How high an investment is the Biden Administration making in K-12 schools through the American Rescue Plan? Choose your descriptor: From President Biden’s “big f-cking deal” to Andy Rotherham’s “massive spending package,” we’re looking at a huge pot of money: $123 billion.
This infusion could be transformational for a system under duress pre-COVID and now struggling to quantify the learning loss suffered from a year of school closures.
Or it could be a total waste of your tax dollars if spent ineffectively and without ambition.
Do we want to prop up the old system or take targeted, data-based action to really address educational inequities that doom our neediest students? So much depends on individual states’ leadership and vision. A national non-profit called ExcelinEd just issued a brief that explains what’s at stake for this “unprecedented amount of money” and provides Guiding Principles and Essential Strategies to help states maximize the impact of this “rescue.” The pressure is on for state education leaders and governors who “can use their positional authority to encourage districts in the right direction.”
Let’s look at New Jersey’s share of the pot and the rules for spending that money. According to ExcelinEd, our share for K-12 schools is $2,764,587,703, or almost $3 billion. (On the other hand, that’s about one third of what the state spends each year on school aid, allocated according to our school funding formula. For an Explainer on how this works, see here.)
Once the American Rescue Plan cash rolls in, here are the rules for spending it:
Here’s a quick overview of some “Guiding Principles and Essential Strategies,” courtesy of ExcelinEd,for our State Department of Education:
Principles:
Strategies:
Strategy 1: “Address the Most Urgent Issues Now.” Some examples:
Strategy 2: “Make Non-Recurring Investments with Long-Term Impact.” Some examples:
There’s much more detail in the brief and it’s very readable. Take a look yourself as we wait for ambitious guidance from Gov. Murphy and Acting Commissioner Allen-McMillan.
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