Much has been documented about the billions in government funding doled out during the COVID pandemic that was wasted or never accounted for. Now, with the National Report Card revealing a catastrophic learning loss in our schools, there is evidence that most of their pandemic aid was also misspent or unaccounted for. The report from the education advocacy organization The 74 shows most of the $190 billion in federal COVID funds to schools has gone toward non-classroom, non-pandemic related expenses or cannot be tracked down. Some of the expenses included paying off years-old debts, building a fence for a lunch area outside a school, creating new school office positions, and even paying for swanky hotel accommodations at a conference in Las Vegas.
All of this happens as teachers unions and schools clamor for more money, while fighting school choice efforts in states like Texas. Dan Hooper, author and director of the organization ScholarShot, says this type of wasteful spending has become expected. "You can't really blame the schools, when the government doesn't put any specific restrictions on how the money is spent," he tells KTRH. "On the other hand, you'd like to think they did what's best for the kids."
Hooper adds this latest report is indicative of the deeper problems with spending and accountability in our school system. "The average high school diploma costs about $160,000 of public funding, and yet half the kids do nothing after high school," he says. "We should hold schools, K-16, accountable on what they're producing from the funds that we provide as taxpayers."
Ultimately, he argues it doesn't matter how much we spend on schools, if nobody is keeping track of how that money is spent. "Accountability is the missing link between what schools are supposed to be doing, and the poor outcomes of our students," says Hooper.
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