The massive new, $900 billion coronavirus relief package finally signed into law at year’s end provides tens of billions of dollars to K-12 schools and related services to help them address the impacts of the pandemic, but still falls far short of what many education officials had hoped for.
Though the package will provide additional aid to schools, including $54.3 billion in direct aid for public K-12 schools, it doesn’t include any relief for state and local governments; without that bailout, K-12 leaders fear Washington’s new round of relief for schools will be offset by education cuts elsewhere. In addition, they’ve expressed dismay that it does not provide more dedicated support to schools and libraries for internet connectivity through the federal E-Rate program, although it does include $7 billion for broadband internet, a figure that includes $3.2 billion for low-income families.
Meanwhile, school choice champions like U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos were disappointed that the package did not include support for tuition scholarships or other forms of school choice that the Trump administration sought for months.
See the charts below to learn more about the package. We relied in part on information from the Committee for Education Funding for information about the legislation.
