BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

DeVos Offers $3 Billion In Education Emergency Block Grants To Governors

Following
This article is more than 3 years old.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced today that close to $3 billion is being made available to governors to “ensure education continues for students of all ages impacted by the coronavirus national emergency.”

The money will be given out in block grants, meaning that governors are, mostly, free to use it as they see fit. The requirements are relatively short, and the actual paperwork is pretty simple by government standards., with the stated intent of getting the money to states as quickly as possible.

The Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund is a portion of the CARES Act, carved out of the $30.75 billion total outlay for education. GEER is divided between the states based on the state’s population aged 5 to 24 (60%) and on the Title I, Part A formula count (40%). Allocations range from $6.5 million for Alaska to $355 million for California.

In her cover letter to the governors, DeVos promises, “My Department will not micromanage how you spend these funds.” True to the promise to streamline the process, the governors “apply” by signing a certification and agreement document. The funds are to be used for three purposes:

1) Provide emergency support through grants to local education agencies.

2) Provide emergency support through grants to higher education institutions.

3) Provide support to any other education-related entity that the governor “deems essential for carrying out educational services to students.”

States have 45 days to submit their process for awarding grants. Any entity that uses GEER money has to “to the greatest extent practicable,” keep paying its employees and contractors. “Generally speaking,” the grants should not go to administrative or executive salaries.

As one might expect under this secretary, the instructions specify that LEAs must provide “equitable services” to non-public schools, meaning that some of these tax dollars will end up funding private and religious schools. The directive does specify that the public entity overseeing the funds will “maintain control of funds” and will also have “title to materials, equipment and property” purchased with the funds. Furthermore, everyone who gets GEER funds will provide open and transparent accounting for how they were spent—including the non-public schools. This is a level of transparency and accountability not always seen in state funding of such schools or in the handling of the federal Charter School Program funds.

Any money that the state hasn’t used by the end of a year must be returned to the federal government.

The “other assurances” portion of the application gives a clearer picture of what the department is hoping for. The department wants the application to answer three questions:

1) Does the state intend to use any of the funds to support remote learning for all students? If so, how does the state plan to assess such learning, and how will they make sure that students with disabilities, students from low-income families, and charter and non-public students are all served?

2) Does the state plan to use any of the funds to increase capacity via hardware, software, connectivity or instructional expertise?

3) Does the state plan to use funding to develop new resources for remote learning, including best practices and innovations, and if so, what are the resources they have their eyes on?

So the DeVosian interest in techno-solutions is well-represented, as well as the desire to direct public tax dollars to private businesses and religious institutions. The department’s fuzzy direction on students with special needs is still fuzzy, but Congress seems clear that it wants local schools to make every effort to reach all students, and it is willing to put some taxpayer money behind the push.

The wrestling over that money will take place on the state level, where the amounts may not seem quite so large. Pennsylvania, for instance, has $104 million allocated to it, but has 500 school districts, so that $104 million amounts to an average $208,000 per district. Pennsylvania has about 1.8 million K-12 students, so the allocation amounts to $57 per student— and that’s before we also include all the institutions of higher learning and the students there. Alaska, which has a history of distance learning challenges, will get roughly $33 per student.

In short, while $3 billion is a large pile of money, how effectively it will help is going to depend a great deal on the decisions made in governor’s offices around the country.

Follow me on Twitter