Navigating the Post-Pandemic Fiscal Landscape: Unraveling COVID-19 Relief Spending Decisions and Empowering Education Advocates

While COVID-19 caused unimaginable disruptions to public education, we saw remarkable examples of innovation and commitment to supporting high school student success. In our New England landscape of learning research, we learned that the boundaries of what it means to "reinvent" high school stretched, and in some systems, the momentum for change accelerated. Students and teachers learned to work in new ways and reached new understandings about each other. Now, building off these lessons and in partnership with the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL), we are engaged in an in-depth look at the American Rescue Plan (ARP), post-pandemic recovery in New England high schools. Our research is designed to reveal whether and how federal dollars are being directed toward supporting a better adolescent experience, how high schools are innovating and adapting to advance equity, and what kinds of choices students are making about their futures after high school. The results from this investigation will equip school and system leaders, state policymakers, and advocates--in New England and beyond--to better understand and support pandemic-era innovations that connect to what students and families need and want from high school.