California schools districts are largely on track to spend billions of dollars in pandemic aid before their 2024 deadline — with much of the funding targeting summer and after-school learning — but questions persist over how well the money is being spent to help students make up ground academically, researchers have concluded.
The report, released Wednesday, examines the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Act (ESSER III) — the third, last and largest tranche of federal aid that went to schools to offset the harms of the COVID-19 pandemic. This round of aid totaled $122 billion nationwide, including about $15.1 billion for California. That's an amount equal to about 19% of what the state provides annually for its schools.
School systems had broad latitude for using the money, but there also were reporting requirements, especially in California — and these disclosures were reviewed in detail by researchers from FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.
