Home Education PROOF POINTS: $1.5 billion in recovery funds go to afterschool

PROOF POINTS: $1.5 billion in recovery funds go to afterschool

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Based on the spending patterns of more than 3,000 school districts, U.S. schools are on track to spend more than $1.5 billion of their federal pandemic recovery funds on after-school programs, according to FutureEd, an independent think tank at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. 

This figure makes after-school programs the fourth most popular way to spend federal funds to address learning loss, behind summer school, software and instructional materials. (Technically, the after-school category also includes extending the school day, but I’m not seeing many examples of schools requiring all of their students to stay late into the afternoon.) 

Working parents may welcome the additional, free childcare options or a safe, supervised place for their tweens to hang out after school. But the research evidence for reaping academic or other social benefits from after-school programs isn’t strong.

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