COVID school funding used to feed 'union political machine,' not on kids' wellbeing: report
A conservative think tank said the response to the COVID-19 pandemic was 'an unfathomable institutional failure'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}EXCLUSIVE – "The avalanche" of nearly $200 billion in COVID-19 funding intended to help kids during the apex of the novel coronavirus' pandemic was used, in part, to fuel the agenda of the "union political machine," according to a Tuesday report.
"This massive flood of funding has left public schools awash in cash, while students and taxpayers are left to deal with the… disaster unleashed by the union-prescribed COVID policies," The Goldwater Institute, a conservative public policy think tank, said.
In the span of a single year, Congress allocated $190 billion of federal funding into K-12 education. However, about half of the $190 billion in federal funds were classified by state education agencies as "other," according to an October 2021 report from ProPublica. Such reporting provided "no insight into how the funds were allocated."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Congress allocated nearly $200 billion in funds for schools nationwide during the novel coronavirus pandemic. (iStock)
Goldwater's analysis used Arizona as a case study to determine whether federal funds were used reasonably and for the purposes for which they were intended.
"Arizona school districts… bloat[ed] their overall spending and staffing levels, including by hiring positions such as assistant superintendents of diversity, equity, and inclusion," director of education policy at Goldwater Institute, Matt Beienburg, told Fox News Digital about how federal funds were used before and during COVID.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Arizona school districts ‘bloated’ their spending with new staffing positions focused on ‘equity,’ a report from a conservative think tank said. (iStock)
Goldwater found that public schools spent more proportionally than charter schools despite the enrollment declines in public education and the increase of students in charter schools.
The state's public and charter schools were given an additional $4.3 billion. To put it in perspective, $1.3 billion was allocated to Arizona in 2019, the year before the pandemic began. However, "public school districts in particular… spent less than a quarter of that amount during the deepest throes of the pandemic," Beienburg said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The exorbitant spending that was not used in the throes of the pandemic's peak, coupled with the fact that schools were closed and moved to remote learning – leading to students' learning gaps – suggested the response to COVID was an "unfathomable institutional failure," the Goldwater report said.
Unions such as the American Federation of Teachers pushed for schools to remain closed for a considerable period of time. The AFT also received unprecedented access to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during its policy-drafting phase on guidelines for re-opening schools.
The president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. (REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein)
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"While it will take years to fully capture the consequences of these policies, existing data have already begun to reveal several major themes: the prioritization of the union political machine over student well-being, the massive overspending of federal funds, and the costly cycle of fiscal irresponsibility within K-12 that these policies are likely to exacerbate," Goldwater's report said.
Billions of taxpayer dollars approved by Congress during the novel coronavirus pandemic for schools are ‘now being used on non-COVID related expenditures,' according to The Goldwater Institute. (iStock)
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Government policies needlessly ignited the most devastating disruption to student learning in a generation, then compounded this failure by pouring billions of extra taxpayer dollars into public schools that are now being used to fund non-COVID related expenditures," Beinenburg said.