Marguerite Roza Journalist Profile

Articles

What comes next now that pandemic aid for education has ended?

1 month ago | brookings.edu | Marguerite Roza |Katharine Meyer |Isabel McMullen

Editor's note: This article is part of the “COVID-19 and education: Five years later” series in which Brown Center experts and external contributors reflect on the five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ongoing impact on education policy, politics, and practice.
Commentary: Why WA school budgets are getting tighter, and what can be done about it

Jul 29, 2024 | chinookobserver.com | Marguerite Roza

Talk about a thankless job. In Washington state, school district budgeting has suddenly become much more difficult. After more than a decade of strong revenue growth, districts are facing deficits. In 2013, the average expenditure per student in Washington was $9,600. Since then, the Legislature has steadily increased funding for schools. Then came federal pandemic relief funds. In this last school year, Washington schools averaged over $18,000 per student.
Marguerite Roza on ESSER

Apr 17, 2024 | aei.org | Nat Malkus |Marguerite Roza

During the pandemic, the federal government sent $190 billion in COVID relief funds to America’s schools. These funds, known as ESSER (or the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund), changed school budgets across the country. But this September, ESSER will come to an end, meaning that—on average—schools will have to reduce their budgets by over $1,000 per student. How will schools respond? What will get cut?
States are Bad at Giving Teachers Raises

Mar 11, 2024 | educationnext.org | Michael Petrilli |Marguerite Roza |Frederick M. Hess |Christian Barnard

Returning to the Census data, Figure 3 illustrates how inefficiently each state is in converting a new education dollar per student into spending per student on instructional salaries (higher instructional salaries and new instructional hires, including instructional aides). Nationally, only seven cents of each new dollar devoted to education between 2002 and 2020 went to instructional salaries.
School Boards Face Their Most Difficult Budget Season Ever. Many Are Unprepared

Feb 27, 2024 | the74million.org | Marguerite Roza |Laura Anderson

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter All around the country, districts are drafting budgets that will bring cuts to schools starting this fall. As those budgets come before school boards this spring, board members will undoubtedly hear from staff and families. Communities will push back against decisions that include layoffs; cuts to gifted programs, athletics and college advising; and reductions to tutoring, summer or afterschool offerings.
Doing Educational Equity Right: School Finance

Feb 8, 2024 | educationnext.org | Michael Petrilli |Marguerite Roza

This is the second in a series on doing educational equity right. In a previous post, I identified three rules for “doing educational equity right”:1. When aiming for equity, we should level-up instead of leveling-down. 2. We should focus on closing gaps between affluent students and their disadvantaged peers, not between high-achieving students and their lower-achieving peers. 3. We should focus equity initiatives primarily on class, not race.
Biden Names Scholar and Education Next Contributor to Council of Economic Advisers

Aug 16, 2023 | educationnext.org | C. Kirabo Jackson |Marguerite Roza

President Joe Biden appointed economist C. Kirabo Jackson to his three-member Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) last Friday, signaling a potential pivot by the administration toward a focus on education leading up to the 2024 election cycle. Jackson, the Abraham Harris Professor of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, is a regular contributor to Education Next whose research focuses on the economics of education.
The Stakes Are Only Getting Higher for Pandemic School Aid Spending

Feb 28, 2023 | the74million.org | Marguerite Roza

This essay originally appeared on the Forbes . Congress gave school districts roughly four years to spend a monumental $190 billion in federal ESSER relief aid. Most districts underspent at the front end, leaving the bulk of the cash for the final two years of the aid term that expires in September 2024.
The Stakes Are Only Getting Higher For Pandemic School Aid Spending

Feb 7, 2023 | forbes.com | Marguerite Roza

Congress gave school districts roughly four years to spend a monumental $190 billion in federal relief aid (called ESSER). Most districts underspent at the front end, leaving the bulk of the cash for the final two years of the aid term that expires September 2024. Now with 20 months remaining, our analysis shows that ESSER spending is indeed in overdrive, with monthly spending double what it was a year ago. The reaction in some quarters?