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The U.S. Department of Education has confirmed that schools can seek more than a year’s worth of time to finish spending some of the $200bn K-12 schools got in three rounds of federal pandemic relief aid on contracts for construction, mental health, tutoring, and other third-party services. Notably, obligation deadlines for all ESSER programs remain the same (ESSER I funds by September 2022, ESSER II funds by September 2023, and ESSER III funds by September 2024), but where there may be flexibility is liquidation deadlines for ESSER I, ESSER II, and ESSER III, not just for ESSER III as a lot of media coverage is suggesting. The original liquidation deadline for ESSER programs is four months after the obligation deadline, so with this flexibility districts may be able to get 18 months after the obligation deadline to liquidate funds instead. The Department is prioritizing considering applications for school construction projects, however in extenuating circumstances other contracts may be considered too. Many schools have signed contracts with third-party providers to spend ESSER funds on tutoring, mental health support, curriculum materials, professional development, technology tools, and even substitute teachers, so, depending on the circumstances of the district when they submit an application with their state, the Department may also apply this flexibility to other outside of construction.

 

Education Week

 

A new report from the U.S. Department of Education illustrates the state of school finances back in 2020, during the first three months of the pandemic. It offers a snapshot of the situation many states and districts found themselves in, having to make difficult and costly decisions in the months before federal aid was made available. K-12 Dive presents a set of charts based on the data in the report, covering increases in staff compensation, changes in per-pupil spending, how expenditures outpaced revenues in a majority of states, and the extent to which federal revenues had dipped by March 2020. 

 

K-12 Dive

New York City's new school funding formula has now been formally approved, with 12 out of 14 votes in its favor, following a stunning previous rejection last month. Each year, department officials ask the Panel for Educational Policy, composed mostly of mayoral appointees, to reapprove the funding formula, which accounts for $10 billion in funding and 65% of school budgets. It is structured to send more money to schools that are struggling academically, as well as those with higher shares of students with disabilities and English language learners. Many stakeholders remain unconvinced by the package however and Schools Chancellor David Banks insists he's made an "absolute commitment" to improving the measure. Some speakers asked the city to create a commission that would be independent of the education department so that it would feel free to analyze and pick apart the formula. Tom Sheppard, the lone elected member of the panel who voted no, wants a commission with financial analysts.

 

New York Post

Improved coordination and more comprehensive efforts among schools, governments, community organizations and court systems are needed to keep youth out of the juvenile justice system and respond to those who do become involved, lawmakers and panelists said during a  House Civil Rights and Human Services Subcommittee hearing Tuesday. Several lawmakers and witnesses also suggested youth be incarcerated only when they are violent or dangerous. “Preventing youth from ending up in detention is imperative,” said Ranking Subcommittee Chair Russ Fulcher, a Republican from Idaho. “We know that incarcerating youth greatly decreases their chance for a successful future.” He added that when out-of-home placement becomes necessary, detention facilities must be made safe for youth and provide opportunities for them to succeed. Panelists also spoke about the value of connecting youth in the juvenile justice system with arts, extracurricular activities, and career and technical education. Involvement in those activities can help build self-confidence, expose youth to pro-social engagements, and help them gain skills needed to get jobs, they said. 

 

K-12 Dive

Racial and economic segregation remains "commonplace" in schools across the country, according to a new report by The Century Foundation (TCF) think tank. Almost 70 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to segregate schools by race, in Brown v. Board of Education, the report paints a "clear and alarming picture" of persisting segregation throughout the U.S. The separation of Black and white students is "especially high in metro areas," where there are similarly "high levels of economic segregation," while the most extreme examples of school segregation are in the northeastern U.S. Milwaukee-Waukesha in Wisconsin topped the TCF's list of metro areas with the most Black-white school segregation, followed by Newark, New Jersey, and Illinois' Chicago metro area. Philadelphia was at the top of the list for Hispanic-white segregation in schools. In California, Napa had the country's most Asian-white school segregation, while American Indian-white segregation was highest further south in El Centro. Along with its report, TCF unveiled a dashboard in collaboration with The Segregation Index that displays segregation data across the U.S. The dashboard allows users to view racial and economic school segregation data for each of the 403 metro areas in the U.S. "These statistics show that both racial and economic segregation remain formidable challenges," researchers warn.

 

Newsweek

The Virginia Department of Education's latest student achievement report indicates that that children are performing poorly on national assessments in reading and math, and trailing peers in other states. The 34-page report on student performance, requested as part of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s first executive order, underlines how these trends are especially pronounced among Black, Hispanic and low-income students, and warns of parents’ “eroding” confidence in the state’s public schools. Some however are suspicious of the Department's motives. The Virginia Education Association teachers union called the report “biased” and designed to “get the public to want school choice measures like vouchers.” Gregory C. Hutchings Jr., superintendent of Alexandria City Public Schools, said the report inspired him to navigate to the NAEP website, where he discovered that Virginia students had consistently scored above the national average. “So I’m not really understanding the whole premise of this report,” he comments.

 

Washington Post

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wants to use $100m in federal COVID aid to help open or expand 1,000 childcare programs by 2024. The initiative will be divided into four lumps; $51.1m to renovate and build child care facilities, $23m for startup grants to help new providers get up and running before they open, $11.4m to recruit, train and retain early educators, including a $4m apprenticeship program for early educators, and $14.3m to speed up a licensing process that many providers say is unhelpful, and to help providers assess market demands, identify facilities, create a business plan, and comply with health and safety rules. “This is exciting because we’re thinking more at a system level about how the pieces fit together,” says Denise Smith, implementation director for Hope Starts Here, a Detroit-based early childhood initiative.

 

Michigan Radio

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