COVID-era federal investment in U.S. schools improves student learning, but only modestly: studies

School aid likely drove some of the academic recovery, with high-poverty schools seeing the most funding and the greatest boost.

NEW YORK, June 26 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government sent nearly 200 billion U.S. dollars to U.S. schools in the past few years to help address COVID-era learning challenges, but the money accomplished not as much as expected, according to two relevant studies released on Wednesday.

"The overall impact of the federal money was modest, and the remaining dollars won't be enough to get students back to where they were before the pandemic, the researchers projected," said The Wall Street Journal in a report about the findings, which came as the money is running out, and some schools are cutting academic-recovery programs.

School aid likely drove some of the academic recovery, with high-poverty schools seeing the most funding and the greatest boost, the researchers said.

"The pandemic dollars helped with recovery, but the recovery won't be done," Tom Kane, a Harvard University professor and co-author of one of the new studies, was quoted by the report as saying.

One of the studies was conducted by a team of researchers from Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth universities, the other by researchers at the University of Washington. ■