By law, most federal funds arrive in school districts on July 1. This year, on June 30, the administration instead announced that they'd be withholding $6.8 billion in expected funding for programs that overwhelmingly serve low-income students and their families, pending review.
You can search for how much money is being withheld in your school district here.
In Jackson County Kentucky where I taught very low-income rural Appalachian kids, the losses will be $120 per child.
In de-industrialized Youngstown, Ohio, where I started my career as an academic, the losses are $122 per child. The median household income in Youngstown is $34,746.
In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the lovely college town where I went to graduate school, the losses are only $41 a child.
In wealthy Seattle suburban Lake Washington school district (home to many Microsoft employees and other tech workers), the losses will be $25 per student. The median household income in the district is $169,371
Twenty four states have sued the federal government to get the money released, but this close to the start of the school year, districts are having to plan for lay-offs, for program cuts, for informing parents that after-school programs may not be available so they'll have to find other arrangements on a short timeline.
I see nothing in any of this that's in the interests of children, of public schools, of districts already grappling with precarious budgets. To do this with no notice and no timeline for final decisions is making schooling even more precarious for so many students, their teachers, and their families.
