As Federal Dollars Vanish, Districts Weigh Which Edtech Tools to Drop

The pandemic’s forced switch to remote instruction unlocked federal funding for K-12 schools, as the government made a temporary $190 billion jab available in the hopes that it would inoculate against the effects of COVID-19 on teaching and learning. Districts expended much of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) money on hiring staff, paying for tutoring and improving facilities, but they also found the money useful for purchasing edtech, with one federal report estimating that 92 percent of local schools used ESSER funds to buy hardware like Chromebooks, software and internet connectivity tools like mobile hot spots to continue instruction during the pandemic. Many schools have had a rocky return to in-person teaching and learning over the past many months, marked by strained budgets, understaffing and chronically absent students. Now, they’re facing a stark deadline for making use of their bonus resources. At the end of September, federal relief dollars for K-12 schools are scheduled to sunset, though the U.S. Education Department is greenlighting extension requests. That means that while the edtech industry took off during the pandemic, it’s now coming down. With the emergency funding close to its end, school tech purchases are returning to historically normal levels.