albeit temporarily, a critical component in education funding.
On matters regarding the funding of K-12 schools in the United States, different levels of government have varying levels of involvement. According to Peterson, “the most important thing to know is that the federal government has historically played a minimal role.” Peterson added that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government contributed only approximately 10% to a school district’s total funding, with the rest coming from state governments or from local revenue sources such as property taxes.
However, as a result of COVID-19 aid packages, passed under then President Trump, as well as President Biden, school districts received an influx of one-time federal funds designated to assist in navigating the wide variety of challenges that schools and students faced. These funds are known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds.
According to the Center for Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University, while districts have had broad discretion on how to exactly spend their funds, many districts across the country share commonalities. A preliminary analysis from the Center for Reinventing Public Education found that “many districts are prioritizing investments to help students recover from the pandemic. More than half (51 percent) say they’ll allocate money to make up for lost instructional time, and more than four in ten (43 percent) plan to invest in social-emotional support for students.”
In an interview with the HPR, Robin Lake, the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, emphasized that their findings have demonstrated mixed results among districts depending on how the programs were implemented and the level of stakeholder involvement in deciding how to spend funds.”The data on the effectiveness of how ESSER funds have been spent tells a very clear story, our hope for academic recovery has not materialized … What is needed is a massive shift in mindset from our education leaders.”
Norway Vulcan Area Schools provides an example of the extensive work districts undertook to implement an academic recovery program. This rural school district in the upper peninsula of Michigan with a student population of approximately 600 students went to great lengths to help students recover academically, according to Superintendent Louis Steigerwald. In an interview with the HPR, Steigerwald stated that the approximately $1.3 million his district received greatly aided in helping their students recover. According to Steigerwald, the main modes that were utilized to provide the students with academic support were existing summer school and after-school tutoring programs. Steigerwald wrote that the district had “run after school and summer programs for some time now,” adding that the one-time funds “allowed us to continue those programs when we were worried we’d have to cut them or curtail them.” The program has been considered a success, recognized both among the various stakeholders within the district as well as outside sources. According to Steigerwald, their elementary school was recently designated a “National Blue Ribbon school based on our 2022 state test scores, [and our] 2023 scores [are] even better.”
Norway Vulcan Area Schools’ investment in supplementary academic programming represented one major focus that many school districts diverted their one-time funds to, but an equal priority that school districts emphasized was improving students’ social and mental wellbeing. School districts across the country utilized a wide variety of approaches to help their students improve their mental health and social skills, something foundational to allowing them to succeed academically.
The Lucia Mar Unified School District, located on the Central Coast of California, serves as a prime example of the diligent work school districts undertook in order to help their students recover from the emotional difficulties induced by COVID-19. In an interview with the HPR, Superintendent Paul Fawcett stated that the district of 9,700 students, of which 54% are designated as qualifying for free or reduced lunch, received approximately $12 million in one-time funds from the federal ESSER program.
In order to determine how to best invest this one-time funding, the district conducted a wide range of community outreach efforts to the various stakeholders in the district. According to Fawcett, the district conducted outreach to parents and guardians of students, certificated and classified staff, and engaged in conversations with school site administrators to determine the needs of students and potential avenues of response. This resulted in the district directing attention toward providing comprehensive support for students’ mental health and emotional needs. “Academics [were largely impacted], but the one that is more long term is the social-emotional and social skills gaps, students are still lagging behind where they were compared to before the pandemic,” Fawcett said.
As a result, like many other districts across the country, Lucia Mar Unified began to retool and expand pre-existing programs and services to greater benefit students. At the elementary school level, the district increased the number of counselors so that each site had its own counselor. According to Fawcett, this allowed counselors to identify students that were struggling from an early age and respond quicker to help provide them the skills they needed to succeed.
On the middle and high school levels, the district retooled an existing advisory program to “focus on social-emotional wellbeing and social skill development.” Fawcett added that “advisories historically were more of a college and career exploration opportunity; in this case the attention was diverted to the social-emotional aspects.” The district measures the impacts of its investments through both the California Healthy Kids survey and a student self screener tool that allows students to evaluate their own social and emotional wellbeing.
While the ESSER funds greatly aided districts, Peterson does not expect this level of federal involvement in education funding to continue in the coming years. “I think education [funding] will see a major drop from the current level,” he said. When asked about potential changes in the federal government’s involvement specifically, Peterson added that he expects “we will see more involvement in comparison to pre-COVID, but not at this level.”
Both Superintendents Fawcett and Steirgwald expressed to the HPR concerns about the termination of funding. Steigerwald worries that the expiration of funds will force the district to make difficult decisions on the programs that improved his students’ outcomes. “Now that our ESSER dollars are spent, I am concerned we may not be able to continue some programs,” Steigerwald said.
Although the advisory programs and presence of additional counselors on elementary school sites will be continued, Fawcett expressed his belief that a need for increased funding in K-12 education still exists. “The need in education has gone up significantly as a result of the pandemic. [It] isn’t going to go away,” Fawcett said, “The need academically and social-emotionally continues to increase; our schools still need more money to do what’s necessary to move all learners along.” With the need for investments in K-12 education continuing, it remains to be seen if and how the federal government will respond to this pressing issue impacting the nation’s next generation.
