How COVID relief funds changed Illinois schools (with Craig De Voto)

In this episode of Illinois Policy Unpacked, host Kristen Chandler speaks with Craig De Voto, research assistant professor at the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago. De Voto unpacks how Illinois schools used federal ESSER funds distributed during the COVID-19 pandemic to address learning loss, what results those investments have produced, and what’s policy recommendations could address the impending education funding crisis. 

Transcript

Kristen Chandler

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Illinois Policy Unpacked podcast, where we inform the policy conversation in Illinois and beyond. I’m your host, Kristen Chandler.

Today I’m joined by Craig De Voto, a research assistant professor at the Learning Sciences Research Institute at UIC. His work examines how large-scale federal and state policies, such as edTPA and desegregation, are implemented in schools. He also studies innovative approaches to preparing urban school leaders.

In 2021, the federal government distributed Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, also known as ESSER funds, to help schools address learning gaps created by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode, we’ll discuss Craig’s analysis of how schools used those funds, the outcomes so far, and what challenges lie ahead as ESSER funding expires. Craig De Voto, welcome to the podcast.

Craig De Voto
Thanks for having me. 

Kristen Chandler

Awesome, so we can get into it. You did a policy spotlight with IGPA about ESSER funding and the outcomes of it and the impacts of it going away. ESSER funding represented an unprecedented, $190 billion investment in schools starting in 2021. What was the primary goal behind this massive federal investment?

Craig De Voto
Really, the shortest answer would be to give districts, states and schools the money they needed to address all the issues that came along with the pandemic. People realize, obviously, the pandemic was a health-related problem. But in some ways, it became an instructional problem as well. Obviously, overnight, you had 50 million people that had to now have instruction digitally, and that had never happened. And so not everybody was set up to have one-to-one, which is what we call it. Like having a computer for each student, having digital hot spots for those that don't have internet. It was really trying to get those sorts of things to districts that maybe didn't have the money in particular to afford those things. And it was really meant to rise the tide for everybody in a very difficult time. And so, the emergency support mainly was about instructional continuity and technology access. 

There are three waves, just to kind of give [a background]. The last wave, the American rescue plan, that was where ESSER started to kind of transform. It wasn't just about those things that I mentioned initially. It then became about trying to figure out how to do class size reduction, mental health services, and other sorts of things that maybe at the beginning of ESSER weren't implemented. But then it became about recovery, and that recovery was really important, and districts still needed money and didn't have the funds. They didn't have those sorts of coffers. And so this money kind of filled that gap. And now the biggest problem is this year is the first year where ESSER funds are not available. They had to be all spent. And for most states, about 99% or so have been spent. And so this year, and in particular, even next year, we're going to see what is going to happen. Are districts able to hold all that money and figure out how to spend what they were spending? Or maybe they're not. And I think that's the real question that the policy brief was trying to ask, like, are states and districts and schools in a good enough position to now shoulder the load post pandemic?

Kristen Chandler 

Absolutely, thanks for clarifying that. You mentioned digital infrastructure as part of what schools were spending to even out the learning outcomes. How did Illinois schools use ESSER funds, and what impact did those investments have?

Craig De Voto 

Yeah, Illinois schools, which, by the way, one of the interesting things I found in as part of writing the brief is that Illinois spent their ESSER funds faster than any state in the nation. They were the fastest. Now, does that mean they didn't have the money? Or maybe, maybe not, not really sure on that, but they spent it faster than everybody by quite a bit. And in fact, and over the three phases of funding, they got about $7.8 billion, and they had five areas, specifically expanding tutoring and intervention programs, investing in technology and broadband access, enhancing mental health services. And then you had hiring additional staff and reducing class sizes, and then obviously just Covid safety protocols. Once the return to instruction happened, starting in fall 2020 by spring 2021, a lot we're kind of on that bandwagon. By the following year, when you're into 2021, 2022, that's when everyone was back to full instruction, but PPE, personal protection equipment was still really important, hand sanitizer; all these things cost a lot of money.

Kristen Chandler 

Yeah, absolutely, especially when there's, you know, you said, 50 million students nationwide, and that that number really adds up. Were there groups of students you found in your analysis that benefited most from ESSER funding? And why would that be?

Craig De Voto 

Yeah, the interesting thing is, with ESSER funding is it wasn't necessarily spelled out that it had to be used for certain groups, states, districts and schools really got a lot of flexibility on how they use the money. I'll speak to how kind of Illinois has used it. Now, the way they implemented it was really trying to be like those that had it the worst, if you will, got the most. So, for example, you know, marginalized, historically marginalized communities, low-income households, those kinds of groups tended to get in the schools, specifically that they went to tend to get the most amount of money. So unsurprisingly, Chicago Public Schools got the most of it, about a little over $2 billion I think. But obviously there are many other districts that support such communities, and they tended to get the most and that was really, really important, because what data eventually would show is that those districts that kind of supported high income students in particular, like, they weathered the storm the best. Maybe their student achievement didn't like, quote, unquote, improve or like, get better, but they definitely weathered the storm quite a bit better because they had the financial resources to be able to support it. So they didn't get as much ESSER funding, but they already had strong coffers to begin with. So in order to kind of, quote, unquote, compete with these sorts of districts, the state really did, I think, a pretty good job of trying to figure out how to give schools that needed it the most and the students that needed the most the most money.

Kristen Chandler 

Absolutely. I remember in your analysis, you talked about how rural schools had less digital infrastructure as well. Did we see any changes for rural schools as well?

Craig De Voto 

I haven't seen any, at least in Illinois, specific research that has dived into rural schools, but the research that kind of has been out, which is a lot of it, is very recent. We're talking like the last six months, things are coming out about ESSER. So I imagine the next few years we're gonna see a lot more. Rural schools were really put in a very difficult position, very similarly to urban districts, suburban districts probably had it the best, if you will. If you could say someone had it the best, and they struggled with digital assets. Just getting people to go to school, like chronic absenteeism, became a huge problem. That's in Illinois, that's really across the nation, just getting to school became a huge issue, and to some degree chronic absenteeism still is an issue. The question is, is Covid causing it or not? That's a different story anymore, but it's definitely changed things. And rural districts, similar to urban districts, had what we “term learning loss.” So, learning loss was just the amount of learning that was lost because of Covid, because they were digitally being digitally instructed, all these other sorts of factors playing role. They both kind of were on par in terms of the amount of learning loss within the first year. I think was about five months was the like estimated amount based on the models that were run so they fared no better. They fared no better.

Kristen Chandler 

Interesting, yeah, thanks for clarifying that. I know your analysis had included some specifics for learning gaps. I think the increment that you had used was months. In general, how many months of learning loss were reduced with ESSER funding in Illinois?

Craig De Voto 

I haven't seen specifically how many months for this state. The current averages that I've seen from like, national models is anywhere from like, five months to a year, give or take. ESSER funds made a legitimate difference, in particular for districts that use those funds for support staff. That really seemed to show the best amount of bang for your buck, if you will. So that's one of the biggest issues now happening, and this goes to be reflective of Chicago Public Schools, just because it's in the news a lot, they've had to get rid of a lot of staff. They have a huge financial cliff to overcome. ESSER funds basically allowed them to delay that financial cliff. But now eventually that burden you can't overcome, and they've had to get rid of 1,500 staff, many of which are in special education classrooms, like para pros, special education assistants, and some teachers to reduce class sizes. Research really shows that [big class sizes] are no good, and it's no good for anybody, but in particular for historically marginalized groups. So that's where my biggest concern over the next year. What's going to play out? I'm really think we're going to see some things play out and not in a good way.

Kristen Chandler 

You highlighted in your analysis that having that those extra staff members, like aids in the classrooms, really those classrooms saw better student outcomes. Why does staffing make such a difference?

Craig De Voto 

Well, in a lot of a lot of schools, including Chicago public schools, including rural schools, the teacher ratios can be very high. I mean, ideally you would want, if you could maybe like 20 students in the classroom, that would be like a real ideal, that you could even lower be even better if you could find lower. And a lot of them are having 27-30 kids. That's pretty hard, in particular in the early ages. So like kindergarten, first second, when you know they're not fully like, self-sufficient by themselves. Having that extra person in particular, they're able to kind of reduce that burden for the teacher, to be able to then give students, every student what they need. Now, if you have to pay attention to 30 kids, that's really difficult for anybody. New teachers really struggle with that sort of burden. And so now we're going to start to see these increased class sizes for sure. And again this year, you might not see as much. My prediction, my guess would be next year we're really going to see some changes, because come combined with the dismantling, if you will, of the Department of Education and the continued pushes to reduce federal money, in particular Title One funds, which are deliberately intended to be for low-income students and those schools, it's going to be a rough go, I think.

Kristen Chandler 

Thank you for clarifying that. Well, while we're talking about ESSER funding going away, as our funding ended in fall of 2024, what challenges specifically do you think Illinois will face as they adjust to this loss?

Craig De Voto 

The biggest one, I will definitely say, would be a lot of districts I work with, and a lot of districts in general, bought a lot of new curriculum and things, and were able to afford curriculum in ways that they never were able to. For example, they had outdated curriculum they've been using for like, 20 years. They were able to afford some of these things. Curriculum is, like, really, really expensive, like, really expensive, and asset funds specifically helped them shoulder that load. So I think you're going to not really see much change in terms of curriculum. I think reduced class sizes will be a thing of the past for many districts. They're going to keep increasing. I think that ratio will continue to climb. I'm sure it'll eventually plateau to a certain point, because usually union contracts, once you go over certain limit, they have to then start paying you, and they definitely don't want that, so they're gonna do everything they can to avoid that situation. But you know, the people who are hurt most are the students. The money really did make a difference. I know the research says, well, sometimes money doesn't always help, but it's how you spend the money, and only did a pretty decent job of spending the money towards things like staff and things like structural improvements, things like curriculum, like these things all are very research backed and evidence based that they genuinely do improve outcomes. You wouldn't believe it, but there's research out there that shows that redoing like your HVAC system can actually improve student outcomes.

Kristen Chandler 

In your policy spotlight, you propose three policy solutions to sustain the benefits of ESSER moving forward. Could you walk us through those policy recommendations?

Craig De Voto 

Yeah, yeah. Very, very important. I started to kind of think about it, from what would be the biggest change and the least feasible change, and then I kind of went down from there. In an ideal world, property taxes would be kind of redistributed somehow. Really rethinking it. Because one of the things that makes Illinois kind of stand out, and not in a good light, is that the way in which they divvy up, how districts get money is primarily on property taxes. So we're currently at a model of about 60% of K through 12 funding is from local property taxes, versus like we're talking most states are at about 45% on average the Feds take in about 10% as well. But then most of it is being like where you live. If you have, you know, expensive homes, you get more money. So there are districts, you know, outside of Chicago, for example, that have $23,000 per student, or even more. But then you'll see other districts, rural, you know, suburban districts that are at almost like $11,000 so because, I mean, they're literally more than twice as less expensive. And so changing that would be, I think, really a major way to improve the equity of the system. Unfortunately, I personally don't find this one very politically feasible. But if you had to pie in the sky, that would be the one. 

The second one would really be creating a state-based ESSER successor program, so something to kind of fill the gap. This one is a little bit more politically feasible, but again, still very difficult, because, I mean, there were still many a budget conversation, including about the K through 12 budgets as of recent, as of August. So I'm not sure that's even politically feasible as well. But again, ideally, that would be a way in particular, to maintain reduced class sizes in high need schools and kind of sustain these evidence-based programs that basically were shouldered by ESSER funds like now those are going to be gone, probably, unless the district shells out the money, or had extra money and they saved it, or something like that. So in the next couple years, we're really going to see. 

Now the third one, this one is probably the easiest one to accomplish, is just developing state-based grant funding opportunities, ones that district like, “hey, we have this great program related to mental health,” or “we need to hire an X number of special education assistants to deliver X you could, you could send a grant?” And a lot of districts do submit grants for various things to get, like $2,000 here or $3,000 here, so that money can genuinely add up. That is the most politically feasible way, given the climate, at least at the federal level, looks very bleak in terms of education funding. I'll basically point to reduced funding, unless otherwise seen, and that's including Title One funds, which, again, are the ones specifically for low income. So these state-based grant funding opportunities could really be an equitable, equitable source for those rural districts, for those urban districts, particularly those that are serving low income and or marginalized students, because they tend to be the ones that go after the grants. 

Kristen Chandler 

Yeah, with reduced funding federally, and with ESSER going away, looking at these policy recommendations to sustain these learning outcome gaps being reduced, and mental health outcomes being better is really important.

Craig De Voto 

For sure. And I don't know there's not a great horizon that, you know, I wish I had some great answer. But when it comes to money, like, there isn't, like, a substitute for money, really, like, money does buy things, and so it's really hard to come up with this clever policy solution amid when it's just about money. Like, yes, can you make schools be more efficient? Yeah, to some degree, but sometimes, like, you just need money for more staff. You just need money to get this, and there's no way around it, and that's what I think we're generally going to see in the next couple of years, based on all science pointing to that funding disappearing. Absolutely.

Kristen Chandler 

Absolutely, thank you for highlighting that, Craig. You do a lot of work in education, not just this, this policy spotlight that you've published with IGPA. Where can listeners learn more about your work?

Craig De Voto 

Oh, well, sure, I have done a lot of research lately on education leadership, leadership, and in particular, in district leaders. I just recently published a paper in Journal of Educational Administration, about how district leaders improve or constrain research practice partnerships. I have other papers in various different places, Journal of Teacher Education, Educational Administration Quarterly. Yeah, a lot of my research really deals with these large-scale kind of policies or large-scale reforms, be it research practice partnerships, teacher assessments, how to prepare education leaders, both at the certification level, but also from a preparation like in terms of at the graduate level. How do you get them to be great leaders. So yeah, that's what a lot of my research is about.

Kristen Chandler 

We hope today’s conversation shed light on the current state of Illinois school funding and its connection to ESSER. A special thank-you to our guest, Craig De Voto, a research assistant professor at the Learning Sciences Research Institute, for sharing insights and potential policy solutions as schools face reduced funding. Stay tuned for more episodes that help shape the policy conversation in Illinois and beyond. Until next time, thanks for listening.