During COVID-19, many school districts have been preparing for unprecedented funding cute. These cuts may disproportionately reduce financial and staff resources in districts with high concentrations of low-SES, Black, and Hispanic students, the same groups whose families are more negatively impacted by recessions. School funding cuts may magnify effects of COVID-19 on inequality.

This project considers how COVID-19 alters K-12 educational resources (revenue, spending, staff) and examines whether implications differ by state funding progressivity or by race/SES either between or within districts. In theory, progressive funding should reduce inequality and effects of funding cuts. Rauscher examines four states with school-level spending data: Rhode Island, Michigan, Kansas, and Oklahoma. 

By identifying resources that become more unequally distributed, school districts districts and states can more effectively target those resources and reduce inequality.