2 reports set out to answer whether K-12 students have recovered from the pandemic
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
During the pandemic, when a lot of schools closed and were struggling, the federal government sent money - $190 billion went to schools. So what did we gain for all that money? NPR education correspondent Cory Turner has been looking at two studies that try to answer the question. Cory, good morning.
CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK, so what difference did the money make?
TURNER: Well, study number one estimates that every $1,000 the government spent per student bought the kind of test score gains in math that come from about six days of school. All right? That study, which included research from Harvard and Stanford, found smaller improvements in reading scores, but still around three school days of learning for every $1,000 spent. Study number two, which came from researchers at the University of Washington and American Institutes of Research arrived at fairly similar results, especially in math. And Steve, it is worth noting, that is in spite of the fact that when Congress sent this money to schools, they only required the district spend a portion of it - about 20% - on actual academic recovery.
INSKEEP: OK, we've gone through a bunch of numbers there. I guess the bottom line is, according to these studies, anyway, when schools got the extra money, they seemed to have used it in ways that improved student performance. Did that amount to a good return on our investment?
TURNER: Yes. Both sets of researchers told me that did. And keep in mind, Steve, when I say six days of learning for $1,000, there were lots of students in the U.S. who got a lot more than $1,000 each in school funding. So there is that difference, and it's bigger depending on where you look. So here's Stanford researcher Sean Reardon, who worked on study number one.
SEAN REARDON: It led to significant improvements in children's academic performance. Yeah, it wasn't enough recovery to get students all the way back to where they were in 2019, but it did make a significant difference.
TURNER: And Steve, one of Reardon's partners on the study, Tom Kane at Harvard, told me, these academic gains - again, for every $1,000 spent - they also correlate to all sorts of other benefits that can actually last a student's lifetime.
TOM KANE: An improvement in test scores of that magnitude, we estimate, will produce a boost in earnings of around $1,200 over the course of your career.
TURNER: And Steve, I just want to make one last point here, going back to something I mentioned a minute ago - these relief dollars were specifically concentrated in school districts with the highest levels of student poverty. So, in many cases, the students with the most need were also getting the most support.
INSKEEP: Although we know more broadly that students were way set back during the pandemic.
TURNER: Yeah, absolutely. And they just aren't back yet to where we would like them, as we heard the researcher Sean Reardon say a minute ago. And it also seems unrealistic, Steve, given the political gridlock that we've seen these days, to expect Congress to agree to send schools any more money, which raises a lot of concerns for schools now, as these relief dollars actually begin to expire later this year. Here's Dan Goldhaber. He's the lead researcher behind study number two.
DAN GOLDHABER: There are some districts, particularly high-poverty districts, that are going to lose so much money that I think that teacher layoffs are inevitable.
TURNER: Goldhaber told me as districts are forced to gap-fill and shuffle teachers around, it's going to create a lot of churn and turmoil for kids who really don't need any more churn or turmoil.
INSKEEP: Cory, thanks so much. Really appreciate it.
TURNER: Absolutely, Steve.
INSKEEP: That's NPR's Cory Turner.
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